Thank you guys. c: I hope ya enjoy the game if you get to try it! And thanks to Dave & Neal for the write-up; I really appreciate it.

I'd totally be up for a game/soundtrack giveaway event for this community, by the way. Any ideas that'd be more fun than a random lottery draw?

It is!

Launch trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9Vo4m2yiIo
Launch poster: http://www.freebirdgames.com/images/To_the_Moon-launch-poster-lrg.png

Sorry for the delay here; I totally got buried by all the launch things. And now my sleeping schedule totally got flipped. :P I'll start sending some PMs of review copies and the like now!

Heheh, when it comes out perhaps!

I *might* be able to get it to Xbox Live eventually. o: Also going to try for Mac & Linux port sometimes next year.

@Saga: Hm true, it does seem rather Flash-like and out of place. I'm going to try to see if I can work out a better fit; thanks for the suggestion!

Thanks a lot for the support everyone. c': And Saga, all the music (including the announcement trailer's theme) can be found at http://freebirdgames.bandcamp.com/album/to-the-moon-ost

The official release date is set to November 1st, and preview/review copies will be available sometimes before that.

In the mean time, here's the 2nd and last trailer before launch -- it's less, uh. . . formal, and shows a different side of the game:

*Click*:


Hope you guys enjoy it! :D

Thank you very much for the support and giving it a chance, folks. :D Awesomely, To the Moon was sticked on Wired.com's front page earlier today.

I'll try to get a game-play trailer out soon; it's been due for a while now.

Edit: @Max: I may have! I can't remember if I saw its awesomely done opening before or after I started TtM, but I do remember being influenced by it in one way or another.

Many thanks, folks. Today was the first day of the press release, and things turned out rather pleasantly! Or rather, I'm still waiting on that backlash, heheh. It was very fortunately featured at numerous sites including TigSource, RPS and Indie Games blog, and got the trailer posted on Gamespot. It's pretty exciting since it's my first time with relatively large press exposure! I'll be working hard in the next couple of months to meet the expectations.

Edit: Oh, here's an interview for those who would like some more info on the game:
http://indiegameschannel.com/wp/2011/08/08/kan-gao-of-freebird-games-takes-us-to-the-moon/

You must! You must! You must increase yo-- Oh hey, the trailer's out. :)

*click*


Hope you folks enjoy it! I'm gonna go collapse in a heap now. Cheers~

I wrote this song about a super hero who protects crotches from being hit by hockey pucks. No further comments.


Mp3 Link: Click

LYRICS:
---------------
This is a story
A story about one man
One man from New York City
and his name is. . .
(his name is. . . )


In the New York City
there lived a man.
His name is Sixty
and he... he owned a van.

On Christmas day he noticed
that everyone around him
was getting hit in the crotch
by things like hockey pucks
and basketballs

So he put on a mask
and became the Cup of Wisp
He's always on his duty
wherever's a crotch-insecurity

Oh "AaAaAAaaAAaAaaahhh"
says a man as the puck flew closer
But CuuUUuUuUuuUuUUuUup
dives in front of the puck in his visor

. . . in ONLY his visor.


Yo little puck where you think you're going
The wind is blowin' and you ain't no slowin'

You're aimed at the crotch and he just can't dodge
But he got the cup that just won't budge

Won't you give up now
He ain't got yo' cow
Look back, say ciao
And hide that scowl

Just take a bow
Walk your Chow Chow
Call Mr. Plow
Let him teach your how

Cup gonna go pow
Make you realize now
You are the one
who has to say "ow"
 
Go ahead and meow
Or be kung pao'ed
Convert to Tao
Eat McDonald

Brow gow pough
Plough mao sprow
That's everything in the rhyme dictionary for now. . .

. . .

And "eeEEeEeEeEeEEEeeEep!"
Says the man as the puck flew to the crotch
But CuUUuUuuUuuUuuUuuuup
deflects the puck like a rubber duck kicked by a Chuck driven by a truck

And Christmas is saved.

For now.


----------
Merry Christmas and happy holidays, folks.

I think nowadays that games attributes are all over the place, it's more reasonable to use a fuzzy logic approach for categorizing genres. I can't speak for cookie cutter molds, but since the definitions of things are almost solely based on their acceptance of the mass at the time, here're my 2 cents of what personally comes to mind when I think of RPGs:

-Story-oriented
-Having maps/settings that you can actually walk around in, as opposed to static images
-Has more dialogues than most if not all other genres
-Battle/leveling/equipment systems
-Character-based

To me, the label of "adventure game" seems to immediately spawn the profile of Myst and Tomb Raider. So personally, I tend to categorize games that're dialogue/story-heavy in walkable map settings without battles as more of a "non-battle RPG" than "adventure game", despite missing one of the typical elements.

I think everyone's core definition of the genres is just highly affected by their personal experiences such as the first game they played of that genre, what they liked about it, etc. So when it gets into that mixed-up fuzzy logic scenario, people have different top priority attributes when trying to weight them to be placed in a recognizable yes/no basket.

P.S. Canadian here as well.

Hm yeah, apparently Google does look at those, but they may still not weight as much. How did you find out? By trying it out or finding some info on it? o:

And thanks guys. @Wild Armor: Speaking of soundtrack, I just finished a new song for it today. Most songs from the soundtrack are more video gamey (though still with orchestral instruments, as shown in the demo reel), this one's a bit more cinematic in style for a special scene. I don't get to write this type of music often for games, so it was pretty refreshing to do. c:

Anya by the Stars - MP3 [Click]



Hope ya like it.

Hey Phoenix. Yeah, spelling/grammar mistakes are definitely a big turn off for me too. I think with some of my old projects early on, I did have cases where rushed releases resulted in some unfixed errors, but I'm being very careful with this one. At the moment there isn't someone for proofreading specifically, but the alpha demo testers are reporting all the linguistic errors they can find which have been really helpful. None the less, if you'd like, it would definitely help. It's a really important aspect of story-heavy games, so someone to check it would really be appreciated. c:


Hm, there's something that's been worrying me a bit. . . The game's title doesn't seem to be very search-engine-friendly. Perhaps it's just because the website/threads for the game has just been made a few days ago, but at the moment the only way to google a page related to it (e.g. this thread or the main site made earlier this week) is to add "Freebird Games" at the end; even "To the Moon RPG" (or +adventure game) doesn't result in any relevant pages, despite all the other titles with "moon" (and dear lord there're a lot of them) don't start with "To the" and aren't RPG/adventure games.

Do you guys think when the game is actually released with some actual coverage, it'd make enough difference for it to be searchable?

The Queen of Blades by Galt Aureus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrnfXUeFFZo

I think it was something called Tibia. Looking back, I think social dynamics were actually a big part of the hook for that game; you could PK anywhere without any restrictions back then, and when you die you lose all your items and 10% of total life time experience pts. There were a lot of hardcore wars, and I think I've even seen some nasty server-wide wars that were like Americans vs. Brazilians (literally); tense stuff.