To The Moon

As many other reviewers acknowledge, this is not actually a game, but visual storytelling. The game element consists of exploring a room/area and clicking on everything until you've found all the orbs, which allow you to proceed to the next chapter of the story. In between chapters there's an interactive mini-game (origami folding) that is so easy you spend most of the time waiting for the animations to finish as you click through it. If I had to sum up my main objection it would be that the entire game has only 10 pages worth of story stretched out over a tedious and very repetitive 4 hours. You spend 80% of the time waiting for the same animations to finish, waiting for the next line of text to appear, waiting for the characters to klunkily walk from one side of the screen to the next, and so on. Waiting, waiting, and more waiting. Click through sophomoric dialog, line by tedious line. The characters are unrealistic, and act like teenagers (including the doctors). The story is sophomoric and cheesy. The author realizes this, and the comic relief characters therefore remark "THIS IS SO CHEESY". Adding comic relief to a mostly mediocre story doesn't elevate it in the least. The game isn't all bad. The music is mostly good and in some parts excellent. The story is conceptually original but predictable. The plot is essentially (MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD) that a dying man wishes to go to the moon. The clever bit is that the wish is accomplished by implanting the desire early in the man's life so that his desire and own efforts will ultimately make the wish come true. However, the game immediately makes a big turn and the wish is "made true" by making the old guy counterfactually *believe* he went to the moon. These delusions give the old guy a moment of happiness and then he dies. The end. Essentially, the feel good plot is: doctors give an old guy heroin so the pain goes away and he can die feeling happy. Yawn. Nothing in the story I found to be meaningful, touching or inspirational. The characters don't have much depth and their behavior doesn't hold up to scrutiny. In summary: the game is 90% story and 10% gameplay. The gameplay is slow and tedious and the story is very mediocre.

'To the Moon' is not much of a "game" if you think about it. The focus is definitely not on cool gameplay or challenge. If you can't enjoy a game without that, you won't have much fun here. It's a very basic point-and-click. This game truly shines with it's story. I don't want to spoil any of it, so that's all i'll say. For me it was like a great book. You just cannot stop reading it because you want to know how the story unfolds. You want to know what decisions the characters make and how their story ends. In my opinion it's worth every cent you spend on it.

This game won't win prizes for gameplay or complexity. This is a story, with moments of interaction, and a couple of minigames. It has beautiful music, and a very moving plot. If you want a game, don't buy it. If you want a nice story then this is for you.

This game feels like a good movie to which you sit down and enjoy the ride. It's quite short but often times quality is much more than quantity. I'm Neil Watts and i fully endorse this game.

Got me gripped from the beginning to the end. Humour, emotion, atmosphere, well-rounded characters - This game has all the elements of a great story. p.s. Apparently its the 1st episode of a series of games revolving around the same setting (and possibly the same main 2 characters)