To the Moon, an indie adventure game developed by Freebird Games, is slowly but surely gaining traction around les salons of the games press circuit. And why not? It’s heartbreaking premise and genre-swapping aesthetic hit all the right beats.
Eva Rosalene and Neil Watts are doctors, tasked with moving backwards through their patients’ memories in order to re-create a false, idealized life. When the patient wakes up, he will have an entire life’s worth of memories, even though they never happened. Unfortunately, the procedure is so mentally traumatic that patients die shortly after, in a moment of blissful contentment with a life well-spent.
And while To the Moon is an adventure game — Rosalene and Watts solve puzzles and unlock the intricacies of their patient Johnny’s life — it looks like a 16-bit RPG, a form Freebird Games’ Kan Gao calls “versatile” in a recent interview with Ars Technica. That mishmash of genre and graphics is part of the game’s charm: “I knew what I wanted to make and how I wanted the experience to be, so I went for it first and considered what to call it second,” Gao says.
Gao’s been working on the game full-time for a year and a half or so (helped by a small team) and hopes to release To the Moon this fall on the PC. You can track the game’s development (or send in a donation) at the game’s official site.
PC indie adventure To the Moon tackles death with a touch of humor [Ars Technica]
