Publisher: Freebird Games

Developer: Freebird Game

Release Date: 11/1/2011

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To the Moon is a 2D, 16-bit adventure game that follows two scientists who are fulfilling a dying man’s last wish. They use a strange computer to go into his memories to find the link that will allow him to go to the moon. To the Moon has a heartwarming story with a beautiful sweeping musical score, but lacks any type of real gameplay.

The game is broken up into three acts and during the first two, you are walking around John’s memories and have to find five memory links to unlock the shield surrounding time jumping mementos. As you go further into John’s past you find out why he doesn’t know why he wants to go to the moon. There is some memory block and you have to find out what it is and remove it. Finding these memory links only takes a few seconds because you just click on the few items in the small area. Once you remove the shield you play a little puzzle game then on to the next memory. This all just seems like an excuse to add gameplay to an otherwise visual-only adventure.

Through act two you get to interact with two different mini-games which are Whac-a-Mole and a zombie shooting section and each is uninspired and pretty lame. The visuals are, like I said, 16-bit and pretty average. There’s nothing special here visual-wise, and don’t even expect voice acting. The second best thing about the story is the sweeping musical score. This score is beautiful and one of the best ones I have ever heard. I really wish that this game could have been more, but I understand most indie developers have small budgets.

Overall, To the Moon has a story that will tug at your heartstrings, as well as the music, but the gameplay feels like an excuse to extend the 1-hour story to barely four hours. If the gameplay was a little more engaging I wouldn’t complain about it so much, but as it is, stay for the story and you will be entertained.