Dr. Eva Rosalene and Dr. Neil Watts have peculiar jobs: They give people another chance to live, all the way from the very beginning… but only in their patients’ heads.
Due to the severity of the operation, the new life becomes the last thing the patients remember before drawing their last breath. Thus, the operation is only done to people on their deathbeds, to fulfill what they wish they had done with their lives, but didn’t.
This particular story follows their attempt to fulfill the dream of an elderly man, Johnny. With each step back in time, a new fragment of Johnny’s past is revealed. As the two doctors piece together the puzzled events that spanned a life time, they seek to find out just why the frail old man chose his dying wish to be what it is.
And Johnny’s last wish is, of course… to go to the moon.
The game was designed by Kan Gao using the RPG Maker XP toolkit. Development started in 2010, when Gao was struck by questions of mortality following his grandfather’s life-threatening condition. TO THE MOON would become Freebird Games’ first commercial product, following smaller, experimental games released for free on the studio website. The game was updated later to include free downloadable content called “minisodes” to give more context to the main characters. A sequel, Finding Paradise, was released in 2017.
TO THE MOON received praise for its narrative, music, thematic material, and emotional power. The game was nominated for several awards and considered by many to be a leading example of artistic expression in video games.
This game was ther embodiment of EMOTIONAL DAMAGE! I remember watching a playthrough of this game back in the mid 2010s and I had a hard time keeping it together. The story is moving, the music is beautiful, and the characters are charming and relatable. After a lot of the games I have played and concentrating solely on playing the game, it was nice to sit back, relax and enjoy a well crafted story.
If you are interested in purchasing TO THE MOON, you can get it on STEAM for $9.99