Before The Green Moon

Before The Green Moon (2023) is a farming simulation set on a planet you are about to leave. Although play is the usual farming fare, what's actually happening is a conversational narrative game about making connections while you adapt to the strange seasons. It stands out for using simple money-making tasks to underline dislocated relationships and misguided desires to succeed.

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It's a retro game that intentionally looks dated in the way of Harvest Moon games from years gone by. As you create your character and ride into town you start to learn about the inner drives and fears of your character. You get to work meeting the locals (a helpful administrator, a handsome chef and a plant designer), planting and tending to crops and building up resources. But soon you discover that all this effort is to earn your ticket to the moon - and be part of the mysterious society "up there".

As you progress you work to explore the farming community and the surrounding areas. Along with upgrading the equipment and making farming more efficient, you learn to deal with the 24-hour day/night cycle, dynamic weather and integrated storytelling. But this is as much about exploring and narrative as it is farming. In fact, exploring and collecting earns good money - as well as discovering more characters and narrative.

The result is a game that's much more than another farming simulator. The motivation of earning your place on the moon and the disconnection of that place give proceedings a deeper narrative.

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Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Before The Green Moon 6 months ago. It was re-examined by Ollie Robertson and updated 10 weeks ago.