Discover what the moon’s hiding
A Trip to the Moon is a free adventure video game wherein you get to explore the moon. Developed by NamraGameDev, this 2D indie platformer is a direct homage to the classic 1902 French adventure short film directed by Georges Méliès, Le Voyage Dans la Lune. It has a beautiful hand-drawn art style that portrays a story-rich adventure. This game was made for the “Game Off 2020” contest and can be finished in a few minutes.
One of Méliès’ best work
It’s obvious from A Trip to the Moon’s title that it’s inspired by Le Voyage Dans la Lune, as that’s the English title of the movie. As such, this indie game is chock-full of film parallels—most especially the iconic scene wherein the space capsule lands on the moon’s eye. The movie is not only a great influence in the history of filmmaking, but it’s also making some waves on the indie scene with this game.
The game employs a black-and-white silent cartoon art style, and it even uses intertitles in silent movies to display the tutorial. The only new controls are for gliding, creating elevated surfaces, and attacking. Thus, controls like movement and jumps are just the standard W and D keys for left and right and the Spacebar—and these were no longer included in the tutorial. Outside of intertitles, the game’s story was portrayed through your level progression.
Your main goal is to reach the end of each area and continue to the next one. You can achieve this by bypassing enemies whenever you can—most especially the ones that charge at you with spears. If you die, you get taken back to the start of that small area to try again. However, any defeated enemies in it get respawned. It’s also annoying how you can’t rebind the keys.
A short whimsical journey
All in all, A Trip to the Moon is a wonderful indie game with beautiful graphics that does its inspiration justice. Even though you can’t configure any settings, the challenges it presents are actually enjoyable for a platformer game. More, the shortness of the gameplay doesn’t make the story any less fun. If you’re curious about a game version of Le Voyage Dans la Lune, then this is a highly recommended title to try out.
