Chapter 28: To the Moon

Chapter 28: To the Moon

"But the event is less than half a month away! Can we even make it in time?" Yang Xin expressed doubt.

Although the registration period started in early September,

the announcement for the event had actually been released six months earlier.

This meant that game developers and producers aiming for this game competition had already begun development two or three months ago.

"Yeah, and for a sci-fi themed game, our current team size is definitely insufficient, right?" Ruan Ningxue chimed in.

After working on both Mirror (Game) and Undertale, Ruan Ningxue was no longer the clueless beginner she once was.

A sci-fi themed game, even if it wasn't going to be a Major Production, would still be impossible to complete in such a short time with only three developers on the team, wouldn't it?

"Half a month is more than enough. This game will be even smaller in scale than Undertale," Chen Xu said with a smile.

"Even smaller in scale than Undertale!?" Yang Xin and Ruan Ningxue stared at Chen Xu, dumbfounded.

Was Undertale excellent?

Naturally, it was excellent.

Was Undertale's scale large?

Not at all.

But now, according to Chen Xu, the new game would be even smaller in scale than Undertale?

What kind of game was this going to be?

"If it's even smaller than Undertale, can it really win a ranking in the competition?" Yang Xin remained skeptical.

Ruan Ningxue stayed silent, gazing at Chen Xu, waiting for his explanation.

"It's the participation that matters. And whether we win an award has nothing to do with scale. What truly matters is whether the game can move players and impress the judges," Chen Xu said with a smile.

Hearing this, Yang Xin was speechless.

"So is the new work similar to Undertale, but not a META-style game?" Yang Xin guessed, turning to Chen Xu for confirmation.

Half a month, with only three people on the development team.

In terms of genre, it was almost possible to predict what kind of game it would be.

With such a short development window, even by independent game standards, it would essentially have to be a game like Undertale.

"Pretty much," Chen Xu said, nodding with a smile.

In reality, there were still many directions Chen Xu could have chosen for the new game.

But considering the current situation and the accumulation of Emotion Points, the moment he saw the competition announcement, an idea had already formed in his mind.

Facing the curious gazes of Ruan Ningxue and Yang Xin, Chen Xu, seated at his desk, began to describe it simply with a smile.

"In a Future Era, there exists a company that uses special machines to enter people's memories and alter them."

"But these artificial memories aren't temporary—they're permanent. This means that when the person wakes up, their implanted memories will clash with their real ones, causing memory confusion."

"Therefore, this technology can only be applied to people on the verge of death—those who lived with regrets and wish to fulfill their final desires by rewriting their memories, allowing them to pass away without any regrets."

"The entire story begins with two employees from this company, Dr. Eva and Dr. Neil, fulfilling the lifelong dream of a dying man named Johnny: to go to the moon."

The game Chen Xu had decided to make was called To the Moon.

Of course, it sounded like a proper sci-fi game at first glance.

But in reality, it was a narrative-driven game telling the love story of a couple.

It was an extremely small-scale game. In his previous life, this game had even been made using a tool called RPG Maker.

The entire game featured no combat at all. Its Gameplay consisted solely of story dialogues and puzzle-solving.

Yet, despite its simplicity, this game moved countless players to tears—truly a game that makes even tough guys cry.

Moreover, To the Moon had won numerous awards.

In 2011, it won GameSpot's Best Writing award, beating out blockbusters like Catherine and Portal 2.

It also claimed multiple awards, including Metacritic's Best Game and WIRED's Best Game that same year.

Additionally, in Steam's 2017 award category "I Didn't Cry, There Was Just Something In My Eye," it was nominated and ranked highly.

Its producer, Kan Gao, even appeared on CCVT's program World, Listen to Me.

For Chen Xu, choosing this game served a dual purpose. On one hand, it had a slight sci-fi element, making it suitable for the competition.

On the other hand, Chen Xu wanted to use this game to harvest a wave of Emotion Points from players.

After all, relying solely on Undertale and Mirror (Game) was becoming insufficient.

As for winning an award, Chen Xu could only say it was up to fate. Strictly speaking, classifying To the Moon as a sci-fi themed game felt quite forced.

Its small scale and its unique, healing nature for players were exactly why Chen Xu decided on this game.

Of course, prior to this, Chen Xu had also considered other frustrating games like Jump King and Getting Over It.

But after some thought, he decided to abandon the idea.

From the perspective of harvesting Emotion Points from players, those games were indeed intense.

But the key issue was the system's judgment criteria—it only counted if players had spent money.

If players didn't spend, choosing such games would essentially be gambling.

Win, and you get luxury hotel treatment; lose, and you're stuck carrying heavy cargo at the docks.

That was the situation if you had no money. But if you did have money, with proper marketing and guidance, these games could become wildly popular phenomenon-level hits—especially in this Parallel World where the live-streaming industry was highly developed.

These games were practically the standard for live-streaming content.

But popularity aside, if players didn't actually play much, Chen Xu wouldn't be able to harvest Emotion Points.

Moreover, these games were genuinely frustrating. For Chen Xu's current situation, maintaining a good reputation was still very important.

So after just a moment of consideration, he ruled them out and settled on To the Moon.

Good reputation and harvesting Emotion Points—truly killing two birds with one stone!

………………

After briefly explaining the game to Ruan Ningxue and Yang Xin,

Chen Xu returned to his office to begin drafting the design concept drafts for To the Moon.

Well, calling it a design concept draft was a bit generous—it was mainly about writing the core story.

For this, Chen Xu used a Memory Capsule to explore the depths of his memory.

He also wrote down the sheet music for several of To the Moon's iconic piano pieces. With references available, his current music ability was more than sufficient.

The rest would be minor improvements—enhancing the game's feel (gaming) and visual presentation.

After all, the original To the Moon, as a pixel game made with RPG Maker, had significant flaws in its graphics and awkward control mechanics.

But with the technology available in this Parallel World, half a month was more than enough time to develop To the Moon.

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