To The Moon is about two doctors who have the job of going into their clients minds and change their memories in order to have them feel like they had the life they wanted to live or fulfill their last wish. As you are going through the game you are seeing everything through the eyes of the two doctors and at the same time are this omnipotent viewer. There are certain points in which the two doctors separate and in this situation only certain information and events that are unique to them. They are assigned to a client who wishes to fulfill their final wish and for our main character, who goes by the name Johnny, that was to go to the moon.
The whole story has a serene ambiance to it. There is the main song which keeps being referenced to throughout the entirety of the story. “To The Moon” is a very interactive game and has you connect with all the characters no matter how insignificant they may seem. It is played in a very simple format, which is just clicking around and using the main 4 keys to move around to interact and play the game. The game does a great job explaining what each action and each memory change causes. The story is told in a pixel-ated game format. This seems to be done on purpose since the game has nostalgia be a huge part of what drives the game forward. The game also gives the player a puzzle between every other scene. While to some people this may seem like a meaningless interaction, there is a way that some may feel that it helps them identify the items that have a major influence in the story compared to the other things that are collected when playing the game. As I mentioned before most of the images throughout the game are in an 8-bit format, however there are some parts in which a short video is shown. In these situations the video is shown because there has been a significant importance to the memories that are being shown. There is also the variation in between the same song and each variation depicts a different emotion to the situation and the person that the song is for.
“To The Moon” has multiple major scenes, from the moment that the main character meets their childhood love at a town carnival, we get more and more into the story as we go along since as the player we go more and more into the patient’s story through his memories experience everything he went through first hand. We start learning that everything that we saw at the beginning has a significance and we see why the patient John was so reserved when it came to his personal life and talking about his wife River. We learn about all the secrets that he has held and all the reasons he could not complete his wish. This game is played through Steam and can be played on PC and MAC. It is also a single player game since not much is required from it and in a way it keeps the simplicity of the game. “To The Moon” is also categorized as an independent, Role-Playing Game (RPG). Which infers that one of the points of the games was to have the player be fully immersed in the game.
This is a significant piece of literature because it focuses on the nostalgia of life. Throughout the game, we try a piece together why our main character, Johnny, chose his last to go to the moon. This game has a very simplistic style, which allows the reader to focus on the details that are explicitly given throughout the game. This game relates to any player that enjoys the game focusing on the story and really getting to know the characters. The music in this game, as mentioned before, is very crucial to the development and the progress of the story. Most players think that the music in a game is just to add to the effect, which “To The Moon” does very well, however specifically it gives the player the information they try to figure out during the game. Once a crucial piece of information is given the background music is not just background music anymore and becomes very significant and a big indicator in the game.