Hypnospace Outlaw looks like it’s for us olds but maybe not. It is an adventure game taking place in a fictionalized version of America Online. You play as an “enforcer”, which is a moderator. You search for violations, identify them, report them, and eventually ban the user once they’ve notched enough violations.
I sort of speed ran the “main quest”. This fictional world is dense and it’s packed full of secrets, but my old brain remembers AOL. I remember that there were so many useless and meaningless pages. I play Hypnospace Outlaw and I skip all the “good parts” because I see something that reminds me of wasted time.
What I didn’t crash through as fast as possible was fun. It beautifully replicates a weird internet world in the best and worst ways. But bring a notebook and play it in regular sessions. I forgot something critical between a large gap in playtime and I got the worst ending because of it.