This indie project To the Moon, developed on the lately popular for creation of story-driven and lacking any sort of RPG elements game tool RPG Maker, was released about a year ago and praised by everyone and their cats. For the past year I was constantly hearing about how To the Moon is “the game that will make you cry”. Well, I’ve played it myself now and while I haven’t shed a drop, can confirm that the game is indeed good.
As it’s quite obvious from my intro sentence – despite being developed in RPG Maker and looking like a 16-bit era jRPG with the familiar menu system of the era, To the Moon is a purely story-driven experience with very few (and often unnecessary) mechanical tasks. This is a story, and if you’ve seen Source Code, Inception and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind you might see some similarities, about two scientists working for a company which promises the dying to reach their dreams. When they dream. Because the false memories that the company can implant will get “deleted” if you wake up, however if this is your last dream before you die, these memories, however false they might be, will substitute your reality and help you die happy. To achieve that, the scientists have to travel through the memories of a dying person, finding the regrets and potential points of change, so they can “push” the memories in the right direction to rearrange and invent a new tale, leading to the wish fulfillment. Usually, it’s a wish to achieve some goal, fulfill a dream – something that wasn’t done during the lifetime. In this game, the patient wants to go to the moon… but he’s not sure why. And nothing in his easily readable memories can help understand what caused this wish to materialize. Leading to a long investigation where our two controllable scientists go through memories, good and bad, to reach to the point that explains the wish and from there find a way to help the patient fulfill it.
What makes this pretty simple setup (that is, if you are already familiar with similar ideas through books/movies and etc) interesting to experience is the storytelling. The game uses a lot of simple gameplay tricks in a way that makes purely story-driven experience far more engaging than it could’ve been otherwise. It also sets the personalities for the two scientists well, since they need to approach their task in a practical (if not heartless) way and comb through someone’s personal memories. There are plenty of tiny touches and different personal views on things, which makes even mundane memories you see unfold pretty exciting and emotional. What I also loved is that your perception, as a player, is rewarded – as in a good mystery novel there are constant clues to some revelations that are to come far later into the story, meaning that you can “solve a mystery” way ahead, yet the game still remains interesting and never makes the playable characters look completely clueless. Perhaps, to me that was the most interesting in the game, to be honest, since I didn’t really “relate” to a lot of the actual events that were shown, yet, due to this well done storytelling, I never felt bored.
I did, however, feel annoyed occasionally, when the game tried to do mechanical tasks, like essentially pixel hunting moments, or boring puzzle and shmup mini-games. I’ve seen it attempted in purely story-driven experiences time and time again and they pretty much never work. They don’t work here either. Especially when you’re mechanically asked to do something that you don’t agree with while being highly invested in the story. Playing with the mouse, something that is actually suggested by the game itself, is also not particularly pleasant and the characters can just not do what you ask them to.
But the main takeaway for me was that To the Moon might not make you cry. But it will be a highly entertaining story-driven game with really good storytelling. I’m highly interested in playing whatever further stories in this “universe” should happen in the future (and the sequel has already been announced).
P.S. With the GOG version of the game, the one that I bought, I also got a free bonus game from the same developer. It’s actually free on their official website as well and I highly recommend checking it – The Mirror Lied. It’s a highly metaphorical, weird and slightly theatrical experience, reminiscent of a weird dream, that I actually enjoyed far more than To the Moon. Maybe it was because I really love games and stories that give you a lot yet are open to interpretation. Either way, on the same official website you can also download a demo version of To the Moon that gives you an hour to check it out.