The portrayal of m1nx.
You expect the place to be chuddy nightmare like modern troll spaces tend to be. But these guys are more like the old-school lefty hackers. It's a side of the internet not often portrayed in modern media, especially when 40 year old Connie finds them out and posts on their forum, they don't harrass her, they're more impressed than anything. (It's also worth noting a lot of the first programmers and hackers were woman as it was considered woman's work.)
Particularly re3koning_inc, who while seemingly abrasive, they're only really snide towards Dylan Merchant and Merchantsoft in general, and when you consider what happens in the game you can see the rudeness is completely justified. re3koning_inc also sends people free copies of Merchantsofts Hypnocure Pro after Merchantsoft took away functionality of certain pages and made it so you could only see them with their pricey pro version of the antivirus. re3koning_inc is also the one that finds proof that Hypnospace is dangerous before anyone else, and tries to warn everyone (and was sadly ignored). They're a type of character I have seen many times during my many years on the internet, but one I almost never see portrayed in media.
What a great fucking story this game has.
Really the biggest problem with Hypnospace Outlaw is that it's too short. Which is what we in the critic business call "the opposite of a complaint."
Welp, I might have to look into this game
(It's also worth noting a lot of the first programmers and hackers were woman as it was considered woman's work.)
Recoding Gender by Janet Abbate dives deep into this based on dozens of interviews with women from the 40s through the 70s. Here are the actual interviews themselves. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
