normally i would write about both of these seperately because i have enough to say about both that i could give them a full one on its own, but i feel like both of these games do similar things in ways that contrast really interestingly so i did want to give this a try, both games are desktop simulators with a focus on the 90's net, similar to the one you're using i guess, but each one has different goals and scope and that focus is what makes them contrast really neatly, one is a focus on the net at scale, on communities and the ways that the coporate net destroyed those communities as seen through the lens of one of the people responcible for it and its about how the net used to be a haven for community and creativity, the other is a focus on those communities, but from within, it's more about talking to those people and being a part of that community, with the wider scale things like the forum and the cheats website being a background detail, it's about the net as a haven but in a more optimistic way and a way it could still be if we worked towards that, it's a more hopeful take. that's a TLDR really, this will be long and if you just wanted my takway from these games then there you go, both games are two of my favourites and SLH is actually on my extended topstars at 26 so i'd 100% reccomend both games, but if you want to see me talk more about specifics then i'll start with hypnospace first and i'll talk about my impressions first before how i think it relates well to the other game.

hypnospace is a much more memey take on the net than SLH's more sincere take on it, it's loving in it all the same though. it's got low res gifs, troll sites, edgelords, boomers, conspiricy theorists, many christian websites and even little subcultures of its own creation like fans of the in world pokemon clone squishers or fans of the best music genre coolpunk (a combo of vaporwave and christmas music). some of these sites are sincere and heartfelt, like the teacher running a website full of her students art, an old widow mourning his wife or a christian squishers fan trying to win a contest, some are memey like the hip anti drug counceller ronnie and his amazing rap or the pizza dance. sometimes its a mix of both like with cory's genuinely sad, but also really funny fake websites for his GF that doesn't exist or his rival or Z A N E who i really don't want to spoil but he was so good he even has his own spinoff FPS. there's splinter communities, hackers, puzzles to solve and programs to download, there's different zones themed like a hipster cafe zone, a boomer town or a hip teen zone run by counciller ronnie. it's so in depth and there's so much hidden that it genuinely feels less like a restrictive game and more like a real internet you can genuinely get lost in and i think thats a feat alone even if the games writing and art didn't match up to it, thankfully the writing and art more than do that.

hypnospace is the more creative of the two visually, it captures the look so good that you could easily mistake it for being an old web browser, it has tons more customisation from vaporwavy wallpapers to more in depth virtual pets to display, viruses to accidentially download, music players, mp3's to download and images to find, the net and the desktop just feel so authentic to how that era looked and felt, it has an amazing ost too, so many catchy songs, some memable like the pizza dance, the coolpunk songs, the councellor Ronnie rap, which by the way I know the lyrics to by heart, and you even have some original songs composed by hot dad, a real net musician and a very talented one at that, he did super well here playing an in-world washed up musician called the chowder man and his story is surprisingly sad and in depth.

secret little haven is a more personal take, it's less about a sprawling net and more about a more personal side of it. rather than being a mod seeing it from the outside, you're a part of this community, someone that knows and cares for the people and learns about them less through vouyeurism and more from getting to know them, meeting new friends and finding out more about old ones. you don't get a fully explorable net here, just a forum, a messenger service, some smaller sites like a game cheat forum and some movie times and a few random PC programs like a doll studio or a note app, but these things all hit just as hard as hypnospaces sprawling net, the cheat site has tons of cute fake cheats for games that seem really cool to play, the forum has a bunch of sections and a DM system, it has drama and fan art for this show the main girl is a fan of, you find out tons about the people they interact with via this forum and by talking to them, there's a whole convo line thats seemingly optional with an RP'er from the forum that doesn't even advance the story, it's just there to learn more about the characters and the show, you even have some of hypnospaces puzzle solving here too with how you need to actually learn to hack at one point for a puzzle,it's neat, it's much smaller scale but it hits all those beats none the less, and to boot it did it first with this game coming out several years before hypnospace!.

the real elephant here is its themes, i am really not the kind of person to talk about them, i don't have these life experiances and its impossible for me to have had them, i'm a cis woman and i've never been anything else, i've dated a few trans people, both trans men and trans women and i have tons of trans friends, but that doesn't translate into me being able to speak about these experiances for myself and i can't really know for sure if its handled well, but its a game thats held in very high regard by some of those trans people i've known, so i'd imagine it is, it spoke to those people and even beyond that it helped me, as an outsider, get more of a genuine insight into how life can be for people like that, it helped deepen my understanding and empathy and i think that's important. beyond that i do think its general vibe of "person exploring who they are via fandom" can for sure resonate with even people who aren't trans, i spent a lot of my early teenage years online in these kind of forum space, using media to explore my sexuality, weather via yaoi helping me understand gay romance (look shut up it sounds silly but that stuff can have value and like, would you rather people not engage with gay romance at all?) and games like FF13 and persona 4 helping me understand my own sexuality in the same way this magical girl show did for alex's gender, it's a universal queer experiance even outside of its target demo.

secret little haven is the cuter game it does have to be said, it's so pastel and cute and the desktop look here is adorable, you have a more limited selection of wallpapers but they're still all cool and the game does some cool stuff thematically with how they change sometimes, like *spoilers* how when the dad is involved it goes all grey and stops being as pastel and femmy, it hits you like a truck. the game feels a lot more like an old PC on the desktop than hypnospace did, the game is in 4:3 at all times and with how the icons are all big it feels more authentic, where hypnospace felt too spacious and high res at times, especially on the switch, it also does a lot more with things like the computer sounds in the background or the scanlines to emulate an old CRT, the focus on a smaller scale i think really helped them capture that computer feel better, though hypnospace does still do an amazing job here. the chat app is the best part of the UI though, it's so nice to look at and i'd love something like this irl, my LINE uses a pastel theme but it's just not the same, the little avatars the represent everyone are really cute and i just love how the text bubbles look, it feels like what the game wants it to be, a haven, the computer space feels safe and happy and warm and inviting, somewhere you want to spend time, rather than somewhere you go because you have to be. the music also helps with this feeling a ton, the OST (which is credited to Victoria Dominowski) is so warm and cozy, it's calming and it captures the games vibe so well, the ending song had me crying and the music for the 3 main days is a mainstay in my playlists, despite being a very small and short ost (only about 8 songs, my favourites being sunset on the CRT, this connection is secure, chilling on the information superhighway and welcome to sanctuary OS) , like the loops are at most 2 mins long, it fits the game so well and it always helps to calm me down when it comes on, it makes the computer space feel like a safe haven. that vibe is something the game nails like nothing else in all aspects and it really helped me change how i saw and interacted with the net too, i wanted to recapture the feeling this games look and sound gave me in my own life, it made me want to make the net a safer haven, in a way that's what i would like for my site to be in the long run, something people can read as a way to not think about bad things in life, somewhere away from the bad, more toxic parts of the net, it's something we could all aspire to and learn from.