To the Moon (PC Indie Game that caught my eye and my cash)

[Family Fry]

Now then, I don't shy away from putting my hand in my pocket, plucking out a crisp ten pound note for a game that when I take one look at it, it just goes BAMN and I need to buy it. I get these impulses.

I got an email from Wadeye Jet Game, developers of Gemini Rue, it read.

"It is with great pleasure that I announce our latest affiliate game, To The Moon. This is the first commercial venture from Freebird Games and it is available right now on the Wadjet Eye Games store."

http://www.wadjeteyegames.com/to-the-moon.html

Story:

Dr. Eva Rosalene and Dr. Neil Watts have rather peculiar jobs:

They give people another chance to live. Literally.

There exists a technology that allows doctors to weave artificial memories, such that a patient can request attempts to alter their mind, and wake up with memories of things that didn't actually happen.

This particular story follows Dr. Rosalene and Dr. Watts' attempt to fulfill the wishes of a dying elderly man, Johnny. In their mission to do so, they traverse backwards through the man's memories, unfolding his curious life story before their eyes.

With each step back in time, a new fragment of Johnny's past is revealed. And 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.

Reviews:

"I’m a wreck. I can’t delay telling you: To The Moon is a truly wonderful game. It’s the best game I’ve played this year."
-Rock Paper Shotgun

"To the Moon's story is one of the most memorable I've experienced in a video game in recent memory."
-Shack News

"To The Moon is a wonderful, touching indie tale."
-Ars Technica

After watching the trailer.



I was 10 quid lighter (?9.76 to be exact)

I had NO idea about this game, sometimes that shocks me a bit but then how many indie developers are there out there and just how big does the scope hit, I dunno.
I'm glad I got the email and can't wait to try the game.
Just doing my bit spreading the word, hopefully the Wadeye Jet email has done the same.
A demo is available too, if people want to take a look.

[Tig]

I've seen several posts about this on RPS, and I really want to play it at some point.

It might be a while before I clear a gap in my backlog for it though.

[SmokeScreen]

Started this last night. Really nice pace and feel to it - not a traditional gameplay mechanic, more teasing the story out of the game through little scenes. Looking forward to seeing why Johnny wants to go to the moon

Great soundtrack too!

[Family Fry]

Eurogamer review gave it 9/10, although I didn't read it incase of spoilers.
Spent 45mins on it last night and I'm curious to see where it's all going with Johnny, I won't lie I got choked up a few times ("I promised myself I wouldn't cry" - Wayne)
It's like a play novel which isn't a bad thing at all and what I expected, if anything it has a little bit more exploration and gameplay than I was expecting, music is just beautiful and fits the game so well.

['Press Start']

It does look and sound beautiful. I had an urge to re-play a 16 bit RPG in the near future and this game looks as though it would scratch that itch.

Damn shame it's PC only, I doubt my laptop with it's integrated graphics could run even this.

[Family Fry]

Could always give it a try if you fancy, see how it runs. It has a 1 hour demo, link from the main site.

http://www.freebirdgames.com/To_the_Moon-1.1_installer.exe

http://www.freebirdgames.com/

Only thing I will say is it really is more of a story run through, with some elements of finding items around the small area to progress. I played 45 mins, so hour demo should serve people well.
They say playtime is around 4-5 hours.

['Press Start']

Could always give it a try if you fancy, see how it runs. It has a 1 hour demo, link from the main site.

http://www.freebirdgames.com/To_the_Moon-1.1_installer.exe

http://www.freebirdgames.com/

Only thing I will say is it really is more of a story run through, with some elements of finding items around the small area to progress. I played 45 mins, so hour demo should serve people well.
They say playtime is around 4-5 hours.

It works!! Thanks very much! I just presumed my Laptop was rubbish. Does this mean I can play that other RPG that looks amazing. You used to have an avatar of it. It is quite a 'pixeled' style and got great reviews everywhere.

[Family Fry]

Eek
My brain has failed me RPG you say and it was me?
I shall look about for you, would imagine if it's in the pixelart stylee they aren't that intensive. Pretty much why I game on PC with point n clickys and these types cause my PC is very low end, against modern low spec PC's.
Edit - Ahhh you mean Bastion?
If so, there is also a demo of that you could try out.

Minimum specs though are..

OS: Windows XP, Vista, 7
Processor: 1.7 GHz Dual Core or Greater
Memory: 2 GB
Hard Disk Space: 1.0 GB
Video Card: 512 MB DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics card (shader model 2)
DirectX?: 9.0c
Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible

['Press Start']

Eek
My brain has failed me RPG you say and it was me?
I shall look about for you, would imagine if it's in the pixelart stylee they aren't that intensive. Pretty much why I game on PC with point n clickys and these types cause my PC is very low end, against modern low spec PC's.
Edit - Ahhh you mean Bastion?
If so, there is also a demo of that you could try out.

Minimum specs though are..

OS: Windows XP, Vista, 7
Processor: 1.7 GHz Dual Core or Greater
Memory: 2 GB
Hard Disk Space: 1.0 GB
Video Card: 512 MB DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics card (shader model 2)
DirectX?: 9.0c
Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible

I found the RPG I meant, Super Brothers Swords and Sworcery! I am sure you had an avatar of the main character. Maybe it was someone else? I just found that game is 'imachine' only though. Dammit.

Ahhh Bastion, one of the Xbox live titles on my 'to play list' before I get Rayman!

[Family Fry]

Ahhh yeah it would have been Swords and Sworcery, avatar was the iTunes app logo for the game sigh
That game damn nearly made me buy an iPad at one point.
In the end I just made do with the soundtrack, which is really good.

[nakamura]

Looks lovely. Downloaded the demo.

[Family Fry]

Well finished up the game few nights ago, I found out why Johnny wanted to goto the moon *tears*
It's a fantastically told little story which doesn't outstay it's welcome, always pushing you forward as said before it's more a play novel than a action/rpg game, put it this way there is no way you would get stuck in any section as far as I could see.
It is a play once only title though, once you have discovered everything and where the story has gone, to play again would be like watching The 6th Sense again. You do get to pick your character so don't know if the story may take a slight difference in dialogue depending on which character you have picked.
Honestly if you are not intending to pick it up maybe try watching youtube playthrough as it's a fantastic little story, good to see metacritic is high and some high profile press outlets have really enjoyed it.
The developer is currently trying to get it onto Steam, they may have issues as it was made with RPGMaker.
Finding out moreso than ever that Steam seem to be very picky when it comes to Indie content going on and type of information/reasoning about why the titles don't make it onto the service, steam rocks.....hmmm.

[Family Fry]

The game hit Steam today.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/206440/

?5.59 ends 14th September then it's back up to ?6.99.

[Deuteros]

$3.99 over at GOG.com for the next 24 hours or so.

[Family Fry]

$3.99? That's a great price, no better time to buy it than now.