I’m the type with a narrative-itch, always wanting to scratch it furiously as though it’s swelling from a stinging nettle. My favourite game is narrative-focused, I often buy games that have a strong story in them (even if their mechanics is lacking) and the more memorable games each year are more often than not due to their writing. So when Moon Hunters hit Kickstarter, I backed it straight away, allured by the promise to forge my own myth. Sadly, sometimes, the mental picture of Kickstarter doesn’t match the reality.
Moon Hunters is a top-down action game with a narrative focus and some RPG elements, created by Kitfox Games after a successful Kickstarter. You play as one of five worshippers of the moon (or a sun cultist if you’re of that disposition) who faces a crisis of faith as after one religious feast the moon does not rise. You must then venture out and find out what became of it; while also forging your own legend to join the stars with.
This legend is carved through your actions alone. Sometimes a scenario will present itself like two people boasting their beauty, a hermit approaching you or finding a bubbling stew in an abandoned camp. You’ll pick between two one-word choices and then you’ll get ability increases (that affect combat activities) or a trait that unlocks future action options (e.g. stumbling into a cave with no concern for safety, care or logic requires bravery).
Sometimes the scenarios you stumble upon will stick with you on future adventures. After defeating a creature guarding the gates – to what I can only presume to be the underworld (there was a lot of screaming, I think?) – I gained the ability to talk to the dead for that campaign and future ones. As well as this, you can unlock the Sun Cultist and Songweaver (additional costumes and astrological symbols). In addition, your legacy will be remembered as your character will have their own tale of achievements among the stars.
My only grumble at the game’s focus, and it is a relatively minor one, is it rarely feels impactful. For all the choices you do, the game seems to forget to give you a reason to show empathy for its population. You’ll let people die in the desert without water, crumpling up their last note to their family, and never quite have that dramatic moment of “oh god, what have I done?”. Even the dramatic ending leaves a feeling of “well, that happened.” Despite this these concerns can be hand-waved away as being tales about the heroes and not the people around them.
Fortunately these heroes distinguish themselves in the gameplay. It is a top-down action game where each hero gets three abilities that may be upgraded at traders in exchange for glowing blue rocks (which hopefully aren’t radioactive). This simplistic design allows for players who are more interested in the myth-weaving the game promises to just dive into that aspect. The short nature of the game (about 1 – 1 ½ hours long) contributes to this, allowing you to replay over and over to tell different tales.
Those looking for a game that’ll push you to the edge will sadly remain disappointed. The game is pretty easy and has no difficulty sliders. In addition, the AI is less than satisfactory as sometimes enemies will run aimlessly into a rock, allowing them to be plinked from behind. However, sometimes the enemies will have the advantage, as every so often hit-detection with attacks wouldn’t work quite right and it’ll miss without reason. Overall, it feels generally unsatisfying to defeat foes due to these awkward touches with nothing noticeably positive from it.
I wish I could say this is where the awkward programming ends. Sadly the game is not well optimized because it takes a bizarre amount of time to load up (about 10 minutes for my computer). In addition to this, the game frequently crashes; often the autosaving feature saves me from rage-quitting the game and deleting it from my library. While there is online multiplayer, disappointingly this comes in the form of setting up your own server rather than integrating with Steam (although this is likely in favour of DRM-free copies). Fortunately local co-op is an option, but it generally makes for a frustrating time.
Although my frustrations are eased by an aesthetic that is just beautiful to look upon, each of the cutscenes and character portraits are done in a beautiful watercolour style that offers characterisation of the population that the narrative doesn’t quite offer.
I wanted to like this game more than I did, but it is wounded too much; Alas, it isn’t brought down by a single Achilles Heel but a large collection of smaller troublesome injuries. The crashing, the poor optimisation, the AI/collision difficulties are all problems that bright the game down badly, but the coup de grace is the inability of the narrative to bring me into its world. Despite interaction and affecting the population, I never felt invested with what was going on or that I’m even connected to it. I may as well of been looking at Moon Hunters from the other-side of a one-way mirror, putting my hand to the glass of which it would never see.
All these are potentially small things, but together they made the hunt for the moon tiresome. If you are prowling for a chance to carve a tale, perhaps The Yawhg would be a better game to track down.