Hypernet Explorer

Hypernet Explorer is an immersive-sim RPG and society simulator set in a cursed 2001. After the Y2K bug shattered reality and wiped out modern computers, humanity rebuilt civilization using arcane magic, cybernetics, and hypercapitalism.

A 92-floor skyscraper barely holds the broken cosmos together. You can climb it and claim your place among the gods, or you can completely ignore it to just live the life you want. Run a galaxy-spanning pizza joint, speculate on human souls, develop psionic powers, or negotiate treaties with the goblin horde in the ONU Assembly. Do what thou wilt.

Core Mechanics

• Fully simulated society: Every NPC has a job, a bank account, physical and social needs, and a web of pre-existing relationships with the people of their town. The simulation runs off-screen while you sleep or travel: governments change, companies boom or bust, and NPCs marry, leave their town to visit friends in other cities, grow older and wiser over the years, and have their worldview reshaped by life events. Your party of adventurers are just a small cog in the machine and the world is just fine without you: if you don't climb the Omega Tower fast enough, another party of adventurers will snatch all the loot and get all the glory.

• Empathize: Converse, flirt, bribe, spew propaganda, or ask any NPC or enemy in the world to join your party. Your companions do not just blindly follow you, but constantly react to their surroundings, having goals and dreams that are not always aligned with each other. They will argue over world events while driving, comment on the destinations you reach, fight over loot sharing, teach you their own skills, and comfort one another after traumatic events.

• Realpolitik: Pick your allegiance among the global hyperpowers or found your own faction or political party. Recruit private armies, try to win the elections, or sit as a diplomat in the ONU Assembly to pass or veto global laws that will shake society to its core.

• Meat Sacks: Individual body parts and hormone levels are tracked. Help repopulate Earth through many different means of reproduction, from eggs to spores. Contract and spread more than 200 diseases, collect new body parts from your fallen enemies or order them online, then graft them onto your body to create an unholy abomination.

• Unchecked Hypercapitalism: Buy and sell real estate, squeeze tenants for rent, trade oil on the stock exchange, acquire existing shops, copyright your created spells, or summon market entities by burning stock options in battle. And why stop on Earth? The cosmos offers plenty of room to expand your operations! Strip-mine asteroids and use their materials to build your dream resort at the edge of the observable universe, meet procedural alien species, and introduce them to the concept of "pizza".

Story Mode

Join Em and Bubba, an amnesiac wannabe witch with a gun and a Napolitexan mechanic turned Nobel Prize laureate, on their road trip: Em has accidentally killed God, and Bubba is experiencing a midlife crisis after breaking up with Eris, the Goddess of Discord.

Ride their experimental camper van down strange roads, meet stranger locals, and learn as many grimories as your brain can hold. During this trip, you are constantly hunted by the Holy Inquisition, annoying fans, and prickly Hexapedia editors who use the most intimate details of your private life for their wiki entries.

Unravel a continent-wide conspiracy involving the Guild of Wizards, demons made of sentient oil, a jealous goddess, and an infohazard for which Em happens to be patient zero.

Persistent World

Planet Earth is a ticking time bomb: on 21 December 2012, the planet Nibiru is going to collide with Earth and cause the end of the world. The global hyperpowers have already made evacuation plans and humanity will persist, but if you want to keep our home planet intact, you must find a way to stop it yourself.

Thankfully, you are not the only one trying to solve this problem: every save file shares the exact same persistent world. Your different parties can collaborate across runs, trade members, share player-built bases, swap rare items, and pass down research and funds.

Even when you are playing another save, your idle parties remain active in the simulation. Unexpected surprises can happen when loading an old savegame: an adventurer you left completely broke could now be sitting on billions in stock equity.