By Andrew Smee on October 11th, 2011 at 1:01 pm.
To the Moon, the indie RPG/adventure game from Freebird Games John’s previously talked about with a soundtrack from Laura Shigihara off of Plants vs Zombies has a release date, soundtrack and trailer. Which happens to be quite the thing, if you’ll see below.
Aww, wasn’t that nice? Like a cuddle wrapped in velvet. That’s Kan Gao, the creator of the project, and I love his faint befuddlement at 2:34. He should read fairy tales while Rainy Mood is on in the background, I’d fall asleep to them every night.
Releasing on November 1st, To the Moon is about “two doctors traversing through the memories of a dying man to fulfil his last wish.” Truth be told, I’m at as much of a loss to describe this as John was, so here:
There exists a technology that allows doctors to weave artificial memories, such that a patient can request attempts to alter their mind, and wake up with memories of things that didn’t actually happen.
However, since these new memories are permanent, the conflict between them and the existing authentic memories clash in such a way that it ceases the person’s ability to properly function.
Thus, the operation is only done to people on their deathbeds, to fulfill what they wish they had done with their lives. . . but didn’t.
There’s more where that came from. It all sounds rather lovely, doesn’t it? And I’ve still got that fellow’s voice narrating in my head. The hefty soundtrack is available to pre-order over at Bandcamp and releases later this week on the 15th. At $5, 50% of the soundtrack profits goes to charities for autism. Another nice thing! Man.
Check out the game and more of that wonderful writing over at the official site.
11/10/2011 at 13:05 Inigo says:
Whenever someone mentions “Alice” in the comments, take a shot.
11/10/2011 at 13:09 Paraquat says:
OK, I’ll bite. Is the title a metaphor for domestic violence?
11/10/2011 at 13:58 Drake Sigar says:
It’s still funny, damnit!
11/10/2011 at 14:10 Aaarrrggghhh says:
Alice.
So, where’s my B-52?
11/10/2011 at 17:15 alice says:
Yeah, yeah Ralph.
11/10/2011 at 13:09 wodin says:
Looks good. My daughter will love it.
11/10/2011 at 13:17 Eclipse says:
mmm….rpgmaker called, he wants his tilesets back
11/10/2011 at 14:37 OrangyTang says:
Regardless of the quality of RpgMaker games, there are some *really* talented artists in that community, many of them giving their work away for free (even for commercial games). Anything which showcases their work to a wider audience is a good thing IMHO.
12/10/2011 at 00:55 Wulf says:
Very much what Mr. Tang said.
11/10/2011 at 13:53 tanith says:
Somehow this game makes both sad and much more aware of my mortality and ultimately makes me spend more time with my beloved ones instead of playing computer games, like this one. :/
11/10/2011 at 13:57 Gnoupi says:
Play this kind of game with your loved ones.
Problem solved.
11/10/2011 at 14:10 tanith says:
Unfortunately they are not into games – at all.
And since it’s in English they also wouldn’t understand it.
11/10/2011 at 14:12 deadly.by.design says:
Freebird needs a new logo. Badly.
11/10/2011 at 21:27 db1331 says:
If they changed it tomorrow, would you still remember it?
11/10/2011 at 21:37 Reives says:
Aye, there’re some recognition issues while things are unstable. Although we actually are considering revamping it eventually.
@deadly: Could you tell me which parts you’d like for it to be improved? Could it keep the same “F-bird” design but just done better & fancier artistically, or is the current structure a problem?
12/10/2011 at 00:54 Wulf says:
I like the logo, but the less is more conventions of design might help here, and perhaps separating the text from the logo itself. Other than that, I’m not sure. But I still quite like it.
12/10/2011 at 00:57 shitflap says:
@db1331
Ahh, nice joke :)
Reminded me of GTA San Andreas
I told her, “Baby, I don’t even know your name right now”…
11/10/2011 at 14:41 InternetBatman says:
It looks like fun. I’m always glad to see fans of an underserved genre make their own game. I just wish wRPG fans were doing the same. Doublebear’s & Age of Decadence haven’t updated in a while, and I don’t know who else to look at besides Spiderweb.
I hope we’re only two or three years away from a isometric wRPG resurgence. Probably not though. The new Diablo’ll probably kill them off again.
11/10/2011 at 15:03 Khemm says:
Like you said, we have Dead State and Age of Decadence to look forward to, AoD should get a proper “full, not only combat” demo before Christmas.
There’s also a dungeon crawler RPG, Legend of Grimrock – not isometric, but Eye of the Beholder/Lands of Lore/early Wizardry/Might and Magic/Dungeon Master-like:
http://www.grimrock.net/
11/10/2011 at 15:49 Wizardry says:
Legend of Grimrock is nothing like Wizardry and Might and Magic.
11/10/2011 at 17:23 Khemm says:
@Wizardry
In what sense? To be honest, Wizardry 1-7 and M&M1-5 share a lot of similarities in terms of basic gameplay idea with EoB or Dungeon Master. LoG is a game inspired by those. How can you claim otherwise?
11/10/2011 at 17:43 Wizardry says:
What basic ideas? Being first person and party-based? Dungeon Master and its descendent (Eye of the Beholder, Lands of Lore and Legend of Grimrock) may themselves be descended from early Wizardry, but the similarities end at being first person and party based.
In Dungeon Master you move around a dungeon, solving puzzles and intelligently navigating in real-time to avoid getting surrounded by enemies. You can even use the environment to help you beat enemies by guiding them to certain locations. That’s the Dungeon Master gameplay and that’s why Dungeon Master was such a unique game.
Wizardry, Might and Magic, The Bard’s Tale and others are blobbers with a heavy focus on party building and turn-based (or phase-based) combat. And as their combat systems are very different to Dungeon Master or Eye of the Beholder, it’s easily enough to separate the two types of RPGs.
In other words, they are only similar in terms of presentation. If you play Dungeon Master and then follow it up with a game of Wizardry VII, you’ll notice how far apart they actually are.
EDIT: The only reason I seem to be picking on this point is because, to others who may read these comments, old RPGs are lumped into one or two groups by people who haven’t played any of them. Old RPGs are hugely varied in gameplay, even if they share some presentational similarities.
11/10/2011 at 19:41 Khemm says:
@Wizardry
Good point, but I’d still argue that apart from combat systems and emphasis on party building they aren’t as vastly different as it might seem. Wizardry and M&M did create actual worlds instead of dungeons with emphasis on navigation and puzzle solving, so that’s where the “feel” you described might come from. You could say they took the dungeon crawling idea and evolved it into something more, different and grander in scope.
So I agree on a few points, I might have oversimplified the subject. ;)
11/10/2011 at 23:15 InternetBatman says:
Thanks for telling me about Grimrock, it looks pretty cool. Dark and scary in that old kind of way.
11/10/2011 at 16:35 Shazbut says:
I am going to buy this so hard
11/10/2011 at 17:05 Auspex says:
Awesome; I love Quinns.
11/10/2011 at 18:17 RagingLion says:
I like this guy.
And the game seems to hold promise.
11/10/2011 at 18:20 sethhuber says:
I find it very hard to get excited by this game, given the utterly vanilla RPG Maker aesthetic. I don’t think I’ve ever played a good RPG Maker game, let alone one with the default tileset.
11/10/2011 at 19:55 Casimir Effect says:
Has anyone out there ‘played’ (maybe experienced is a better term) any of Freebirds other games?
11/10/2011 at 20:20 Reives says:
I have! Like, 50 freakin’ times (involuntarily). By the 30th time I was so tired of it that I just kept hitting enter and arrow keys with my eyes closed and hoped I was facing the right way.
11/10/2011 at 22:17 Casimir Effect says:
I suspect there might be a conflict of interest somewhere here,
and I like that. Shows moxie, whatever the hell that is. I’ll give the games a go next time I have a chance.
12/10/2011 at 00:45 Wulf says:
I’m definitely looking forward to that one, I said about all I could say about it before, and this latest trailer only confirms that this will be very much my sort of thing.