It is time again for another post on the To The Moon Play-Along hosted by Naithin of Time to Loot. If you have no idea what I am talking about: this Play-Along is like a Book Club except with games. You can find more details as well as links to all the blogs participating here.
This time we’ll be tackling Act 2 of of To the Moon. I was already expecting it to be shorter than Act 1, thanks to the Play-Along discussion about the game but even then it still felt too short. On the other hand I don’t know how they could extend it without it feel like it was just wasting the player time. It also raised a lot more questions about Johnny’s situation than answered it. Hopefully everything will be tied up in Act 3.
WARNING: Spoilers ahead for Act 2 of To the Moon. Don’t read any further if you don’t want to be spoiled.
1. When Eva was sitting, thinking about the reasons nothing at all changed in Johnny’s simulated memories at all — what conclusions do you think she reached? What conclusion did you reach?
The impression I got was that Eva concluded that River did something for Johnny to forget his wish to go to the moon. Personally I don’t think Eva had anything to do with it but it was something related to his childhood. Probably something to do with those medications that has a side effect of forgetting memories.
I am also guessing about River’s death was the trigger for him to start remembering his wish. I just have no clue how exactly that would work though.
2. The block on the youngest memories and the use of beta blockers… What do you think this will be all about? (Or if you’ve played before; what did you think it was about?)
I am guessing Johnny got into some accident and had to take some medications for it. What kind of accident and/or medication? I have absolutely no clue! Nor why they would hide that kind of medical record.
If it was any other game I’d already be doing some conspiracy theories about it. But since this game tries to be as grounded as possible and isn’t about horrible organizations doing terrible things I am not doing any crazy theory on this! XD
3. What about Neil taking off for a moment while Eva returned with the… ahem… Contained dead squirrel odour? What could have been so important to him?
I am thinking it is the painkillers. Despite what he said I do think he has a case a case of addiction and wanted to hide it before Eva found out.
4. We still have the third act to come. What do you think it will focus on? (Or, if you’ve played before — what did you think Act 3 would be about before you got to see it for yourself?)
Probably on Johnny’s childhood which will answer his reasons to go to the moon. I am hoping it will also answer why River got into making origami of rabbits. But since it seems Johnny never got the answers himself and we are seeing everything from his point of view that seems like a long shot. But one can hope!
I’m still beyond shocked I’ve never picked-up on those painkillers. Like I said in my comment to Kim, I don’t remember now whether I later picked up on this through the clues in Finding Paradise or not — but I can’t wait to go into it again able to look for them with this little tidbit of knowledge.
I am surprised too because you can clearly see her throwing away the pills when she is trying to find the canister. It stands out pretty well too against the ground.
Now I am curious about what are these clues in Finding Paradise that you and Kim talked about. XD
I think it’s just too small on my screen. Playing in the fixed size window on an otherwise giant monitor. Like Jeromai calls out, it ends up being about 2 pixels in a sea of pixels. Hehe.
Could be! My monitor is still a 1980 x 1080 one so the pixels still feel about right for me.