Not really its like csi where each episode is a different case, although the doctors have stuff going on you may miss if you didnt

Why is that?

Pretty good indicator that the devs are complete amateurs if they have no real programming skills.

Thanks, I probably play the other games first then don't really want to miss out on anything.

Aww, look, we are now blessed to get gamemaker shovelware. Woohoo. Does it have online only components also?

:D it's like saying a 2D anime TV show is an amateur's work as it's not in 3D :D

.......wut

ok... :) maybe the devs have other skills than programming their own engine? ;) maybe they didn't want to go hyperreal?

yaaaaaaayyyy!

i have been looking forward to this ever since 2014.

thank you for bringing it here and thank you for the amazing "to the moon."

i don't know if you have programmed a game or anything before, but programming is hard work that requires patience and some amount of know-how. in some cases, taking some of that hard work out - if you're just trying to tell a story - is absolutely worth your while.

in the modern era, we do not need to go all the way back to c/c++ to make things, especially not games. there are now MANY engines that can do different things [all the way from interactive fiction engines right up to aaa-type engines that can produce games like skyrim.]

with that in mind, if the developer learned and is comfortable with gamemaker/rpg maker and they make a good game, i see no problem with the engine they're using. they are putting that engine to great effect telling a meaningful story in a way they know how.

is there lots of rpgmaker/gamemaker shovelware? yes. absolutely.
is there lots of c/c++ shovelware? sure. [cf: most of the entire shareware industry preceding the internet.]

to the moon/a bird's story/et al, are not shovelware. they are fantastic little stories that could have been told in some other engine, perhaps, but the creator chose this one and that is fine. he is leveraging his strong suit, here, making a wonderful experience for us to absorb.

i can't speak for everyone here [i woudln't want to try] but for me, there are qualities in this game that i have only ever found in a handful of other games.

let's start by dismissing something right out the gate: to the moon isn't a very "gamey game." [by which i mean that there aren't a lot of underlying systems and so on to work out] - by "most accounts" to the moon didn't qualify as a game at all, but i don't think that's fair [or really true] - games come in all shapes and all sizes [like books and movies and music] and so, because of the medium it inhabited, i consider to the moon a game.

next, i think it's interesting to consider the landscape of games surrounding to the moon: most games are chiefly /about/ systems, with story sometimes serving those systems but mostly not. the problem with most of these stories is that they're not really emotionally dense or particularly adult. any legend of zelda, for example, is a great game [with the exception of wand of gamelon, perhaps] but often a very poor narrative. [and this is fairly true of most games on the market at this point in time.]

within the context of this landscape, sometimes, there are good stories, but these aren't really adult and do not consider adult concepts or ideas. take, for example, the "plot" [if one can call it that] of space quest or king's quest. both of those have reasonable plots that hold together and are fairly fun, but they do not often consider adult themes at all.

with all this in mind, i'd like to swing back to "to the moon" itself. "to the moon" speaks to me - as an adult - in ways that i don't think it would speak to me if i were much younger. there's lots of little strands in there - the personal-ness of death and relationships - the little touchstones that we learn about with each character that build up who that person is - the moral ambiguity of what the doctors actually do. there's a LOT of small things sitting in that plot that are very mature in nature that most games [and lots of gaming in general] just ignores for the most part.

these themes don't show up very often and they need to be handled with care, and i feel that to the moon [along with other games like "the dig," "ultima 4" and "planescape: torment"] did that with aplomb.

is that not to your liking? that's ok. not everything is made for you. [consequently, not everything is made for me, but i am fine with this.]

They have a really good narrative skill and I'll take this every time over programming skills as long as the programming itself is not garbage - which it is not imo.

They're making games though, not novels.

So your point being? Nowadays interactive novels are considered to be games as well. Everybody who played "To the Moon" knows that this is heavily story focused with little to none gameplay but because of the story told and because of the way it is told it is considered to be a good game for many people. The little interactivity the game offers also makes it much more immersive than JUST reading a novel. It does not matter if you want to call it "game" or "visual novel" or whatever. The only thing that matters is if you like it and if you think it is/was worth your time. That absolutely was the case with "To the Moon" for me. Tastes differ and that is absolutely all right with me but I would never judge a game or even a novel just because the developer used a specific engine. The product in question is the important thing for me not the parts used to create it.

Oh, nice! I didn't even know this was in development!
I just love To The Moon, and A Bird Story was ok. I hope this one is closer to the first.