Hypernet Explorer is an immersive-sim roguelike set in a weird and alternate 2001, where the Y2K bug shattered reality and erased most modern technology, that is slowly being rebuilt using magic and the occult. 

 Form a party to explore a 92 floor skyscraper that barely holds the cosmos together or just get lost in alternate activities; manage a cursed pizza place, become a certified tarot reader,  date yourself from another plane of existence, start your own space program, get filthy rich by manipulating the soul market and... go bowling with your beloved cousin.

Every boundary that once separated religion, science, finance and magic is now obsolete so... do what thou wilt.

Inspired by Dwarf Fortress and Caves of Qud, every system, from economy to weather patterns to character statuses, is simulated and interconnected: even the smallest action can have devastating butterfly effects on the global scale.

Pick from 64 base classes that range from classic RPG archetypes (wizard, hunter, knight) to modern career paths (CEO, psychologist, combat medic), each with unique abilities, social advantages, and gameplay styles. Keep class upgrades between multiple runs to avoid farming and fuse the classes you mastered to get new prestige classes.

Player biology is fully simulated, from brain activities to hormone levels and everything about what constitutes you can be altered and augmented: feeling too weak? Get carbon nanotube muscle implants!  You are too smart? Get a lobotomy right now!

Gender is a social construct, but in Hypernet Explorer gender is fully commercialized! Alter your starting gender via surgical, magical and hypercapitalistic means.

Enemies have over 80 different biologies with different limbs and organs to rip and tear to weaken the stats of your enemies! Cut off a vital part or organ of an enemy to get an instant kill.

Combat is turn-based, fast and deadly:  choose between a traditional RPG combat system, where you learn skills as you level, or a card-based system where you  collect skills booster packs as you explore the world.

You can choose Permadeath or Roguelite mode at  the start of the run, but your companions don't have this luxury: if they aren't resurrected before the end of the battle they stay dead forever.

You and your party are not that important, you are just a tiny little cog in the complex dungeon ecology and economy: every enemy you kill can be turned into  raw resources that can be tinkered and shaped into over 1000 items.

Also remember that you are not the only ones exploring the dungeon but there are competing parties of adventurers who can steal your precious loot right before your eyes.

Like the "Ancient cave" style hacks of SNES games, the dungeon is not a soulless algorithmically generated one but made of handcrafted pieces that  are assembled together in a way that somewhat makes sense.

You have more than 800 skills to learn: from wrestling moves to necromancy curses. Find trainers in the world, subscribe to an online course, or just continue practicing a "Generic Fireball" spell until you master it.

When you have mastered a bunch of skills, try to fuse them together to create brand new magic schools and concepts with 348,195 possible combinations.

Names are power...and money is power! And it happens that Mario Draghi's name is written over a billion times on 14.5 billion euro banknotes in pre-printing phase. This gives hypercapitalists who amassed huge amounts of euros huge arcane and political powers.

Invest in the OIL and SOUL stock market, buy real estate and squeeze rent from your tenants as you squeeze the black ichor of earth from deep oil deposits, burn your stock options in battle to summon powerful entities.

Scale every minigame and side activity with incremental games inspired mechanics: why settle for a measly greasy pizza place when you have an entire galaxy where to export the concept of "pizza"?

Other than the Omega Tower, you can explore most of Europe's major cities and landmarks on foot, by hypermetro or RV.

The world may be magic now but history follows closely our real timeline and every major event that happened in 2001 is present and can influence your run, things are weird but can get too real.

ABOUT

Release date for the demo is Q4 2025 and full game is Q2 2026. Game will be released on both Steam and Itch.io, i also hope that the fit lady holding a spoon from Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain notices me.

No generative AI image, video or audio assets are used in this project, but i used Claude and Copilot to help debugging, translating, writing code and item/spell/enemy metadata, all text output is used just as a starting point and was hand-edited and rewritten.

CREDITS

Tyler Warren RPG battlers, CaptainSkolot faces, Modern interiors by Limezu, TinyTales dungeon tiles, Chronicle tileset pack,  Occult Steampunk, Creature compendium and  Ocean's Nostalgia graphic, full credit list in-game.

All enemy sprite image were taken from 1700-1800 eras Enciclopedias, books and anatomical manuals.