Transcript

Voice 1 

Welcome to Spotlight. I’m Robin Basselin.

Voice 2 

And I’m Luke Haley. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people
to understand, no matter where in the world they live.

Voice 1 

Imagine something that you want to do with your life: a goal. Do you want to go somewhere
special? Do you want to work with particular people, or have a family?

Voice 2 

What if you were never able to complete your goals? Would you wish to live your life again? Many
people have asked questions like these over the centuries. But there is a recent video game that
looks at them in a new way. Today’s Spotlight is on the video game "To the Moon".

Voice 1 

Kan Gao lives in Canada. He is a video game designer. He made To the Moon. So far he has made
five games with his independent game company, Freebird Games. But he did not always design
video games. When Kan started, he was a college student. He studied business and computers. In
his extra time he wrote and made simple games. He used a program called RPG maker X. RPG is
short for Role Playing Game. In an RPG, people play a role, or character in a video game. The game
has a story that the character moves in and creates. The imaginary world of this story is very
important for these kinds of games.

Voice 2 

The story of To The Moon is very personal for Gao. The idea came from several tragic events in his
life. He says:

Voice 3 

“A few years ago, my grandfather went into hospital. He needed an immediate operation for a heart
condition. He survived the operation just fine. But when I visited him it made me understand that
these things are a part of life. This happens to everyone. It made me wonder: when it is my turn to
be lying there, will I question what I have done with my life?”

Voice 2 

These questions led Gao to make To the Moon. It took him a year and a half to make. For most of
that time, he was at university. He would go to classes, and do his homework. Then, he would work
late into the night on his project. Kan also wrote the music for the game. He says that doing both
made work on the game easier. When he was unable to finish part of the story, he would write
music for that part. And this would help him understand the story better. Music is a very important
part of the game. It helps communicate who the characters are. And it fills the story with emotion.

Voice 1 

The story that Gao finally wrote is about a group of scientists in the future. These scientists can go
into a person’s memory. They can change how a person remembers their life. But they can only do
so right before the person dies. In the game, a person plays as two of these scientists, Dr. Rosaline
and Dr. Watts. These two explore a dying person’s memory. His name is Johnny. As he is dying,
Johnny wishes that he had gone to the moon. The doctors cannot take him there. But they can
replace his memory. Their job is to make him believe that he did go to the moon.

Voice 2 

As the game continues, the player starts to learn more and more about Johnny. The player travels
back through his memories. The player sees Johnny when he was a small child. The player
witnesses the happiest and the most tragic periods of his life. But through it all the player wonders
why a person would have their memories replaced. What was so terrible that Johnny wanted to
forget? Is his goal so important that he would give up everything else in his life? Johnny’s story is
interesting because it makes us wonder: What is more important - the life that we live, or the one
that we might have lived?

Voice 1 

This story was very interesting, but Kan Gao was not sure that his game would be a success. For
one thing, the game did not look modern. The tool he used to create the game is not high quality.
Most people today think games created like this look old and strange.

Voice 2 

To the Moon also does not play like a traditional game. In most games the player causes events to
happen. In To the Moon, he witnesses events. But he does very little to change them. He guides the
doctors from one part of Johnny’s memory to another. But there is no way to lose. Because of this,
some people do not even think To the Moon is a real game.

Voice 1 

To the Moon is very different from other games. Most game companies have hundreds of people
working on a game. Each game costs millions of dollars to make. Kan Gao worked with just three
other people. His earlier games did not sell very well. But it had always been his dream to make
games. So he and the others at his company worked very hard to make the game as good as
possible. They released the game in 2011. No one expected it to be very popular, but it was a great
success! It even began to win awards. People who give expert opinions on games gave it good
reviews. They said To the Moon was different and interesting. They praised its music and its
beautiful story. Some even claimed that the game changed their lives. David Yeager of RPGfan.com
says:

Voice 4 

“There is joy in this game. It is the kind of joy that makes a grown man like me cry in front of his
computer. There is a wonder here that only the best films and books can provide. They make you
look at life a little bit differently for a while. They make you wonder how you ever forgot how
amazing it is to be alive, to simply exist. This game did that for me.”
Voice 2 

To the Moon was such a success that Kan Gao is now planning another game. He wants to
continue making stories about Dr. Rosaline and Dr. Watts. And now many video game players are
waiting to play his next game. He is still young, and has many years of making games left. But it
seems that by making a game about giving people their dreams, Kan Gao has come closer to living
his own.

Voice 1 

The writer of this program was Dan Christmann. The producer was Luke Haley. The voices you
heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted for this
program and voiced by Spotlight. You can listen to this program again, and read it, on the internet
at www.radioenglish.net. This program is called, ‘To The Moon’.

Voice 2 

Tell us what you think about today’s program. You can leave a comment on our website. Or email
us at radio@radioenglish.net. And find us on Facebook - just search for Spotlight Radio. We hope
you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye.

*The music in this program comes from the game "To the Moon", courtesy of Kan Gao