Difficulty:

Very Easy

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Amazing"

Playing "To The Moon" is a misnomer in that it is more an interactive story then a game. Games normally have scores or objectives and this one is no exception where the latter is concerned. The objective in this beautifully conceived little ditty is to make a dying man's last memories joyful by granting him his last wish.

Sounds easy enough if you are Dr. Neil Watts and Dr. Eva Rosalene. They work for a company that specializes in granting those on death's door, a final chance at true happiness. Their corporation has found the secret to tapping into one's conscious memory and reorganizing it to bring about a desired outcome.

They don't make new memories but rather take existing memories and change their order or insert or subtract whatever elements would stand in the way of the patient's expected outcome. It's this backdrop that brings about what is a true triumph in interactive story-telling.

No 3-D graphics, no high intensity action; in fact it's 16 bit technology ala the early 1980s, reminiscent of Commander Keen. Eva and Neil hook up helmets to the patient and to themselves which reads the patient's memories and allows the doctors to traverse those memories with him.

Johnny is dying and his last wish is to go to the moon and yet, he has no idea why, "he just wants to go". Your job is to put together the pieces, figure out why he wants to go and then how to get him there. Of course there are quite a few human elements involving his deceased wife but to reveal too much of that here would be a dreadful disservice.

It's entirely linear and moves from one sequence to another rather straight forwardly and in a very elementary fashion. The only true gaming experience is map movement and solving puzzles along the way. These are not complicated puzzles at all, they're the devices that must be solved as triggers through Johnny's memories. As you traverse through his lifetime, you must find at least five clues integral to Johnny's life and then solve the puzzle for the one item that will trigger you to the next memory.

Everything throughout the journey is linked together and the intrigue is in uncovering the links as you go along. All this would seem rather droll in itself but while traveling through this interactive fantasy, one of the most beautifully written scores ever to grace a video platform will accompany you. Just listening to the soaring piano themes and softly worded lyrics are a rare joy.

It's not just the score that compells you but the human urge to unlock mystery and the unquenchable desire to see how this story is going to conclude that will keep most sentimentalists glued to their screens. Split into three acts and a conclusion, this was obviously an effort of love and this simple little non-game was a truly a privilege to pay for.

Trust this, having played hundreds of games over three decades, few times can I say that I'm emotionally moved by sequences in a video game but this was one of those rare exceptions. There's no regrets from the relatively short length, approximately 3-4 hours but the developers obviously knew exactly how much to offer and when and how to end it. To them, one can only say "thank you".