I'm not quite done with it but I'm most of the way there. running around this castle in increasingly speedy and technical ways is very fun and being able to perform some crazy stunt that the game (might not have) asked me to do is compelling in its own right. there were times where I forgot the location of a room I had wanted to backtrack to which was a pain in the ass (and I imagine it was even more of a pain in the ass before a map was implemented)
still, re-running throuuh the corridors is pretty fun if I don't think about how I'm wasting my time on this earth.

oh I also play this game with the sound off and an album on. the best pairings were Betty Davis's They Say I'm Different and Laurie Anderson's Mister Heartbreak.

before the green moon is a sweet blend of increasingly popular inspirations that is used to support an moving personal narrative in an imaginative world. I sense hints of harvest moon, moon remix RPG, Boku no natsuyasumi, and diaries of a spaceport janitor in its gameplay DNA, though it doesn't ever attempt to just be a clone of any of those. the game is here to put you in the shoes of a denizen of a forgotten planet, someone who feels they have nothing left in their homeland, who plans to move to The Moon where things are happening. to get there though you have to earn some cash, which is a bit of a foreign concept to some on this planet. you see, most people on the planet live in some sort of commune. their structure and rules vary, but most are smaller than our current human settlements and they place larger emphasis on the individual. anyways, as the protagonist, you have to farm to earn money, and to farm you have to get to know the town. all of the narrative conflict stems from the connections you make throughout the game, which have a hint of sadness to them since, if you go through with your original plan, they're all relationships destined to end. it's compelling and the writing is really sweet. I recommend the game to basically anyone tbh.

(I have some gripes with how the last few weeks of my playthrough were handled but I'll keep this review spoiler-free)