Play Hohokum is very much a game to play with an open mind and a relaxed attitude. Even attempting to describe this game is madness. One minute you’re helping the inhabitants of wind-swept mountain tops fly their kites, the next you’re harvesting colour swatches to feed into a hat-making machine. They’re linked to activities that sometimes feel like puzzles, but are better described as play – you’re really just looking for things to interact with and seeing what will happen. In a structural sense, there are literal eyes hidden throughout each level to be opened (you can see how many there are to find on the pause menu) and each main area has a creature like yourself – unlocked with discordant fanfare – to discover. Lois in the sky with diamonds.And throughout it all, you’ll have only a tenuous idea of what’s going on and what you’re supposed to be doing. You’ll even attend a wedding, picking out the bride or groom, then scooping drinks out of an undulating scarlet sea to serve to all the guests. You’ll clear a path for a jellyfish-like mermaid between a series of pulsing watery globes and discover the joys of swimming with schools of hyperactive fish. Over the course of Hohokum you’ll carry a man and his lantern through a pitch-black cave complex, shattering jewel-encrusted treasures lurking in the darkness before depositing him into a snug-looking living room. The area described above is just one of many, and they run the gamut from entirely abstract spaces through to very distinct places: windows into fascinating – and wonderfully creative – little worlds. This cross-buy, cross-save PS3, PS4 and Vita title blurs the line between game and interactive art, and there is most assuredly nothing else like it. Hohokum is one of the year’s most refreshing experiences. I want to go to there.Intrigued? You should be. I carry it back down to complete the carriage, and my reward is a creature much like myself – a space-worm -thing - who proceeds to shadow me around this strange, vibrant and colourful carnival. I methodically move from lantern chain to lantern chain, and when they’re all lit, the final piece of the rollercoaster makes its appearance. I realise that the electric shock from flying into one of the electric fences lasts just long enough to illuminate a nearby string of lanterns. I glide up near the towers, back to an area I‘d been avoiding after accidentally frying my precious carnival-going cargo and watching blackened corpses fall from the sky. This is a world with its own often-opaque internal logic, and I’m momentarily stuck as I try to decipher it. I’ve even scooped them back up as they drift slowly down, umbrella in hand, after being spat out of the curious vacuum-like machines hovering in mid-air. So far I’ve dropped them all over this world – into Ferris wheel carousels, onto see-saws and atop plinths. Hitchhikers hop onto my back as I surf the skies.
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