I got burnt out halfway through my playthrough and stopped playing for a few weeks and then came back and realized it was entirely my fault for misunderstanding a basic mechanic and then the last few hours brought me to tears multiple times. This game is something special.
(BacklogBeat's Game Club - January 2024 nomination)
I ultimately enjoyed my time with this but I can't help but feel that the game would've been better off if it were a narrative focused game like the developer's last game because the vibes are immaculate and the themes are wonderful, they're just dragged down by the really weird pacing that's associated with farming sim games. The gameplay's incredibly dull and interesting events happen far too infrequently. I understand what the game's trying to do, but the message isn't worth the hours upon hours of doing menial tasks when it could’ve been delivered just as effectively in a different way.
Still, it’s a game that will stick with me for a long time. I’ve never really played anything like it.
I ultimately enjoyed my time with this but I can't help but feel that the game would've been better off if it were a narrative focused game like the developer's last game because the vibes are immaculate and the themes are wonderful, they're just dragged down by the really weird pacing that's associated with farming sim games. The gameplay's incredibly dull and interesting events happen far too infrequently. I understand what the game's trying to do, but the message isn't worth the hours upon hours of doing menial tasks when it could’ve been delivered just as effectively in a different way.
Still, it’s a game that will stick with me for a long time. I’ve never really played anything like it.
approaching this as someone who has tried and bounced off of each farming sim that i've tried in the past had me unsure. the art design, world building, and general atmosphere looked stellar so i decided to give it a go anyways and i'm glad i did because i had a wonderful experience.
at a glance there's not a lot here but as i spent more time with this i was struck by how strong the sense of place was. familiarizing myself with the maps and establishing relationships with my neighbors while getting a deeper understanding of the game's universe scratched the same itch that a large chunk of my other favorites did. just something about centralized locations that become increasingly familiar does it for me and this was a masterful example.
farming sim elements end up taking a bit of a backseat which might have been the point to an extent. either way it wasn't a massive issue for me as it allowed me to grind away at depositing money early on before eventually settling into something of a routine where i barely bothered with farming at all.
after finding a high value item i blew past the moon ticket price and i still lingered around for weeks because i wanted to make sure i saw most of the events and conversations. i almost didn't leave at all which speaks to the strength of what the devs accomplished here.
something about a place that wasn't the ideal or originally in mind becoming more meaningful due to community or otherwise really spoke to me. genuinely one of the most impactful games i've ever played.
at a glance there's not a lot here but as i spent more time with this i was struck by how strong the sense of place was. familiarizing myself with the maps and establishing relationships with my neighbors while getting a deeper understanding of the game's universe scratched the same itch that a large chunk of my other favorites did. just something about centralized locations that become increasingly familiar does it for me and this was a masterful example.
farming sim elements end up taking a bit of a backseat which might have been the point to an extent. either way it wasn't a massive issue for me as it allowed me to grind away at depositing money early on before eventually settling into something of a routine where i barely bothered with farming at all.
after finding a high value item i blew past the moon ticket price and i still lingered around for weeks because i wanted to make sure i saw most of the events and conversations. i almost didn't leave at all which speaks to the strength of what the devs accomplished here.
something about a place that wasn't the ideal or originally in mind becoming more meaningful due to community or otherwise really spoke to me. genuinely one of the most impactful games i've ever played.
I have a lot to say about this game, but I'm saving my long-form review for my newsletter. Suffice it to say: I like this game quite a bit, there's a lot going on here that hooks me, and I'm confident that I'll be seeing it through to whatever extent it continues to provide the atmosphere and charm that it has so far. It's a genuine travesty that this has gotten so little attention outside of a handful of talented journalists' recommendations on personal blogs.
Before the Green Moon strikes a niche that farming sims rarely ever do, even the indie ones. It feels much closer to a Love De Lic game in the way it presents itself, following a nostalgic comfort more akin to the Gamecube than the usual cutesy pixel aesthetic that indie farm sims generally take - not that it's a bad thing, but the art direction here stands out and becomes incredibly charming the longer you spend with it, much like its NPCs.
Where other games like Stardew Valley present the mystery of their gameplay loop through quantity of mechanics, BtGM stays ambiguous about all the things you can do, leaving you to explore with your limited time/energy frame and discover how much you can really make of your ramshackle little farm and the nearby town. The citizens aren’t unfriendly, but the town still feels socially inaccessible to an extent that reminds me of early Animal Crossing games, and makes it much more rewarding once you start to fit in.
Before the Green Moon strikes a niche that farming sims rarely ever do, even the indie ones. It feels much closer to a Love De Lic game in the way it presents itself, following a nostalgic comfort more akin to the Gamecube than the usual cutesy pixel aesthetic that indie farm sims generally take - not that it's a bad thing, but the art direction here stands out and becomes incredibly charming the longer you spend with it, much like its NPCs.
Where other games like Stardew Valley present the mystery of their gameplay loop through quantity of mechanics, BtGM stays ambiguous about all the things you can do, leaving you to explore with your limited time/energy frame and discover how much you can really make of your ramshackle little farm and the nearby town. The citizens aren’t unfriendly, but the town still feels socially inaccessible to an extent that reminds me of early Animal Crossing games, and makes it much more rewarding once you start to fit in.
Easily one of my new favorite games.
Interesting deconstruction of the Harvest Moon genre - instead, the game focuses on a farm where it's hard to get by - where your town is nothing but a stopover for tourists and the rich on the way to the moon. Will you stay despite the routine and mundanity? Or leave everyone you meet behind for "The Moon?"
It's nice to see the few familiar faces also getting by, getting used to their rhythms, sometimes odd ones. I enjoyed the way some expanses of wilderness were just sitting next to your farm, full of some strange items that I never figured out the use for. Lovely art too!
Now to digress, generally speaking farming games make me wonder more about like - how do farmers live life and make meaning? Can a game express that...? The Harvest Moon format of farming games is obviously so stale and worn out... but I still think there's some kind of truth to life that the format of 'planting crops/gardening' could still convey. I like that this game tries to explore that format, even if I found the moment-to-moment kind of unengaging (even though that is of course, partially the point).
Farm work, I assume, is physically grueling. But is there something fun or satisfying in that? Something unique that establishes particular rhythms of life for farmers of different types around the world?
Beyond the typical HM-loop of watering my squares and selling the pixel vegetables for money every few days?
It's nice to see the few familiar faces also getting by, getting used to their rhythms, sometimes odd ones. I enjoyed the way some expanses of wilderness were just sitting next to your farm, full of some strange items that I never figured out the use for. Lovely art too!
Now to digress, generally speaking farming games make me wonder more about like - how do farmers live life and make meaning? Can a game express that...? The Harvest Moon format of farming games is obviously so stale and worn out... but I still think there's some kind of truth to life that the format of 'planting crops/gardening' could still convey. I like that this game tries to explore that format, even if I found the moment-to-moment kind of unengaging (even though that is of course, partially the point).
Farm work, I assume, is physically grueling. But is there something fun or satisfying in that? Something unique that establishes particular rhythms of life for farmers of different types around the world?
Beyond the typical HM-loop of watering my squares and selling the pixel vegetables for money every few days?
This review contains spoilers
In the beginning, there was nothing.
And then, there was Stardew Valley.
And so, the Cozy Game was born.
This is a narrative written and retold countless times in the minds and bodies of games-players the world over. It is the foundational text upon which a million pixelated seeds have been sown. It is a narrative written and retold by those with no memory.
Stardew’s popularity and immense financial success has spurred multitudinous imitators: the once-short lineage from Story of Seasons (nee Harvest Moon), to Rune Factory, to Stardew Valley, has now expanded to a monstrous family tree beyond comprehension.
And yet - the Farming Game / Life Sim remains a genre buried beneath a mountain of tropes. It is elaborated via a school of game design best equated to a bingo scorecard.
There is a fundamental strangeness to the homogeneity of farming games’ ‘cozy’' tone. It abstracts farming into something it is not -- into the kind of farming imagined by a gradeschool child.
I have a close family friend who worked on a farm in his younger years. He has taught me which animals sound most human when they cry for their mercy at the end.
Farming is difficult. It is unforgiving. It is unglamorous. It exists across an immense gulf from its beloved gaming facsimiles.
This has upsides. There are people in my life who have become avid players of games entirely because of the welcoming tonality of "Wholesome Games". Video games are a historically male space dominated by Gun Dudes with gravelly voices, and I'm glad to see a shift towards something more welcoming.
But another part of me feels like I'm watching an industry consuming and regurgitating the same video game ad infinitum. A cutesy farming ouroboros.
The Cozy Farming Game is to the early 2020s as the Brown Murder Shooter was to the early 2010s. Neither flavor of game is inherently bad. I enjoy partaking in both from time to time. But both reflect a failure to explore the depths of the medium.
The latter half of the last decade saw the brown shooter finally evolving. Games like Titanfall 2, Dusk, Doom Eternal, Wolfenstein: The New Order, and Spec Ops: The Line marked a shift in market tendency. The genre was in conversation with itself - for better or worse.
Regardless of whether or not these games were good, many games-players, me included, were happy to be playing something Similar but Different. A development upon genre; a genesis of new subgenre.
Before the Green Moon makes me excited about the future of the farming game. It is the first of its kind to make me feel something meaningful, that I will carry with me forever.
Its foundation is that of standard farming game fare - there are seeds to be sown, dead weeds to be mown, rocks to be excavated, and relationships to be navigated. But Before the Green moon appears immediately distinct from its peers from the moment the game begins.
Stardew Valley begins with your player-character escaping to the countryside to work on a farm of your own, inherited from your grandfather. You are absconding from a corporate office job where the fruits of your labor are enjoyed by uncaring C-level executives, so you can instead grow literal fruit to your own benefit.
Farming is portrayed as movement away from systemic capitalism; as an idyllic and self-sustaining method of enjoying one's life; as a movement towards a personable community that rejects the anonymity of city life. Every citizen of your small town is an individual whose inner life you are encouraged to understand for both narrative and mechanical benefit. You can fall in love. You can get married. The late game is an everlasting dream of love and small-town living. It portrays this world of cute chickens and fishing minigames by way of a vibrantly colored and super-nintendo-esque render.
Before the Green Moon is rendered in a blurry-textured N64-like manner, with blobby characters and sharp environmental vertices. You are not going to farm for fun - you are farming to get paid. This is not your farm - it is a corporate farm, in a ruined town, whose population is largely faceless. Some stranger used this farm before you, and you will never know so much as their name. It is overgrown with weeds. Only the bare minimum tools remain. It is the farm of someone who maybe once loved it, but who has since moved on and left it in a state of disrepair.
The planet is dying. It is a desiccated husk of what it once was, and the rich have already left it behind. They have learned to terraform, and live now on a Green Moon. Your planet still has some use, though: farming. Seeds are sent down a space elevator to be planted, and are then sent back up in exchange for money. More cynically, you could consider it company scrip. This scrip can then be exchanged for tools and resources, which are also sent via the elevator. Characters around you remark on occasion that, if the moon folk could ever learn to farm efficiently up there on their green rock, then they'll have no further use for those who still live below. In this way, the exchange of your crops for scrip allows you to survive on your barren world, but simultaneously funds the research that would ultimately doom its inhabitants.
You have come to town to farm. You have come to town to farm for money. You have come to town to farm for money so that you can buy a ticket to the moon, and leave it all behind.
What do you invest in that sort of transient life?
It is, in a way, a bit like going to college. From the moment you arrive, any friend you make will almost certainly one day be a person you Once Knew, but now know only through distant photos. Perhaps an occasional phonecall. Perhaps a rare visit, to reminisce upon the people you were then, but can scarcely recall. It is a place Between. A place After. A place Before. As all places are.
Before the Green Moon makes this far more poignant in that, in order to properly attend to your farm each day, you rarely have enough time to connect with the people around you. A daily communion, a moment fishing with a friend, a conversation with the strange kid out back, an afternoon hunting for chickens to bring home and care for - these moments are all there to be had, but there's so little space for them when you're busy watering tobacco plants.
Better yet - the game never forces you to leave. During your first week at the farm, you're told the price of a Ticket to The Moon. You do not ever have to buy this ticket. Even if you do, your only reward will be seeing the game end. You can spend every day talking with your neighbors and grilling up fish from the reservoir, forever, if you like. You can spend every dollar you make on chicken feed and bedroom decor. You can find love, and spend every day visiting your partner.
Even so - as you continue to rake in the moon-scrip, there will eventually come a moment when you realize you nearly have enough money for the ticket. You can look at the calendar, see the next scheduled day when the elevator will come and go, and realize that, if you want, you could leave along with it.
I had this moment, and considered staying, just for one more season. And then, in the coming in-game days, perhaps by coincidence, it seemed like I had started to exhaust the game's content. A new feeling set in - that there was nothing left for me here. That it was time to go.
So I bought the ticket.
I said my goodbyes to everyone I'd met. My in-game partner cried. They knew, deep down, that I would leave one day, but had hoped against hope that I would stay for them. I still had five more days - but every day, I'd receive the same dialogue from the other characters, over and over. I stopped planting seeds. I let my remaining crops die. I dumped my tools into storage. I left the farm as I'd found it: Dead. Abandoned. Overgrown. The last two days, I went to bed early. There was nothing to stay awake for.
On the final day, I ran through town one last time. I shuffled through the anonymous crowd of other moongoers. I made my way to the elevator. It was already evening.
A character who had gone missing earlier in the plot suddenly returned. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get them to trigger a farewell dialogue. I realized that it might not be possible to trigger both their return and their farewell dialogue on the same day. If I was right, I'd have to stay til the morning to say goodbye. I checked the calendar. I could stay a while longer, just to get closure with this one friend, my favorite character in the whole cast - but I would have to spend two weeks in an empty town of people with nothing to say to me; with a farm I'd already let wither.
I still don't know if there actually was a farewell dialogue to trigger or not. I'd rather never know. With just an hour left in the day, I rushed onto the elevator.
Once on the elevator, you get tucked away into a small room. The decor is sparse, grey, utilitarian. A single window gives a view out into space.
The elevator's ascent is slow. It is quiet. There is little to do but watch the planet fall away from view.
At the end of each in-game season, the town gathers to watch the green moon rise. A moon-viewing party. The cast of characters takes a moment to reflect. It is a quiet moment of companionship.
As the elevator approaches the peak of its ascent, the green moon falls into frame from above. Here, alone, in a sterile box a quarter-million miles above the earth, you hold a final moon-viewing party for one.
The moon fills the frame. Its atmosphere is as thick, green, and opaque as it was from the earth. And then, having never seen the moon's surface, and without ever learning what waits for you there, the credits roll.
You've already seen everything the game has to offer you. It's offered up everything it had ever promised: the digital facsimile of a farm, of a town, of a home, of a ruined wasteland, of where you left your friends behind, where you lived back then, in a different time, Before the Green Moon.
And then, there was Stardew Valley.
And so, the Cozy Game was born.
This is a narrative written and retold countless times in the minds and bodies of games-players the world over. It is the foundational text upon which a million pixelated seeds have been sown. It is a narrative written and retold by those with no memory.
Stardew’s popularity and immense financial success has spurred multitudinous imitators: the once-short lineage from Story of Seasons (nee Harvest Moon), to Rune Factory, to Stardew Valley, has now expanded to a monstrous family tree beyond comprehension.
And yet - the Farming Game / Life Sim remains a genre buried beneath a mountain of tropes. It is elaborated via a school of game design best equated to a bingo scorecard.
There is a fundamental strangeness to the homogeneity of farming games’ ‘cozy’' tone. It abstracts farming into something it is not -- into the kind of farming imagined by a gradeschool child.
I have a close family friend who worked on a farm in his younger years. He has taught me which animals sound most human when they cry for their mercy at the end.
Farming is difficult. It is unforgiving. It is unglamorous. It exists across an immense gulf from its beloved gaming facsimiles.
This has upsides. There are people in my life who have become avid players of games entirely because of the welcoming tonality of "Wholesome Games". Video games are a historically male space dominated by Gun Dudes with gravelly voices, and I'm glad to see a shift towards something more welcoming.
But another part of me feels like I'm watching an industry consuming and regurgitating the same video game ad infinitum. A cutesy farming ouroboros.
The Cozy Farming Game is to the early 2020s as the Brown Murder Shooter was to the early 2010s. Neither flavor of game is inherently bad. I enjoy partaking in both from time to time. But both reflect a failure to explore the depths of the medium.
The latter half of the last decade saw the brown shooter finally evolving. Games like Titanfall 2, Dusk, Doom Eternal, Wolfenstein: The New Order, and Spec Ops: The Line marked a shift in market tendency. The genre was in conversation with itself - for better or worse.
Regardless of whether or not these games were good, many games-players, me included, were happy to be playing something Similar but Different. A development upon genre; a genesis of new subgenre.
Before the Green Moon makes me excited about the future of the farming game. It is the first of its kind to make me feel something meaningful, that I will carry with me forever.
Its foundation is that of standard farming game fare - there are seeds to be sown, dead weeds to be mown, rocks to be excavated, and relationships to be navigated. But Before the Green moon appears immediately distinct from its peers from the moment the game begins.
Stardew Valley begins with your player-character escaping to the countryside to work on a farm of your own, inherited from your grandfather. You are absconding from a corporate office job where the fruits of your labor are enjoyed by uncaring C-level executives, so you can instead grow literal fruit to your own benefit.
Farming is portrayed as movement away from systemic capitalism; as an idyllic and self-sustaining method of enjoying one's life; as a movement towards a personable community that rejects the anonymity of city life. Every citizen of your small town is an individual whose inner life you are encouraged to understand for both narrative and mechanical benefit. You can fall in love. You can get married. The late game is an everlasting dream of love and small-town living. It portrays this world of cute chickens and fishing minigames by way of a vibrantly colored and super-nintendo-esque render.
Before the Green Moon is rendered in a blurry-textured N64-like manner, with blobby characters and sharp environmental vertices. You are not going to farm for fun - you are farming to get paid. This is not your farm - it is a corporate farm, in a ruined town, whose population is largely faceless. Some stranger used this farm before you, and you will never know so much as their name. It is overgrown with weeds. Only the bare minimum tools remain. It is the farm of someone who maybe once loved it, but who has since moved on and left it in a state of disrepair.
The planet is dying. It is a desiccated husk of what it once was, and the rich have already left it behind. They have learned to terraform, and live now on a Green Moon. Your planet still has some use, though: farming. Seeds are sent down a space elevator to be planted, and are then sent back up in exchange for money. More cynically, you could consider it company scrip. This scrip can then be exchanged for tools and resources, which are also sent via the elevator. Characters around you remark on occasion that, if the moon folk could ever learn to farm efficiently up there on their green rock, then they'll have no further use for those who still live below. In this way, the exchange of your crops for scrip allows you to survive on your barren world, but simultaneously funds the research that would ultimately doom its inhabitants.
You have come to town to farm. You have come to town to farm for money. You have come to town to farm for money so that you can buy a ticket to the moon, and leave it all behind.
What do you invest in that sort of transient life?
It is, in a way, a bit like going to college. From the moment you arrive, any friend you make will almost certainly one day be a person you Once Knew, but now know only through distant photos. Perhaps an occasional phonecall. Perhaps a rare visit, to reminisce upon the people you were then, but can scarcely recall. It is a place Between. A place After. A place Before. As all places are.
Before the Green Moon makes this far more poignant in that, in order to properly attend to your farm each day, you rarely have enough time to connect with the people around you. A daily communion, a moment fishing with a friend, a conversation with the strange kid out back, an afternoon hunting for chickens to bring home and care for - these moments are all there to be had, but there's so little space for them when you're busy watering tobacco plants.
Better yet - the game never forces you to leave. During your first week at the farm, you're told the price of a Ticket to The Moon. You do not ever have to buy this ticket. Even if you do, your only reward will be seeing the game end. You can spend every day talking with your neighbors and grilling up fish from the reservoir, forever, if you like. You can spend every dollar you make on chicken feed and bedroom decor. You can find love, and spend every day visiting your partner.
Even so - as you continue to rake in the moon-scrip, there will eventually come a moment when you realize you nearly have enough money for the ticket. You can look at the calendar, see the next scheduled day when the elevator will come and go, and realize that, if you want, you could leave along with it.
I had this moment, and considered staying, just for one more season. And then, in the coming in-game days, perhaps by coincidence, it seemed like I had started to exhaust the game's content. A new feeling set in - that there was nothing left for me here. That it was time to go.
So I bought the ticket.
I said my goodbyes to everyone I'd met. My in-game partner cried. They knew, deep down, that I would leave one day, but had hoped against hope that I would stay for them. I still had five more days - but every day, I'd receive the same dialogue from the other characters, over and over. I stopped planting seeds. I let my remaining crops die. I dumped my tools into storage. I left the farm as I'd found it: Dead. Abandoned. Overgrown. The last two days, I went to bed early. There was nothing to stay awake for.
On the final day, I ran through town one last time. I shuffled through the anonymous crowd of other moongoers. I made my way to the elevator. It was already evening.
A character who had gone missing earlier in the plot suddenly returned. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get them to trigger a farewell dialogue. I realized that it might not be possible to trigger both their return and their farewell dialogue on the same day. If I was right, I'd have to stay til the morning to say goodbye. I checked the calendar. I could stay a while longer, just to get closure with this one friend, my favorite character in the whole cast - but I would have to spend two weeks in an empty town of people with nothing to say to me; with a farm I'd already let wither.
I still don't know if there actually was a farewell dialogue to trigger or not. I'd rather never know. With just an hour left in the day, I rushed onto the elevator.
Once on the elevator, you get tucked away into a small room. The decor is sparse, grey, utilitarian. A single window gives a view out into space.
The elevator's ascent is slow. It is quiet. There is little to do but watch the planet fall away from view.
At the end of each in-game season, the town gathers to watch the green moon rise. A moon-viewing party. The cast of characters takes a moment to reflect. It is a quiet moment of companionship.
As the elevator approaches the peak of its ascent, the green moon falls into frame from above. Here, alone, in a sterile box a quarter-million miles above the earth, you hold a final moon-viewing party for one.
The moon fills the frame. Its atmosphere is as thick, green, and opaque as it was from the earth. And then, having never seen the moon's surface, and without ever learning what waits for you there, the credits roll.
You've already seen everything the game has to offer you. It's offered up everything it had ever promised: the digital facsimile of a farm, of a town, of a home, of a ruined wasteland, of where you left your friends behind, where you lived back then, in a different time, Before the Green Moon.
stunningly beautiful. great vibes. dont name your character elvis and give them elvis hair; it's not funny. i think i dont like farming games. got the feeling it wasnt going anywhere i wanted to go so i didnt play terribly far.
i get that this game is probably not for everyone - its gameplay systems don't go deep the way harvest moon or stardew valley do. but that's exactly why i loved it. before the green moon is not a game about you, it's a game in which you decide to spend some time before leaving on your own terms. you are not a hero; you are not a leader. you are just another person, living your life, trying to do the best you can. it's human, it's melancholic, it's one of the most beautiful game experiences i've ever had.
Before the Green Moon is a beautiful game. Relationships unfold slowly and gently, but the pace of the game around the busywork of farming and gathering provides structure. For a large chunk of the game's time (which, for me, lasted about 9 or 10 hours), it seemed like there was at least one new encounter or discovery each day. The ending also provided me with a feeling of nervous excitement that I get before a big trip. Few games are this emotionally engaging.
I thought I had this game figured out before I even played it. Harvest Green Moon: Friends from a Ghost Town. Self-cultivation via land cultivation. “The only thing that’s actually still growing is capitalism.” (Necro)pastoral mono no aware. The expectation that you’ll know the exact moment when you have to trigger the ending, even if you still kind of want more, or still want to linger so badly, because Turnfollow. In the end, it’s all these things, anyway, and it offers much to essay about one or all these angles.
But no, after another run with it, I think the angle that’s illuminating new things for me, the one that’s turning my initial approval for it into something closer to affection, is the angle that frames this game as a game that wants to explore desire. About desire clarifying itself, contradicting itself, configuring and being reconfigured, settling in, being settled, being satisfied, yet also being stirred to uneasiness, often by itself, being relinquished finally. Most of all it’s a game about desire being unfurled from material considerations, poured out of specifically-shaped receptacles, allowed to insist and to persist and to chance upon an individual more ethereally.
Because yes, your initial goal and your ultimate goal are the same: you want to earn enough scrip so you can buy a ticket to the moon. And yes, this game only has one ending, and it involves you accomplishing that goal. But be that as it may, you’re not really going to spend much of your playtime with this goal in mind. Rather, you’ll be spending much of your playtime being a member of a peculiar community: being served meals by a cook who wants no compensation of any kind, hanging out with a kid who introduced themselves by saying they don’t trust farmers, falling in love with someone who was so sure that she was going to leave, and that she was going to leave soon. Yet she’s still here. And the time she has outside of work is usually spent with you.
Putting it like that, it sounds like the game is making you consider the possibility of staying, that the moon isn’t the only place for you, that where you currently are might even be the better option. It even externalizes this through the characters. Carol remarks that you’ve become a great fit for the community. Marshall is observed as being worried about what will happen to you in the future. Pony practically begs you to stay, even as she tries to obscure it in distantiating language. All this, even as they anticipate your future departure. It was inevitable, of course, for me to weigh this heavily on my mind. Do I stay or do I go? Do I convince Pony to go with me if I do go (I eventually find out that wasn’t even an option)? It was already emotional for me to pass by the area where the Moon Elevator was located on a rainy evening. To do nothing and just take that moment in as both the music and the rain swelled, to let the game run until it transported me back to my room. It became all the more wistful as this town started to become more like a home.
And yet, as felt as this aspect was for me, much of my fascination with Before the Green Moon isn’t even here exactly, in this idea that it’s making you choose between two places. Instead, it’s in the idea that it’s problematizing what a place even is. It’s a game that’s interested in the liminal: a ghost town that grows life for the moon, abandoned yet needed, place and placelessness, a community where a member is both stranger and friend, living to work and working to live, scrip for today and scrip for the future, permanence and lastingness, something out of nothing, everything despite nothing, what is now and what is awaiting, even if they might end up being one and the same. The characters are conditioned by this, of course. Maria considers this a perfect place for her, though she sometimes wishes she could travel. In one of her key scenes, she shares that she came from an island that no longer exists. You ask her if leaving was the right choice, and she simply answers she doesn’t know. Int, meanwhile, seems to always be informed by where he ought to be. He is working on this thing because it will bring him there, he is heeding the words of his Granny because she will bring him there. Yet later on, without any real climactic event that you can pinpoint and say, “Yes, this is where everything changed for him,” he says something like, “I’m a different person now. Are you a different person too?” These people are currently living lives here, and the game never declares if they’re the lives they should be living or if they had lives they didn’t get to live, only that these are their lives now, and while their pasts may point to something that was lost or something that was foundational, what is here is what is the now and the currently happening.
The whole game behaves this way. It hints at current experiences textured by what was, but it's not clutching onto the past, instead sets it aside so that what will be can be in a community like this. Even the things that are really just there to mechanically convenience the player seem to be pointing towards something. You have a dwelling, but you can sleep anywhere where there’s a bench and no one will chastise you for it. There are shelves in places where you don’t expect them, and you can use them for storage. Who set them up? To whom do they belong now? To no one and to everyone, of course. This is a country without a flag.
The game only has one ending, and it involves you going to the moon. Yet despite that knowledge, it seems to invite you to stay instead. Why is it doing that? And why doesn't it just make it easier for me by framing it as a binary choice, where I can just choose the Moon ending or the Town one? Is it making me ask what it is that I really want, making me examine what it is that makes something important to me? Is it making me purify my intentions, by making me question if there is something postponing for, if staying for a bit longer is even postponement? Is that why there’s this otherworldly moon lore that the game refuses to elaborate upon but nonetheless drip feeds you with, at one point shoves in your face? Does that have a thread I can follow to a tangible end? Does a formalized tangibility even matter at all, or is it enough if all this is just presenting a metagaming angle, one that allows me to write an ending for myself, and which can feel as equally realized as the only real, which is to say official, ending? I still don’t know. Maybe I can’t know. Maybe both the game and I knew from the start that it was not for me to be able to know. It’s disconcerting in its uncertainty yet I’m driven to wonder. That’s desire, baby.
But no, after another run with it, I think the angle that’s illuminating new things for me, the one that’s turning my initial approval for it into something closer to affection, is the angle that frames this game as a game that wants to explore desire. About desire clarifying itself, contradicting itself, configuring and being reconfigured, settling in, being settled, being satisfied, yet also being stirred to uneasiness, often by itself, being relinquished finally. Most of all it’s a game about desire being unfurled from material considerations, poured out of specifically-shaped receptacles, allowed to insist and to persist and to chance upon an individual more ethereally.
Because yes, your initial goal and your ultimate goal are the same: you want to earn enough scrip so you can buy a ticket to the moon. And yes, this game only has one ending, and it involves you accomplishing that goal. But be that as it may, you’re not really going to spend much of your playtime with this goal in mind. Rather, you’ll be spending much of your playtime being a member of a peculiar community: being served meals by a cook who wants no compensation of any kind, hanging out with a kid who introduced themselves by saying they don’t trust farmers, falling in love with someone who was so sure that she was going to leave, and that she was going to leave soon. Yet she’s still here. And the time she has outside of work is usually spent with you.
Putting it like that, it sounds like the game is making you consider the possibility of staying, that the moon isn’t the only place for you, that where you currently are might even be the better option. It even externalizes this through the characters. Carol remarks that you’ve become a great fit for the community. Marshall is observed as being worried about what will happen to you in the future. Pony practically begs you to stay, even as she tries to obscure it in distantiating language. All this, even as they anticipate your future departure. It was inevitable, of course, for me to weigh this heavily on my mind. Do I stay or do I go? Do I convince Pony to go with me if I do go (I eventually find out that wasn’t even an option)? It was already emotional for me to pass by the area where the Moon Elevator was located on a rainy evening. To do nothing and just take that moment in as both the music and the rain swelled, to let the game run until it transported me back to my room. It became all the more wistful as this town started to become more like a home.
And yet, as felt as this aspect was for me, much of my fascination with Before the Green Moon isn’t even here exactly, in this idea that it’s making you choose between two places. Instead, it’s in the idea that it’s problematizing what a place even is. It’s a game that’s interested in the liminal: a ghost town that grows life for the moon, abandoned yet needed, place and placelessness, a community where a member is both stranger and friend, living to work and working to live, scrip for today and scrip for the future, permanence and lastingness, something out of nothing, everything despite nothing, what is now and what is awaiting, even if they might end up being one and the same. The characters are conditioned by this, of course. Maria considers this a perfect place for her, though she sometimes wishes she could travel. In one of her key scenes, she shares that she came from an island that no longer exists. You ask her if leaving was the right choice, and she simply answers she doesn’t know. Int, meanwhile, seems to always be informed by where he ought to be. He is working on this thing because it will bring him there, he is heeding the words of his Granny because she will bring him there. Yet later on, without any real climactic event that you can pinpoint and say, “Yes, this is where everything changed for him,” he says something like, “I’m a different person now. Are you a different person too?” These people are currently living lives here, and the game never declares if they’re the lives they should be living or if they had lives they didn’t get to live, only that these are their lives now, and while their pasts may point to something that was lost or something that was foundational, what is here is what is the now and the currently happening.
The whole game behaves this way. It hints at current experiences textured by what was, but it's not clutching onto the past, instead sets it aside so that what will be can be in a community like this. Even the things that are really just there to mechanically convenience the player seem to be pointing towards something. You have a dwelling, but you can sleep anywhere where there’s a bench and no one will chastise you for it. There are shelves in places where you don’t expect them, and you can use them for storage. Who set them up? To whom do they belong now? To no one and to everyone, of course. This is a country without a flag.
The game only has one ending, and it involves you going to the moon. Yet despite that knowledge, it seems to invite you to stay instead. Why is it doing that? And why doesn't it just make it easier for me by framing it as a binary choice, where I can just choose the Moon ending or the Town one? Is it making me ask what it is that I really want, making me examine what it is that makes something important to me? Is it making me purify my intentions, by making me question if there is something postponing for, if staying for a bit longer is even postponement? Is that why there’s this otherworldly moon lore that the game refuses to elaborate upon but nonetheless drip feeds you with, at one point shoves in your face? Does that have a thread I can follow to a tangible end? Does a formalized tangibility even matter at all, or is it enough if all this is just presenting a metagaming angle, one that allows me to write an ending for myself, and which can feel as equally realized as the only real, which is to say official, ending? I still don’t know. Maybe I can’t know. Maybe both the game and I knew from the start that it was not for me to be able to know. It’s disconcerting in its uncertainty yet I’m driven to wonder. That’s desire, baby.
it's refreshing to see a game so loose on the guided experience, allowing you to figure out the world for yourself, which also aptly suits the plot and major theme of the game.
Maybe I gamified my experience too much, but at some points I felt like I was simply cutscene-hunting by visiting every area at every time of day. Ironically this was because I had enough money to buy things I wanted, I wasn't buying many things anyways, and farming became a bit boring.
Instead, I was just buying these things I don't even need just because I sort of wanted to have them. It felt like things weren't changing. Days and days passed before I knew it.
...writing that out, it sort of reminds me of how my own life has felt recently.
Was that the point of the game?
Is there a point to the game?
Is it okay for games to not have a "point", a reason behind why we are spending our time with them?
Hmm...
Maybe I gamified my experience too much, but at some points I felt like I was simply cutscene-hunting by visiting every area at every time of day. Ironically this was because I had enough money to buy things I wanted, I wasn't buying many things anyways, and farming became a bit boring.
Instead, I was just buying these things I don't even need just because I sort of wanted to have them. It felt like things weren't changing. Days and days passed before I knew it.
...writing that out, it sort of reminds me of how my own life has felt recently.
Was that the point of the game?
Is there a point to the game?
Is it okay for games to not have a "point", a reason behind why we are spending our time with them?
Hmm...
The thing that impresses me most about this game is that every single element of it works in service of the message, which like, duh, that's how games are supposed to work, but this is the first time I've ever felt really aware of it. The gameplay and how it's structured sucked me into the world until I felt like WAS a small farmer living in this post collapse world... and once I was there, I understood what they were trying to tell me.
The actual farming simulator is bare bones, only a handful of crops to choose from and outside of planting/watering them there's not much to tending them, but it's not the most fun part of the game. It's the player's /job/, not their life. Ostensibly you're working to save up money for an elevator ticket to the moon, a place your character has a connection to I won't spoil, but they earn the money really quickly and could probably leave the town in like under a year. They won't though.
The real fun of the game comes from poking around town and getting to know the locals, who are a very well-developed cast of characters. The cutscenes involving them are unlocked simply by being in the right place at the right time- though you can give them items as well, but I'm unclear if this actually has any impact on your relationship with them (and I kind of prefer the ambiguity). These scenes are just ordinary situations like sitting on the porch sharing a drink with someone, but they're written with such charm and sincerity that they wind up being riveting to witness.
(I think I realized that they had me when I accidentally gave away an item worth 10,000 credits to an NPC and felt /happy/ about it because the two lines of dialogue he gave me meant more than the money would have.)
In particular, Before The Green Moon has one of the best written romances I've seen in any videogame... like there is genuine HEAT between these characters at times. I don't want to spoil anything but there was a scene where I just got to click to slowly walk towards someone and it somehow made me wanna melt inside. I would grow a million different vegetables just to make Elvis smile.
The amount of time you have to do things is just tight enough to force you to make choices- multiple times in the game I wound up being late for or even missing certain events I was looking forwards to because I had sunk too much time into my harvest. But this just made me value everything more because I really felt like I had earned it whenever I found the time to relax and explore.
Speaking of exploring, I loved the world of this game. The setting is like... post-apocalyptic, but in a soft way. The worldbuilding is subtle (mainly fleshed out through context clues in conversations with NPCs) but the game doesn't hide how hard your character's life was before this or what a sad state the rest of the world is in- but as you walk through your dilapidated little outpost and over exposed pipes and ruined buildings and see the way their edges have softened and grasses have begun to reclaim them for nature, it's hard not to feel like maybe the world is okay after all.
The art is scrumptious- it's far from realistic but it has a clear style and it does more to suck you into the world and make it feel truly otherworldly than more traditionally "good" graphics would. The world is awash with soft tones of greens, browns, and greys, which are easy on the eyes and contribute to the relaxed, rustic feel of the world, and the soundtrack is lovely as well.
It's a town where you could easily make a life for yourself, and that's what I did! After ten or so hours of playing I had made friends and settled into a routine that I was carrying out day after day. I had a loving partner, I knew what exactly I had to do every day, and it was peaceful.
But here's the thing: eventually, I ran out of things to do. I exhausted every cut scene, bought every item, and I was just be farming endless crops to collect tons of money I couldn't do anything with. At a certain point I had even stopped farming entirely and just spent my day running between various areas to try to make something happen, and I had to accept that buying the ticket to the moon and getting on the elevator was the only way to unlock new dialogues and cutscenes. And really, isn't that the point?
You'll never be able to see the full potential of the game, of the world, unless you're willing to make the decision to leave it. The characters have words for you that you'll never get to hear unless they're accompanied by a "goodbye." The ending /is/ a part of the story, and you can't deny it forever.
Or maybe you can! I'm marking the game as complete but I didn't technically beat the game because I didn't have the guts to get on the elevator... yet. I probably will at some point, but I like that it's my decision when to do so. Just let me be at peace for a little bit longer before I have to move on with life.
Also, just a hot tip for anyone who hasn't played the game, I know there are a bunch of references to baseball throughout the game but the developers said in an interview that it's all for a cut storyline so don't bother with it.
The actual farming simulator is bare bones, only a handful of crops to choose from and outside of planting/watering them there's not much to tending them, but it's not the most fun part of the game. It's the player's /job/, not their life. Ostensibly you're working to save up money for an elevator ticket to the moon, a place your character has a connection to I won't spoil, but they earn the money really quickly and could probably leave the town in like under a year. They won't though.
The real fun of the game comes from poking around town and getting to know the locals, who are a very well-developed cast of characters. The cutscenes involving them are unlocked simply by being in the right place at the right time- though you can give them items as well, but I'm unclear if this actually has any impact on your relationship with them (and I kind of prefer the ambiguity). These scenes are just ordinary situations like sitting on the porch sharing a drink with someone, but they're written with such charm and sincerity that they wind up being riveting to witness.
(I think I realized that they had me when I accidentally gave away an item worth 10,000 credits to an NPC and felt /happy/ about it because the two lines of dialogue he gave me meant more than the money would have.)
In particular, Before The Green Moon has one of the best written romances I've seen in any videogame... like there is genuine HEAT between these characters at times. I don't want to spoil anything but there was a scene where I just got to click to slowly walk towards someone and it somehow made me wanna melt inside. I would grow a million different vegetables just to make Elvis smile.
The amount of time you have to do things is just tight enough to force you to make choices- multiple times in the game I wound up being late for or even missing certain events I was looking forwards to because I had sunk too much time into my harvest. But this just made me value everything more because I really felt like I had earned it whenever I found the time to relax and explore.
Speaking of exploring, I loved the world of this game. The setting is like... post-apocalyptic, but in a soft way. The worldbuilding is subtle (mainly fleshed out through context clues in conversations with NPCs) but the game doesn't hide how hard your character's life was before this or what a sad state the rest of the world is in- but as you walk through your dilapidated little outpost and over exposed pipes and ruined buildings and see the way their edges have softened and grasses have begun to reclaim them for nature, it's hard not to feel like maybe the world is okay after all.
The art is scrumptious- it's far from realistic but it has a clear style and it does more to suck you into the world and make it feel truly otherworldly than more traditionally "good" graphics would. The world is awash with soft tones of greens, browns, and greys, which are easy on the eyes and contribute to the relaxed, rustic feel of the world, and the soundtrack is lovely as well.
It's a town where you could easily make a life for yourself, and that's what I did! After ten or so hours of playing I had made friends and settled into a routine that I was carrying out day after day. I had a loving partner, I knew what exactly I had to do every day, and it was peaceful.
But here's the thing: eventually, I ran out of things to do. I exhausted every cut scene, bought every item, and I was just be farming endless crops to collect tons of money I couldn't do anything with. At a certain point I had even stopped farming entirely and just spent my day running between various areas to try to make something happen, and I had to accept that buying the ticket to the moon and getting on the elevator was the only way to unlock new dialogues and cutscenes. And really, isn't that the point?
You'll never be able to see the full potential of the game, of the world, unless you're willing to make the decision to leave it. The characters have words for you that you'll never get to hear unless they're accompanied by a "goodbye." The ending /is/ a part of the story, and you can't deny it forever.
Or maybe you can! I'm marking the game as complete but I didn't technically beat the game because I didn't have the guts to get on the elevator... yet. I probably will at some point, but I like that it's my decision when to do so. Just let me be at peace for a little bit longer before I have to move on with life.
Also, just a hot tip for anyone who hasn't played the game, I know there are a bunch of references to baseball throughout the game but the developers said in an interview that it's all for a cut storyline so don't bother with it.
An absolutely wonderful game.
It decontructs the "farming sim" genre that's been an indie craze ever since Stardew Valley hit the scene, and instead chooses to focus on a struggling little community where the rampant capitalist idealism of other farming sims has flat out failed. The people here don't live in luxury, and struggle living on this outpost that is simply there to play host to the upper class Moon people that visit every once in a while.
Your exponential economic growth only serves for you to get to this Moon yourself, only drawing you away from this idyllic little life on this planet, is it wise to strive for this goal? Is this growth even what you want?
The people here might not be able to strive for anything more, but they've managed to be happy, and you've managed to become one of them! Why not stay?
Honestly, connecting to the characters and being part in this little world was a wonderful experience - and the slow exit as Venus plays in the background was heartwrenching as I reflected on the home I'd made for myself in Before the Green moon
It decontructs the "farming sim" genre that's been an indie craze ever since Stardew Valley hit the scene, and instead chooses to focus on a struggling little community where the rampant capitalist idealism of other farming sims has flat out failed. The people here don't live in luxury, and struggle living on this outpost that is simply there to play host to the upper class Moon people that visit every once in a while.
Your exponential economic growth only serves for you to get to this Moon yourself, only drawing you away from this idyllic little life on this planet, is it wise to strive for this goal? Is this growth even what you want?
The people here might not be able to strive for anything more, but they've managed to be happy, and you've managed to become one of them! Why not stay?
Honestly, connecting to the characters and being part in this little world was a wonderful experience - and the slow exit as Venus plays in the background was heartwrenching as I reflected on the home I'd made for myself in Before the Green moon
Before the Green Moon effortlessly distills a moment of life in all of its harsh, tearing, enduring beauty. It is the rare kind of game which promises that you never have to say goodbye to wonderful people you meet, and it says so with as much cruel sincerity as someone would in real life.
If you can truly open your heart, please pick up this beautiful game. Play it and reflect on where you're at, and why you're going. I promise it is worth your time.
If you can truly open your heart, please pick up this beautiful game. Play it and reflect on where you're at, and why you're going. I promise it is worth your time.
Very pretty, with great writing and in-the-moment-being. Characters are fantastic.
I played 11 hours, which is frankly way too long. Interesting stuff was very rare after 6. I didn't want to go to the moon and I thought I would see it out, so maybe that's my fault. They basically say "living here will be boring". It sure is.
I might have stuck with it if the game didn't teleport me back home right before the year 3 moon-watching get-together because I was 10 feet from the mountaintop when the clock struck. What's the point of that? It really hurt.
I played 11 hours, which is frankly way too long. Interesting stuff was very rare after 6. I didn't want to go to the moon and I thought I would see it out, so maybe that's my fault. They basically say "living here will be boring". It sure is.
I might have stuck with it if the game didn't teleport me back home right before the year 3 moon-watching get-together because I was 10 feet from the mountaintop when the clock struck. What's the point of that? It really hurt.
I think its fair to say that indie farm sims are a tad overexposed at the moment, which is why it was lovely to play a game that felt as fresh and original in what it used the farm sim mechanics to achieve as Before the Green Moon.
I am not quite familiar with Turnfollow's output but at a glance they seem to make mainly narrative focused adventure games. That tracks because for all of its farm sim-iness Before the Green Moon is definitely more narrative focused than its contemporaries.
So whilst your overall goal in this SciFi world is to make enough money to take the space elevator to the seemingly more prosperous Green Moon through the usual farming stuff, the real meat and potatoes of the game is the cast of characters who inhabit the town and their interactions with the player, who as is the case with a lot of these types of games seems to bring everyone closer with their arrival overtime. This is conveyed in an understated way though, because if there is a word that characterizes these people and their interactions its "mundane"
Not since Wayward Strand have I seen in a game such wonderfully mundane, subtle and human characters who's short interactions and slowly getting to know them in a (lets say non-linear way) feels a lot more real and true to life than getting them to monologue about their innermost feelings after gifting them 10 apples.
Relatedly, It feels refreshing to have a farm sim with a romantic interest with the player which is developed simply by... well the characters developing a friendship/courtship between them, not a gamified "relationship ranked up!" type system. Not that I am fully against those, I have enjoyed those systems in Stardew Valley in the past but I think the alternative is better.
On the gameplay side of things you might be disappointed if you're expecting a super in depth farm sim, its fairly basic and I got very rich very fast (hot tip, buy the tri watering can ASAP, also save up for the rain poncho). Some of the mechanics/events are poorly explained and as with all Harvest Moon type games it feels a bit overwhelming at first when this entire town is thrown at you to get familiar with, but you slide into it after a few days.
The game's aesthetic is definitely going for a retro 6th gen look and I like the earthy tones used in the farm and forest with hints of green, with the town being the greenest of all with splotches of white, brown and blue. I found it appealing. The music is alright too.
Before the Green Moon has been sitting on my wishlist since it came out in March this year and Im glad I finally got to it, my expectations where not atmittedly super high for it but it definitely surpassed them and I am eager to check out the rest of Turnfollow's games
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfp2O9ADwGk
I am not quite familiar with Turnfollow's output but at a glance they seem to make mainly narrative focused adventure games. That tracks because for all of its farm sim-iness Before the Green Moon is definitely more narrative focused than its contemporaries.
So whilst your overall goal in this SciFi world is to make enough money to take the space elevator to the seemingly more prosperous Green Moon through the usual farming stuff, the real meat and potatoes of the game is the cast of characters who inhabit the town and their interactions with the player, who as is the case with a lot of these types of games seems to bring everyone closer with their arrival overtime. This is conveyed in an understated way though, because if there is a word that characterizes these people and their interactions its "mundane"
Not since Wayward Strand have I seen in a game such wonderfully mundane, subtle and human characters who's short interactions and slowly getting to know them in a (lets say non-linear way) feels a lot more real and true to life than getting them to monologue about their innermost feelings after gifting them 10 apples.
Relatedly, It feels refreshing to have a farm sim with a romantic interest with the player which is developed simply by... well the characters developing a friendship/courtship between them, not a gamified "relationship ranked up!" type system. Not that I am fully against those, I have enjoyed those systems in Stardew Valley in the past but I think the alternative is better.
On the gameplay side of things you might be disappointed if you're expecting a super in depth farm sim, its fairly basic and I got very rich very fast (hot tip, buy the tri watering can ASAP, also save up for the rain poncho). Some of the mechanics/events are poorly explained and as with all Harvest Moon type games it feels a bit overwhelming at first when this entire town is thrown at you to get familiar with, but you slide into it after a few days.
The game's aesthetic is definitely going for a retro 6th gen look and I like the earthy tones used in the farm and forest with hints of green, with the town being the greenest of all with splotches of white, brown and blue. I found it appealing. The music is alright too.
Before the Green Moon has been sitting on my wishlist since it came out in March this year and Im glad I finally got to it, my expectations where not atmittedly super high for it but it definitely surpassed them and I am eager to check out the rest of Turnfollow's games
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfp2O9ADwGk