To the Moon, some thoughts

To the Moon was a big hit in 2011, but I finally got around to finishing it this weekend, and a few pieces fell like billiards in my Rube Goldberg brain. So, there are some thoughts I’ll need to spit out… and here they are.

Quick briefing: To the Moon is a Gone Home-style interactive story in the framework of a JRPG, built in RPG Maker. (If you remember FFVI / FF3, you remember the visual style, how hard the designers had to work to bring out emotions in the characters, and how it was usually written tongue-in-cheek.) The core of the plot is a sci-fi device that lets specialists go into a person’s mind as they’re dying, go back to their childhood, and let them create a memory-timeline that lets them fulfill one wish. With this, the framing of the game is a Memento-style journey as the scientists go from the man’s last memories to his childhood, so that they can understand him, in order to set up the new memories.

I’ve got three things I want to look at: Comparisons to another RPG Maker game, the character of River and portrayals of autism, and the structure of the ending. Also I have a playlist at the end.

I have to draw a comparison to Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle, another super-indie RPG maker game. From a storytelling perspective, both games have similar depth, with characters living with the memories of past pain, although To the Moon wears its heart a little more on its sleeve with that. Comparing to Embric really brings home one of the chief weaknesses of Moon, though, in that the moment-to-moment dialog is pretty weak in Moon.

Our viewpoint characters are two scientists, a pair that bickers like buddy cops, one serious and the other cracking kamehameha jokes. They’re useful for pacing, because by responding and commenting on what they see, they break up the heavier scenes and give us comedic down-tempo moments before going back in. The characters never get beyond being the odd couple, though, and when the story does lean on them to do emotional heavy lifting, it feels misplaced.

They’re also just… not funny. At best, they get a wry chuckle. The dialog for them feels like the kind of amateurishness that used to be associated with RPG Maker games. It stands out even more compared to how complex and (usually) well-written River and John are. It’s like if Jay and Silent Bob made up most of the dialog in Dogma, then played a crucial emotional role in the finale. The scientists aren’t bad characters, they just don’t have any creativity invested in them.

The first half of Moon is carried by the character of River, and her relationship with John. River is very clearly living on the autistic spectrum, or another mental status that shapes how she views the world, and Moon doesn’t softball how much that changes things. (Disclaimer: I have one friend who may be very high-functioning autistic, but my experience with autism is very limited, and I acknowledge that I may be incorrect on some things.)

River is by far the best-written character, with dialog that clearly brings out her specific worldview. One line in particular stuck with me – she’s been asked out to the movies, but ends up sitting separate from the guy, and doesn’t understand why he was assuming they would sit together. “We were both watching the same movie, in the same room.” The game doesn’t shy away from addressing the loneliness inherent in this different worldview, but it doesn’t explore it too deeply.

The flip side is that the hardest thing in Moon is accepting the validity of River’s choices. Because of her condition, she values different things than most people, and so it’s easy to call her decisions stupid or idealistic. They aren’t, though: She just has different values. Spoiler territory abounds here, so I’ll just leave it at that. Suffice to say that Moon forces you to accept that other people have the right to decide how to live their lives, and we cannot dictate it for them, only support them in their choices.

Spoiler warning – this final section will be entirely a discussion of Act 3 and the ending.

I’m not a huge fan of the ending, though. Anything in Act 3 would probably feel weak, because Acts 1 and 2 were where all the reveals about the past happened, but the dramatic tension in Act 3 is entirely linked to a communication failure between the two scientists. In theory, this is justified by “There’s no time to explain!”, but there’s been an established trust between the two for the entire game, so it comes off feeling entirely forced.

I’m also going to put on my writer hat, and say that the direction Act 3 went undermines the emotions of the rest of the game. In Acts 1 and 2, To the Moon is about understanding the small tragedies that go into a man’s life, from his childhood until his last regrets. Act 3 is undoing all of those tragedies – the scientists give John back everything that was taken from him, from fixing the identity crisis that pushed him to try to live differently, to giving River the care she needed so she never had to decide between the lighthouse and her own life.

It’s especially disappointing because To the Moon opens the door on an alternative ending, based out of the moment that got me tearing up most in the entire game. (It’s worth noting that this is based on an inference, and that inference could be wrong.) John and River met as kids, and promised that they’d meet again the next year, but he doesn’t remember / make it because of the trauma and beta blockers he took in the wake of his brother’s accident. They did promise that, if they forgot or couldn’t make it, they would meet on the moon – hence John’s desire to go to the moon, although that memory was fuzzed out by the trauma and he didn’t remember why.

The idea of John and River promising each other that they would meet again, and him clearly being driven by that even to his death bed (since his wish was to go to the moon), but he never realized that he had already met up with River and married his dream girl, absolutely floored me. The way that love echoed through time, and the tragedy that he didn’t realize he’d accomplished it, was the emotional high point of the story for me. When I saw the ending the game wound up going with, I wanted to shake the two scientists. You won, guys! He wanted to go to the moon, but he was already there! All you need to do is wake him one last time and tell him that, and he dies happy. Instead of a bittersweet ending about understanding yourself and your love, the game goes with an ending about fixing everything.

Playlist for thinking about To the Moon:

“For River”, from the OST

“I Will Follow You into the Dark”, Death Cab for Cutie

“Paper Boats”, from the Transistor soundtrack

“We’re Going To Be Friends,” the White Stripes

 “Wander,” by Kamelot