Hohokum.  A game that gives you so little, yet leaves you with so much.  The game starts and you see a creature, a floating eye with a long, multicolored tail, floating freely among a world made of blackness and circles.  This creature is to be known as a "Long Mover".  After watching it bounce back and forth among the world, you get curious and wiggle the left thumbstick - it moves!  You've not been in a cutscene, but playing the game the entire time.  This is the first thing you've learned.  This is the world of Hohokum.

Developed by Honeyslug and Sony Santa Monica with art by Richard Hogg, Hohokum is a casual exploration and interaction based art game for the Sony PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita.  Gliding through a 2D world as a "Long Mover", a floating eye with a long, colorful tail, you fly into and through objects to interact with them and progress through the game, ultimately hoping to free 17 other "Free Movers", each with a unique name and design, from the various environments they are trapped in.  There's no hand holding to be had in Hohokum, as the player is left to discover figure out the game at their own pace.  There's no instructions.  No tutorial sequence.  No explicit story, though there are plenty of messages to be taken from the various areas.  No objectives aside from the final goal of freeing the other Free Movers, though that in itself is only derived through playing the game.  The lack of hand holding is both a blessing and a curse, and I can't quite figure out where I stand with it.  On one hand, it's wonderful not having a message appear on screen or a character reminding you every five minutes what your objective is just because you're taking too long, however on the other, the player can find themselves in a frustrating bind at points because some of the triggers to advance or complete the level can be quite obscure.

It's impossible to hate a pool party when everyone is all smiles.

The musical score is comprised of very mellow, relaxing electronic ambient music, which is all phenomenally paired with the different areas of the game and was a fantastic choice overall for this type of game.  "A Walk" - Tycho sets the scene for the hub area of the game, and numerous other pieces from a multitude of artists under the Ghostly International label fill the game world in every area.  In addition to the score, most areas of the game have environmental objects that when flown into trigger sounds, notes, and chords that pair nicely with the song in the background, transforming the music into a varying experience each time, a welcome departure from what is otherwise often "just a soundtrack" in most games.  Likewise, Richard Hogg's art in the game is vivid, quirky, and simple.  It draws on bright colors, simple shapes, and crazy, outlandish character and level designs to make a very interesting game world that can go from beautiful in an area such as the zone lit by street lamps, to fun in the next such as at one of the amusement parks, to dull and depressing in the hidden desert area where you seemingly do nothing but bring characters to an ice cream stand.

The hub world, an area comprised of many strings to strum, and... grid paper?

Unfortunately, the miniscule amount of time needed for game completion makes the minor gripes I have with it stand out a little more than they would otherwise, including the total lack of direction and also the fact that the game crashed to black twice, though no progress was lost.  I completed the game in just under 4 hours all while taking my time with it, and there is even a trophy for completing it in under an hour, which is quite easily accomplished.  That aside, Hohokum is a game that anyone can pick up and beat in a short amount of time or ease their way through it and take in all the art that the game has to offer.  It has some subtle messages on a few levels that more mature audiences may be able to pick up on, turning it from "a game" to something that occasionally has a point to make.

It's short.  It's interesting.  It's weird.  It has areas where it really shines and it has its flaws.  It's definitely a game I'd recommend.

I was not expecting a bullet hell sequence in this, of all games.