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Hogg and Honeyslug's Ricky Haggett knew each other through a music connection. Hohokum is an art game developed by British game developer Honeyslug in collaboration with artist Richard Hogg and Santa Monica Studio beginning in 2008. The credits roll once a hidden multicolored serpent is freed from each level. The worlds are presented in flat colors with no outlines, and all worlds are unlocked from the beginning of the game. Another level lets the player create shapes in the sky by flying past stars. The player can collect seeds in the Kite Village.
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In Sponge Land, an underwater world, the player gathers fish to swim alongside the Long Mover. The player flies through a series of color-changing circles to access the next world. In "Lamp Lighting", the player activates lights while flying past silhouettes, and each light adds a new layer of music. There are 17 worlds, each with unique characters, a single primary goal, and secondary activities. The game does not explicitly have a story but has a narrative line that connects the disparate worlds.
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The Long Mover changes in color based on the direction it faces and the DualShock 4's light bar matches the color. The game communicates with visual and audial cues, and uses few of the standard controller buttons: two buttons slow or accelerate the Long Mover, and the triggers make it wiggle for a boost. For example, a ball resembling a dandelion releases its spores when circled, but the player has to follow the floating spores to realize that other villagers use the spores as a vehicle. USgamer 's Jeremy Parish wrote that the game's challenges were in distinguishing the interactive objects from the environment and then figuring out the function of those interactive objects. The developer described the game as about "relaxing in a space and just enjoying the experience and the music, instead of trying to complete it to make progress", and an IGN preview said it is "simply about the beauty of exploring". It is non-linear and has no score, time limit, or tutorial. There is no correct way to play the game, which was designed to be enjoyed without necessarily pursuing objectives. The player-character is a multicolored serpent creature called the "Long Mover" who glides through whimsical game worlds with loose objectives.
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