Hohokum is an intriguing and graceful indie adventure game being developed by Honeyslug, the makers of Frobisher Says! (not yelling at you, Frobisher Says! has an exclamation point in its name). In Hohokum you play as a small oval object with a long tail, Chris states what he though it was during This Game is Broken, and may not have been far off. But, Honeyslug clears up the confusion on their website by stating that you are a “flying serpent.”
In Hohokum you’re dropped into a colorful world with seemingly no objective. As you start to gracefully maneuver yourself around the world, you’ll start to accidentally interact with objects and other beings in the world. Your mode of interaction is nothing more than to bump into them, but it’s at this point when the curious world of Hohokum starts to come alive. The objects and beings react in numerous ways to your presence, each one displaying a unique mechanic about themselves. It’s here you’ll start to discover your purpose in this world. There are numerous worlds in Hohokum and each one has a different finish point and a different way to reach it. You’ll only discover the objective of each world as you explore and ponder the reactions of the world around you.
Discovering the world around you is remarkably simple. The controls of Hohokum come down to R2 and L2. L2 turns you left and R2 turns you… that’s right, right! You use the two buttons alternatingly to pick up speed and propel yourself throughout the world. Through this very simple button scheme you’ll try to understand the end point of each level by just bumping into the other objects in this fascinating world and trying to understand their reactions.
The worlds of Hohokum are all extraordinarily different from one another. The design and colors that are used make each discovery of a new world interesting as it keeps hitting that “just one more” itch. On one level you may be trying to save beings stuck on floating islands or on another trying to turn on alien street lights (at least that’s what they looked like to me).
It’s this simple “drop you into a gorgeous world, don’t worry, you’re smart enough to figure it out” approach that grabbed me at CES. We’ll soon be able to see if Hohokum is as delightful as it first seems. Hohokum is coming as a digital title to PS3, PS4 and PS Vita later this year. No exact launch date has been set as of yet. Check out the gameplay video of Hohokum below from CES last month.
hohokum…. that was pretty funny on the podcast.
Hohokum.