The Dark Side of the Moon Review
There exists a strange subset of video games that is more rare these days but has never been very common. Instead of using created graphics, they use video of real people acting out the scenes. This technique is known as Full-Motion Video, or FMV, and games that use this method primarily are called FMV games. I have never heard an unironically good thing said about FMV games so I’ve stayed away from them, but that wasn’t very difficult as few are made these days. But, like trying pickled herring for the first time in case I like it, I thought I would try an FMV game this week thanks to the release of The Dark Side of the Moon, a new game from English indie developer Tayanna Studios.
The Dark Side of the Moon tells the story of Dean Hamilton, a single father and possible alcoholic. After seeing a strange light in the sky, Dean wakes up to discover his two children, Ruby and Andy, are missing. Not content to wait on the police, and who can blame him, Dean takes the search into his own hands. As he searches his sleepy village of Marywine, he draws the attentions of hacker Alyx and something far more insidious. Worse, he discovers that his family might not be exactly what he thought they were.
Players will become intimately familiar with this scene of Dean’s hallway as it must be passed through every time they leave or enter his house.
Because The Dark Side of the Moon is a point-and-click adventure game there isn’t a whole lot of game play. Typically, there will be a selection of movement options on the left side, the player’s inventory at the top of the screen, and occasionally an interact button in the bottom right. Most of this is normal for the genre, as anyone who played Thimbleweed Park or Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon will know, save for the interact button. As far as I’ve experienced, scenes in point-and-click adventure games have more than one interaction point and often have ways the player can attempt to use items in their inventory on things present in a scene. The Dark Side of the Moon only having at most one interact point in a scene makes the them feel empty and flattens the interaction. There was also a moment where this system led to my most frustrating point with the game. At one point, Dean investigates a scene and finds an item that is clearly a component to a larger object, but the interaction button is no longer present at that point meaning the player is done with the scene. If the player then takes the item to another character, they will say it needs more pieces and Dean should try to find more. So Dean has to go back to the place where he found the first item where he will find a second item they are to be used with. This was frustrating enough on its own, because if it was there all along I would have liked to be able to retrieve it at the same time as the first piece, but is doubly irksome because the scene shows that both items were on the same table in plain sight. I cannot comprehend why the developer decided to make these items found in this way.
Another aspect of The Dark Side of the Moon that confuses me is the way Dean acts. To be clear, I’m not referring to the quality of acting. Because this game has actual video of people acting, that might be in question, but I’m not critiquing that. What I mean is the writing. Very soon after discovering his kids are gone, Dean investigates a nearby park and discovers his daughter’s favorite toy there. Immediately after, he encounters a woman who tells him “Please calm down, I can explain.” Dean confronts her, frightening her enough that she runs away but he doesn’t pursue her. I’m not a parent, but allowing a person who apparently has information on your vanished children and is potentially their abductor doesn’t seem like great parenting behavior. I polled five of my friends who were parents, as well as my own, and all of them thought Dean behaved incoherently and neglectful. Alyx’s writing is troubling as well, but for a different reason. Though it is never stated outright, Alyx seems to have been written as a neurodivergent character, but not from any informed point of view. The character speaks unnaturally rapidly, is more easily frightened into silence, and brings up off topic facts in the middle of serious conversations. Based on the actor’s social media and previous works, it doesn’t seem like this is a condition she has in real life, which makes the writing for the role feel weird and uncomfortable.
The writing is lacking beyond character’s action and dialogue, the story itself is bizarre, but I do want to start with an aspect of it I did like. Despite the game’s antagonist Gedeon being extremely powerful, he doesn’t use that power to eliminate Dean, save for one of the game’s secret endings, but the game does a good job of explaining why. Though he ultimately has an objective, he goes about it in a way that causes Dean the most pain because he finds cruel enjoyment in his suffering. Gedeon’s indulgent sadism is both good characterization as well as a useful narrative tool. Too often villains break character and basic logic in their plans, but I appreciated the way Gedeon was written. Unfortunately, that was the only part of the story I did like. The antagonist’s plan and Dean’s family’s connection to it are strange and unoriginal. I won’t get into the details, but I will say that the story of The Dark Side of the Moon has been done before and, while this isn’t the worst version of it, it’s definitely not the best. The importance of a solar eclipse in the plan is both outlandish and never explained. The thing that stuck out to me most was a device Dean discovers near the end of the game. This device is capable of amazing things, but its existence is never justified in the writing and any explanation I can come up with breaks other aspects of the story. I know writing isn’t easy, but this script badly needs an editor.
I always feel bad about negatively reviewing a game and that’s doubly true this week because developer Tayanna Studios is run by a husband and wife and this is only the second game they’ve made. These two also play two of the main characters, Dean and Sarah, and their children play Andy and Ruby. I genuinely think this is very sweet and I hope they don’t let my negative opinions keep them from making more games. But between a confused plot, poor writing, and flawed gameplay, I just can’t recommend buying this game at any price, except if you want to support an adorably family-oriented game studio. Honestly I couldn’t fault you for that decision.
Don’t buy this game
I hate to say it, but there’s nothing here worth paying for
