Indie adventure To the Moon resembles a Super Nintendo game of old.
Image courtesy Freebird Games

Indie gamemaker Kan Gao was in crisis mode. His grandfather, who suffered from a heart condition, had been admitted to the hospital, and things seemed to be getting worse.

Though his grandfather eventually recovered, the incident left Gao shaken and thinking about the inevitability of death — when it was time for him to go, would he have any serious regrets?

“I’m at the age where a lot of major decisions such as career and the like have to be made,” Gao said in an e-mail to Wired.com, “and I wondered if, when one day I’m lying on my death bed, there’d be anything I’d regret and wish I had done differently. And I think to some extent, everyone will have those at one point or another.”

That’s when he formed the idea that would eventually become To the Moon, a sci-fi-influenced adventure game about life, death and regret.

To the Moon, which Gao will release this fall for PC, tells the story of two doctors with the ability to craft artificial memories, giving their subjects the opportunity to live out dreams they never had the chance to pursue or achieve. Because of the delicate nature of the procedure, the doctors can only create memories for people who are about to die. This allows them to dole out the ultimate form of charity: fulfilling last wishes.

That’s where you come in.

“It’s a story- and atmosphere-oriented game,” Gao said, reminiscent of classic Super Nintendo RPG Chrono Trigger in terms of feel, though To the Moon contains no combat or leveling system.

Instead, the bulk of gameplay will involve traveling through the memories of Johnny, an old man. Johnny is on his deathbed, and he’s made a single last request: to go to the moon. Playing as the doctors, it’s your job to piece together the life and times of Johnny and figure out why he wants to leave Earth.

“[You'll] traverse through Johnny’s memories via items that interlink two planes, called ‘mementos,’” Gao said. “Each memento is blocked by a fuzzy barrier, and the player needs to acquire memory links from each memory to shatter the barrier of the local memento in order to move on. The means to acquire the memory links in each memory vary accordingly.”

One such memento is the old man’s umbrella. In order to get it, you’ll perform a variety of activities, from viewing paintings to chasing down a man on a horse.

Gao, who graduated from the University of Western Ontario this year with a degree in computer science and business, says he drew inspiration from movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Memento, as well as British sci-fi series Doctor Who.

Though Gao has worked for other gaming companies as a sound designer and tester, he decided to roll the dice on To the Moon, dedicating his entire life to the project several years ago.

Why? To have no regrets.

“I was wondering what it would be like to be creating my own games,” Gao said. “Now, five years later, I’m at the point in life where I need to find and start a career — and I decided to take a leap in hope to make what I love to do what I live to do.”