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Impostor Factory by Freebird Games (To The Moon/Finding Paradise) announced (2nd Title in Development)
- Thread starter KiLAM
- Start date
OP
OP
That trailer doesn't exactly fill me with hope. These guys produce really amateurish stuff IMO. To The Moon was the worst written narrative game I have ever played, a combination of saccharine sentimentality, an extremely convoluted premise and awful, clunky dialogue. But it was made ages ago and the bar is set much higher for narrative game work now, so I'm hoping that this next game will be more mature.
Lmao, i would like to know witch narrative game you play then, because To the moon, and Finding paradise have better writting, music than most game on the market.
Anyway, very excited to see more of that game. Give me that detective movie vibes please.
Lol they really, really don't. They're like a made-for-TV weepie, or the sort of sentimental paperbacks they sell at gas stations.
Compare them to Firewatch, What Remains of Edith Finch, Night in the Woods, Gone Home, Kentucky Route Zero, Hellblade, Her Story, Undertale, Tacoma, Oxenfree, Life is Strange, Telltale games- in terms of narrative, they are all far, far beyond what To The Moon achieves. Even something like Stardew Valley, which isn't a narrative game, has much better writing than To The Moon has.
and i thought i had bad opinions
It was the kamehameha, wasn't it?
So you honestly think that To The Moon is of the standard of the games I listed? That's an insult to the amazing video game writers who worked on those games IMO.
I feel like To The Moon is the sort of game that has been canonised as one of the groundbreaking narrative games of this decade, yet most of the people who namedrop it haven't actually played it or know what the writing is actually like.
Actually like to explain why? Is it the the cheesy soap opera sentimentality or the dialogue that reads like it's been put through Google Translate or...?
It's the fact that he likes the game and that should be enough
you obviously got an axe to grind with To The Moon, and you came into this thread just to shit on it
this thread aint about To The Moon, and I'm not gonna derail it anymore
It's possible that like with A Bird's Story, this title will be separate from the Sigmund series but might tie into the third game somehow.
This thread is has no substance as it's about an announcement and we have basically no info about the game. Talking about the developer's other work is just as valid as random speculation about what this game may be.
And the whole point of my initial post was that it would be interesting to see what the developer is going to release in 2019, now that the bar for narrative games is so much higher. It was another user who took umbrage at that, and quoted my post saying that To The Moon has "better writting, music than most game on the market", so I replied and the discussion continued from there.
I did not come into this thread to shit on To The Moon as my initial post makes clear. But if people pile on because I criticised some weirdly sacred cow of an indie game then I don't see why I should back down?
Why are you lying to me
Do you know what happens when you lie to a legend
It's more that I didn't expect people to be so defensive over it. I thought it was the sort of indie game that people loved years ago, but doesn't really stand up these days, like Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP or Canabalt or something. I didn't think me musing over whether or not the developer could create a good game in a much more crowded narrative game marketplace would be controversial.
But the context of me saying "To The Moon was bad" was me wondering whether this game could be more mature. I thought it was generally accepted that To The Moon had aged badly. My mistake, clearly.
you're the one saying liking the story of TTM over those other games you listed is an insult to those games
get the hell out of here with this "WHY IS EVERYONE SO DEFENSIVE, HUH" bull
I said it's an insult to the writers, as in the actual professional writers who wrote those games. Like idk what I can say, the structure of Firewatch's narrative and the way just enough character and contextual information is revealed throughout the game, or the way that conversation works so seamlessly in Oxenfree- the way those elements intersect with the actual game mechanics is just so well made and pushes interactive narrative into new places. If people want to blindly ignore that over loyalty for a 2011 indie game then that's their business, but it comes across as more of a fandom thing than objectivity, and I'm allowed to say I think they're wrong, just as others on here have told me that I'm wrong, again and again.
cool
that would all make sense in a thread ABOUT how you think To The Moon is garbo, but thats not what this thread is about
"loyalty for a 2011 indie game", jesus christ with your rhetoric, you keep acting like fans of the game only like it and nothing else, or that fans have been 'tricked' into liking it or some rubbish
To The Moon, A Bird Story, and Finding Paradise are all absolutely essential experiences. Can't wait to see what comes next.
Why would you ever be under that impression? To The Moon isn't so old that the genre has up and left it behind, and I've never seen discussion on the narrative sour. And frankly speaking I think the suggestion that it's got a 'cheesy soap opera mentality' laughable considering you listed Telltale's work and Life is Strange as narrative giants, and I like those games. Though I might agree that the dialogue is slightly more awkward than those titles, I do feel like it adds to the charm of a cast of admittedly very awkward characters.
In any case, I'm excited to see what their new project is and am fully on board with it. Still need to play Finding Paradise, though it's hard finding a good time to play a game that may well ruin me.
With all due respect, you're talking like the kind of people who dismissed and scorned It's a Wonderful Life because it was a simple story with a sincere message. Who didn't take television writing seriously until it got all eye-rollingly "mature". There is nothing wrong with "Weepies" in and of themselves. Some of them are excellent movies, and they are popular because they speak to something deep inside their audience.
It is true that videogame writer see making the audience cry as a shortcut to being seen as "true art" and all that nonsense. But To the Moon was just someone's RPG Maker game. It found traction because it was GOOD. It wasn't AAA Game Awards bait. A story like To the Moon consists of small parts. An unfulfilled dream. The tragedy of memories fading with age. The sacrifices people make for one another. The secrets they keep.
To The Moon, and to some degree its sequel, Finding Paradise, execute these ideas in a very competent manner with vibrant characters, thoughtfully crafted themes, and a beautiful soundtrack. The main theme is a thing of beauty.
Placed in the context of the game's story, it is even more beautiful. It is a testament to To the Moon's writing quality that it brings so many people to tears without the use of fancy voice acting or facial animation or anything like that to carry it. Its production values are very simple. But it is a masterfully crafted game that, I think, is essentially timeless.
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I knew nothing about "to the moon" when I played it, dont even remember how I got it. I do remember crying at the end, telling my wife she has to play this game, its one of the best stories I ever played, while in tears. I even twittered folks that this should be a movie, the story is that strong. Now I see someone is making a movie based upon it, I cant wait for it. I see very little peeps defending this game, besides the peeps that actually played it. You dont "pretend" to play a game like this. What would get get out of it? I'm a xbox peep. *scorpio*, but dont hate on this game, its legit.
/rant..
/rant..
Hi, is this the thread where people shit on unrelated games they don't like, and feel insulted about other people's opinions on behalf of even more unrelated games' writers? Because I'd like to say I'm excited about this announcement, but maybe that would be off-topic here.
To the Moon and Finding Paradise definitely have more saccharine writing than most if not all (I admittedly haven't played all of them) of those games, but that doesn't necessarily make them worse. Something like the Telltale games might have more solid writing on a moment to moment basis but I think To the Moon and Finding Paradise are a lot more thematically interesting and emotionally evocative overall, and they come together in a way that's really satisfying. They're also really different so it's hard to compare.
One thing I do think a lot of those games do better than To the Moon/Finding Paradise is utilize gaming as a medium to tell a story that couldn't be told in another medium as well, though.
Yeah I think this is a v fair comment- even if the emotional beats of To The Moon are corny, the scope of the narrative is really ambitious.
Considering its from the makers of To The Moon and Finding Paradise...ya lol.
Cool - I love To The Moon - havent gotten Finding Paradise yet though.
Pretty sure this is a joke considering the end sounds an awful lot like Neil and Eva's theme.
Also the art is very similar to the art used for To the Moon (see in the video) and Finding Paradise
Doesn't necessarily mean it's the third game, but there's no way it's completely unrelated
they could make anything I don't even need to know what it is I'll just gobble it up, To The Moon and Finding Paradise were that good
Hmm... I'll agree with you that TTM doesn't hold up as well today if you are looking at it from a 2019 perspective, but for its time it was a revolutionary story, dare I say. It did elict a ton of emotion and sympathy for 2D RPG Maker sprites and that's a huge accomplishment in my book. Plus the lore of the game was plenty interesting at least to me, and the ideas it presented were really bittersweet and more thought provoking than the average game, even today.
Plus you listed LiS and Telltale games and I'd say TTM matches those in terms of writing. NitW is probably my favorite of those you listed but expecting every game to have writing of 'high' caliber is foolish as it's opinion based. Plus all those games have entirely different goals in their stories.
As for being amateurish... It's an Rpg maker game. The way it conveys information can be limited compared to the animation of NitW or the VA in Oxenfree or the environmental storytelling in Firewatch. I'd say you're expecting too much from this studio.
Either way I'm interested in this and want to know more about it. I never played the second game either, maybe I should...
lol, I don't even like To the Moon that much (Rakuen has become king of depressing saccharine rpgmaker games for me), but imo it blows a lot of those out of the water in the writing department. Like I wouldn't put Telltale games even in the same ballpark, and don't even get me started on the conflicting themes of Life is Strange or the boring millenial-reliant drivel that is Night in the Woods with an actual plot happening in the last 10 minutes with zero relevant buildup. Not sure how Her Story even fits in here when it's not a traditional narrative at all, and while I like Undertale, it's trying way too hard to be Mother with the non-serious writing and is very end-heavy for everything else (I'd still put it above To the Moon though). Can't really speak for those other games.
And BTW, I played TtM the first time a few months ago, so this isn't nostalgia speaking.
I don't really understand this idea of To the Moon "not holding up" in a modern context considering the sequel Finding Paradise released in late 2017, and enjoyed solid critical reviews and a 98% positive rating on Steam. This is despite Finding Paradise being widely considered as not quite as good as To the Moon. People are talking as though To the Moon is some game from the 90s that never got a sequel and everyone who loves it is speaking through some nostalgic layer.
*clears biased throat* Won't be long, I promise.
I see where you're coming from, Council Pop. But I will insist this: strive not to let a dismissively hyperbolic chunk of the fanbase color your perception of To the Moon negatively by a significant behalf!
No, it isn't 'groundbreaking' -- far from it, I'd argue. Not in the sense that it challenges the conventions of its genre, refashions game design principles, comes out of a Jonathan Blow brainstorm session. Gone Home reimagines environmental storytelling and atmosphere to a still unprecedented degree, Life is Strange excels in telling a heartfelt, deceptively clever character story in a down-to-earth and choice-driven way. Undertale tries to do many cerebral things with its story while still evoking a quirky, emotional tale.
Ultimately, To The Moon is not great in any one thing. It's a linear narrative in a 'game''s coat of paint, with the occasional puzzle. It's all over the place, messy and written like an online blog post at times. And the humor, well. Kamehameha!
But yes, while it is those things, it also tells its story with remarkably little filler; it tells a story that tugs through just-south-of-contrived story beats that somehow leave just enough room for its neighboring elements to breathe; and it tells it through RPG maker in the most unassuming cluster of pixels. The art isn't winning the team any Nobels. But it produces meaningful imagery, and it does it with little flair, minimal flourish. It connects a consistent thread through the characters and the pending sentimental climax. It may not be written like classic literature, but it is lucky enough to have a universally poignant foundation without being cloying. It utilizes the formula like a vixen in a cheap dress with good lighting that evening. It fills it out without going too far, or too little, because it is very much story-first, and devotes itself to that, to a certain detriment.
I think, going into To The Moon with the mindset that it's 'better' than anything else out there takes away from its insular, homebrewn manger origins. Creator Gao simply wanted to make a game about two people, and the stroke of brilliance is in how well it works in the simple format it was given. Go into it and soak in the little moments as if this was just some random game about a moon. If that still doesn't fly, then that's also just as fine -- the tone may simply be an acquired taste, and that's no invalid reason!
To analogue, for instance, one can rightly posit that YA fluff is largely a relatively schlocky, by-the-numbers, uninspired and derivative genre. And 90% of the case, it is true -- just as true as a diehard fan of the genre calling their favorite generic YA romance summer flick that makes them 'cry a little' to be the best story ever made in cinematic history believes that conceit to be. Sure, some fans of To the Moon might espouse the same notion. And sure enough it may be based on solely their experience with that game as opposed to an accumulative history with other works that allow them the position to place such labels, and/or rationally groundless. But in the same time, To the Moon, I believe, is one of those gems that work within the confines of its category to make something freshly compact. Sure. it's YA fluff -- but it's particularly stirring YA fluff. It didn't, and isn't going to, change the game -- but if you're the kind to fall for its narrative devices, then it'll deal a blow more rounded than many trying similar things in its vein. That is part of what makes it special.
And that is why some people call it the benchmark for video game storytelling, or the "best narrative", or at least one of them, in the medium. Because, however true it may be, it affected many, and did so with heart in lieu of polish. It had a story that was successfully emotional without treating the audience like idiots. And it hits its notes. Not just because someone cried a little; but because something this little made someone cry. ;)
(Wherein a little substantiating proof is given in our increasingly cold medium that, every now and then, cheesiness can be sweet, instead of a staunchly avoided no-no.)
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Yes! I absolutely loved it. It's also different enough from To The Moon to be totally worth playing.