Hyperliminal
A downloadable game
DECEMBER 12TH, 1996
What if the line between dreaming and reality was not as clear as was once believed? The sensation of a dream feeling real life is common, but what about the real-life feeling like a dream?
Welcome to Hyperliminal, a horror/exploration/fever-dream experience. The game itself is narration and exploration-based with some action to keep things interesting. You will explore a strange dreamscape and witness sites ranging from gigantic food to a town overtaken by arachnids. Unravel the mystery of the recurring nightmare while keeping safe a safe distance from the horrors that live within.
SYNOPSIS
"You have been involved in an automobile accident that has left you in a comatose state for weeks. After waking, you have been having a surreal recurring dream that appears every night, leaving you desperate for answers and understanding. As more and more episodes pass, you begin to think that the dream is somehow related to the accident itself.
Seeking professional help, your psychiatrist suggests hypnosis in an attempt to get to the deeper possible connection between the dream and the traumatic experience. The events of the game are the retelling of the dream itself."
INFO/TIPS
-Runtime: 30 - 60 minutes (I'll narrow it down once I get feedback)
-Progressing the store requires finding the candles and blowing them out. These candles trigger events allowing you to get to new areas of the map.
-There are 60 "memories" to collect in the game. Collect all 60 to unlock a secret ending. Keep in mind: as you progress through the game, areas behind you will become inaccessible, so be sure to get all the memories from each zone before moving on. My suggestion is to play it through the first time without worrying about the memories and then come back later to try the completionist approach.
-Enemies will chase you throughout the game for short periods. If you die, you merely restart from the last save. The game is meant to be experienced from start to finish, not punishing.
-This game will save itself periodically. This is primarily so that if you are killed, you don't have to start all the way over. If you are experiencing problems with the save files, please let me know below!
-My voice acting is atrocious. I know this...I recorded all voices during a single one-hour lunch break at work and figured "this was as good as it was gonna get".
ABOUT THE PROJECT
The intention in creating Hyperliminal was to produce an atmosphere that was unsettling. Something between an "innocent showcase of oddly-scaled 3D models" and "jump scares around every corner just for the sake of jump scares around every corner". Regardless, it provides an interesting world in which exploration is rewarded and caution is advised.
This game has been a passion project since November of 2021, during which I worked on it in my spare time. What began essentially as the game development equivalent of "doodling during my free time", the project began to take shape into something more, and many late nights and lunchbreak hours later, Hyperliminal was born.
As I've done all of the playing myself, there are sure to be things that I have missed. Whether it be glitches here and there, holes to fall through, items that don't quite de-spawn, or whatever, I appreciate your understanding that this game is still in development and is planned to be improved upon. That being said, I would GREATLY appreciate any feedback, what-so-ever. It can be bugs, questions, comments, suggestions, you name it. I couldn't came this project the best it could possibly be without you guinea pi-err, fellow game enthusiasts telling me what is broken or needs improving. So, there is a brief form linked below in case you have anything you'd like to share.
FEEDBACK/BUG REPORT FORM
https://forms.gle/UfEtZSR2EGpGPEJw8
I APPRECIATE YOUR HELP/COMMENTS!
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Current Status of the Game and Mobile ReleaseNov 15, 2022
- To celebrate 250 downloads and to show appreciation for the support of my game...Jun 01, 2022
- Hyperliminal v1.1May 16, 2022
- We did it! First release.May 12, 2022
- Early game areas/cinematics nearly complete.Mar 07, 2022
- Getting closer to the finish lineFeb 25, 2022
- Updates on progressFeb 16, 2022
- Initial page openingFeb 09, 2022
Comments
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Very creative environments and creature designs - loved how each monster had their own soundtrack :D Only suggestion, really, would be for subtitles: break them up a bit when you display them. At the moment, they are coming up in paragraphs as the characters talk, and only the lines of dialogue that you can hear that characters speaking should be appearing on the screen at one time so as not to overwhelm the player. Otherwise, enjoyed the game!
Thanks for checking it out! I haven't touched the game in months but I'm actually planning to optimize it a bit for a mobile release and during that timeframe I plan on fixing some bugs and doing SOMETHING about that dialogue scene. Thanks for the feedback and I agree...it's kind of a mess. Anyway, I'll check out the video when I have a moment!
Best,
Andy
This was one of the best horror games I’ve played in a hot minute! I loved it!
Thanks for watching and playing! I look forward to the next video in the series. All the best - Andy.
Hi there, I just replied to you on the other post with some feedback too, most of them are suggestions! You have a great game out there! Keep it up sir!
Thank you very much!
So glad to see this game is on the popular page!
And it all started with you!
This is definitely one of the best horror games I've played, the atmosphere and storyline were just amazing and had a great plot twist at the end.
Thanks a lot for playing! Appreciate it.
Very creepy game. I love the surreal feeling of the dream. Great work!
Thank you for playing! I've been super busy this week but I plan on marathoning all of these videos this weekend. I appreciate you checking it out!
Gave this a lil play through! I bet this was really fun AND challenging to make. Lots of atmospheres and character designs throughout. VO could use a lil work, but, hey, GREAT game.
Thanks for playing it. I look forward to checking out your play through of it. I appreciate the feedback as well; I might have to make some adjustments to the underwater area.
Best,
Andy
Thank you so much for your kind email! Lowkey forgot what the game was about when i got around to playing lol, but I had a great time playing! The story and premise were intriguing, and I was thoroughly weirded out and amazed at each area I arrived in!
There were a couple points I feel like i got lost: in the underwater area i didnt really know where to go, and with the space alien area, i didnt think i could just leave and thought i found a bug when i just simply left the arena. Besides better guidance on those, my only other thought for improvement would be an in game total of memories, such as instead of just saying how many you've collected it could say 32/60. I'm not the best at reading the whole page before jumping into a game and didnt know how many total there were until after beating the game, but im also not sure how many I had at the end, so maybe when you collect a memory it could have a small pop up that fades away somewhere on screen with say "32/60".
Still super enjoyable and think everyone should give it a try. Hope you enjoy the video, and thank you again for contacting me!
Cyberwolf,
Awesome, thanks again for checking it out and making a play through of it. I always love to see different people's reactions to the different areas.
That's a really good idea about putting the total number of collectibles on there. I'd originally planned to do something like that when I first put those in the game, but I think I just got so used to KNOWING that there were 60 after months of play-throughs that I didn't remind myself to do it, which goes to show why outside perspectives are always so important! I'll definitely put that on my list for the next release.
Thanks again and take care,
Andy
Thanks for your play through! I have some work to do but I can't wait to check it out.
The main goal is to find all of the candles in each area to unlock different monsters that will then try their best to chase you down. Each area is unique, spooky, unsettling, and always makes you question just what is going to happen next as you continue your fever dream journey.
Special thanks to the developer for contacting me and bringing this interesting game to my attention. I had a blast playing it and I'm looking forward to more content from them in the future!
Thanks for playing and giving it a fair shot! Very much appreciated.
Firstly, I would like to thank the creators of the game for inviting me to player the game, I feel really honoured and appreciate the invitation to play the game.
This was an interesting horror game that makes use of the main theme of Surrealism to create a horrifying mood and atmosphere for the game. The visuals were cool and I loved the voice-acting for the characters in the game. It makes the game more surreal and real at the same time. The idea of the game is primarily about walking through a series of objects, locations and incidents that appear to be linked to the main character and getting chased by mutated monsters/beings in the game. The game is definitely really intriguing and nerve-wrecking when it comes to running away from monsters and finding the right way to go. The entire environment created for the game was really stunning and horrifying that I am amazed at the amount of effort put into building each area of the game.
I felt that the game was lacking in terms of player interaction as there wasn't much for the player to do besides from running around, looking for collectibles and running away from monsters. It would be cool if there were more things to do in the game like the maze puzzle near the end of the game (Bricks section). Other than that, it would be cool if original assets were used in the game to make the entire game even more unique. However, the ending of the game was amazing and I really liked how the storyline was told in the game, through horrifying events and objects, causing the game to feel really complete as a whole.
Thank you for reading my comment and I wish you good luck in your future endeavours.
Thanks for playing! I completely agree with you that it needs some more player interaction, and that'll definitely be something I look into - if not for this game, then for the next.
At first it was a completely interaction-less "visual tour" type thing, but I decided to give it some sort of interaction. Then, I had all these "great ideas"...puzzles, items, etc. etc., but I got to the point that I realized I'd be working on this darn thing forever if I kept implementing everything I'd intended, so I had to put a fork in it somewhere.
This game was kind of improvised from the beginning and ended up becoming something totally different than it was intended, so I did learn a lot about planning ahead more next time.
Thanks again!,
Andy
Hyperliminal was a treat! I thoroughly enjoyed the game and loved the concept. Mental health and wellbeing are things I think of a lot, and it being essentially an open world horror game also sold me. I thank the developer sending me a message about this game and cannot wait for others to try this game out. Highly recommend, it takes about 45 minutes to an hour and it's a treat. I ended up getting 48 of the 60 'memory' collectibles during my gameplay video and my favorite part is about 21 minutes in.
There are some audio delays in my video that were 100% on my end that clear up after about 6 minutes.
Thanks for playing. I'm glad you found "The Ribcage"!
Such a good game! The best horror experience I have had in a long time. I'm so glad that I managed to do the first ever playthrough of it on YouTube!
DOWNLOAD IT NOWWWWWW!
Thanks again for playing! Can't wait to watch the video in a bit.