To the Moon

ENGINE:

**To the Moon** is a 2011 adventure game developed by Kan "Reives" Gao with his production studio Freebird Games, using the RPG Maker XP program.

## Gameplay

Like many RPG Maker games, the employees Eva Rosalene and Neil Watts (depending on player's choice) allow to move the character through two-dimensional fields, interacting with and examining various objects.

**To the Moon** is entirely story-driven with a hint of puzzle-solving feature that allows to interpret information and obtaining objects from the inside of John's memories during exploration, such as mementos and clues, the latter unlocks a new memory and leading the way upon reaching into the earliest memory of his. Also, the gameplay itself is mostly told in reverse order, with each of his memories taking place chronologically from the oldest adulthood to the earliest childhood, the latter found it struggled by the employees as it gets without knowing by the character.

## Development

*To the Moon* serves as a "straightforward" narrative-driven game deals with the themes of life and death, alongside guilt, memory, mortality, and regretful; it became the basis of his game inspired by his grandfather's last wish.

In 2010, the game was built on the RPG Maker XP program in course over almost a year of development under the production company, Freebird Games, founded by a Chinese-Canadian game developer Kan Gao, best known of producing the unfinished episodic game *Quintessence: The Blighted Venom*; mostly like his previous games, characters and tile designs were produced by him and other artists from the same company or freelance, incorporates the idea of inspiring 16-bit classic role-playing games with a style of *Suikoden II*. This led him becoming the first commercial game after a series of freeware, experimental projects on his own website and sometimes "rpgmaker.net" in his previous years.

Unlike such games in RPG Makers, *To the Moon* deconstructed the use of role-playing system and shifting it more focused into a puzzle-solving method like his game *The Mirror Lied* did, although the developer added a "joke" battle scene against the squirrel.

*To the Moon*'s original score was composed by Kan Gao, with Laura Shigihara, best known of composing *Plants vs. Zombies*, accompanied the project to produce the additional score and the original song **Everything's Alright**, who also performed.

## Trivia

* While the employees are leaving, Watts stops and the screen briefly flashes red, the same way it did when John felt pain due to its odor. Watts took some painkillers to relieve his pain.
* Lily and her children reappeared in one of the minisodes, where they are invited by the employees for Christmas.
* Following the success upon its release, Kan Gao confirmed the game will be adapted to an anime film, with Gao serves as a writer for the film.
* *To the Moon* was about to remake for mobiles and Nintendo Switch, using the Unity engine by X.D. Network Inc.

## References

1. ↑ How a student's hobby project spawned 2011's most moving game? | Eurogamer
2. ↑ To The Moon Minisode 2 Is Really Very Good | Rock Paper Shotgun
3. ↑ "To the Moon animated feature film = confirmed" | X (formerly Twitter)
4. ↑ TtM mobile version first look! (archive.org)