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Hell is Other People will make you loathe humanity photo

If you're not familiar with the concept of asynchronously multiplayer games, then there are two games you would do well to try out: Tetris Friends, and George Buckenham's Hell is Other People.

Where the former merely tasks you with playing against recordings of other people's games in a sort of isolated way that doesn't feel very multiplayer-ish until someone dumps a bunch of trash blocks on you, every moment spent playing Hell is Other People is a moment in which you will (A) be directly competing against recordings of other players, and (B) feel your hatred grow toward the members of your own species.

I'll let the designer explain it himself: "You fight ghosts, which follow the paths of previous players. So you're fighting a recording, and that recording was fighting against a previous recording, all the way back to when I waggled the ship about in the editor."

Though you're not actually fighting against other players in real time, that probably won't stop you from cursing your bastard opponents every time they move out of the path of one of your agonizingly slow bullets at just the last moment, only to distract you from a horizontally moving shot from some douche you never saw. The game isn't terribly fun until the screen literally fills with recordings of others, but it's still interesting in a misanthropic sort of way.

You can play it for free here, or buy one of the wacky downloadable versions here. Depending on how much you pay, you can change the shape of your ship into an animal head.


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15 comments | showing # 1 to 15

Havoc Fang's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/19/2009 13:33
Havoc Fang
I hate you all. STOP DOING THAT.

Jesus.
Mr Pibb's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/19/2009 13:35
Mr Pibb
I just died, went to to play again and am currently facing off against myself. I hate the past-me that was playing this, he's such a dick. This has to be among my favourite ideas for multiplayer, along with Noby Noby Boy and Demon's Souls.
GamesAreArt's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/19/2009 13:37
GamesAreArt
YES, I got to 26 ghosts.
Jon B's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/19/2009 13:53
Jon B
Got to 17 ghosts. I'm not too great at shmups, so I'm pretty happy with that.
Bulkmailer's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/19/2009 13:54
Bulkmailer
That's from Sartre, right?
yaesir's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/19/2009 13:55
yaesir
I killed 60 and stopped playing because all replays that i've seen didn't move, just stayed there waiting to be killed.
CelicaCrazed's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/19/2009 13:59
CelicaCrazed
Eh just 22 for me -__-
falinter's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/19/2009 14:01
falinter
Horizontal gun ftw
UglyDuck's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/19/2009 15:46
UglyDuck
Brilliant game. Can't seem to get past 50 ghosts though.

Fun minigame: Create a really douchey ghost to piss off other people and see if it shows up in your game and kills you.
BiroBiro's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/19/2009 17:17
BiroBiro
im playing it but the ghosts dont move! im I playing wrong? they keep apearing but they dont move, I already killed 100 ghosts and its getting pretty boring.
v21's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/19/2009 18:36
v21
Everyone who has said nice things: thank you!

Everyone who finds it broken: I know, I'm really sorry, I'm currently trying to fix it. :/ What browser/OS are you using? Can you hear any music? The ships spawn all over the shop, right? Can you tell me some names of them?
Pierce Wolcott's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/19/2009 18:54
Pierce Wolcott
55 ghosts :O
...and my name was 5
JynxShot's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/19/2009 18:56
JynxShot
Sartre ftw.
MightyVince's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/19/2009 19:53
MightyVince
Very interesting concept!

Also, I saw Rev. I killed him. I chuckled.
Is it wrong?
UglyDuck's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/20/2009 06:30
UglyDuck
Yes! Finally hit 50 ghosts.
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