Can something we choose to embrace eventually choose us instead? This question haunted me by the end of playing Hypogeal. It was released by a single indie developer called whilegameisfalse. This eerie and sometimes confusing take will leave you with questions, wondering if you understand what is actually happening by the end of it.
The story follows Ivy, a woman who isn’t sure of what she wants and doesn’t necessarily like change. She understands the world around her is falling apart, and fleeing to the O.A.S.I.S. would probably be the best decision, but she doesn’t want to leave without her boyfriend. She later comes across an odd board game someone insists that she play. Once someone starts to play it, though, they can’t stop, or they feel as if they are wilting away.
This existential dread plays out through deceptively simple mechanics. The style is done in a glitchy 2D pixel style. The controls are simple: point and click between mostly still images. The main gameplay is done through the board game called Mancala. I honestly didn’t know Mancala was a real game, just like Ivy, but when I looked it up after playing, I discovered Mancala is among humanity’s oldest board games, with versions dating back over 1,300 years. While determining the ‘oldest’ game is difficult, Mancala’s ancient roots make the infection metaphor even more unsettling. It is simple to learn and challenging to master. Something you’ll find out shortly. There are different levels you can play against each opponent. If you lose, you need to find seeds so you can play against your opponents, but they are hard to come by and could cause different events to take place.
While I appreciated the glitchy 2D pixel aesthetic, the deliberately unclear imagery sometimes made navigation frustrating. Yet this unclear imagery feels purposeful, mirroring how the characters themselves struggle to understand their reality. I began to wonder if this visual confusion was intentional—part of the unsettling experience.
The atmosphere, though, was the cream of the crop. I could feel that Junji Ito horror; you know something feels off, you can sense it all around, and even by the end you aren’t exactly sure what just happened. The mystery itself is part of the horror, and revealing it would ruin the image you are growing in your head.
The music was also something I was pleasantly surprised by. In the past, with lower-pixel games, the music often sounded muffled; however, in this game, the developer did an excellent job of creating tension in certain scenes that required it, despite the limited graphics.
While it was short, the game itself will probably take you around 75 minutes. It was a well-done visual novel with a fun board game in the mix. The story features blurred lines that are meant to be interpreted differently by each person regarding what it conveys.
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