Hypotheses on the Symmetry Between Vision and Hands

Genre: Arcade

Players: 1

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Review:

Hypotheses on the Symmetry Between Vision and Hands, from here on referred to simply as Hypotheses, is a game whose genre I suppose is closest to Arcade, though there are elements of 3D Platformers here too. Released on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2025, this game has players independently controlling disembodied left and right hands, trying to guide both through an obstacle course to their own color-coded exits.

Hypotheses has a pretty unimpressive presentation, using largely simple 3D with mostly abstract backgrounds, backed by a fairly quiet and unmemorable soundtrack. That’s not to say that there’s nothing memorable going on here – this game has a “hands” theme that’s odd and a bit creepy, which I suppose is at least pretty distinct.

The main premise of the gameplay here is that your left analog stick controls a left red-themed male hand, and your right controls a right blue-themed female hand. Each respective side can dash with the L or R button and jump with the ZL or ZR button. And just using this, you’re trying to get both to their color-coded glowy exit.

So clearly what we’ve got here is a game about multitasking and trying to coordinate each hand’s… er, hand. However, there are a few issues here that make this far less enjoyable than it could be. First, once you start moving the hands, they never stop, meaning that if you need one to stay put you’ll have to either move them in circles, jiggle them in place, or run them into a stationary object while you’re moving the other hand. This can get frustrating when you need one to stay put on a switch while moving the other through a door (one of the first things you do in the game).

Another issue causing frustration is that the two hands aren’t equal – the right, female hand moves at a slower pace than the left one, forcing you to constantly adjust for this difference in their speeds, in addition to all the other multitasking you’re doing.

What’s more, the game’s partly overhead viewing angle combines with pretty poor jumping to make it hard to judge jumps, leading to numerous deaths as a result. On this note, all of this frustration is heightened by the way that the game forces you to restart from the beginning of a level each time one of your hands falls off of a ledge. The game does have an adjustable difficulty (affecting the overall game speed), which by default is set to be a dynamic difficulty, but this doesn’t change that the core gameplay here is extremely irritating.

While I get that Hypotheses is designed to be a challenging game, I feel like it goes too far in throwing one frustration after another at the player. While I could see some players relishing this sort of challenge, I think most will just grow exasperated by it and quit after a short time playing it. Overall, I don’t recommend this.

tl;dr – Hypotheses is probably best described as an Arcade-style game, having players simultaneously guide two hands through an obstacle course to their own exits. What seems designed as an exercise in multitasking quickly grows to be extremely frustrating due to numerous issues making this game far more tedious and irritating to play than I think most players will want to put up with. I recommend skipping this one.

Grade: C-

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