Stories are nearly as ancient as humanity itself. As soon as we found our voice we did two things: we sang, and we told stories. We as human beings crave stories. We yearn to put things into narratives, to assign roles and place events in a narrative framework. You can spend a lifetime studying stories and the role they play in society, and some people have. Games are unique in that they are interactive stories where the player can have at least some influence in the character’s action with the best of them allowing players to create their own stories based on their own experiences. Some of my favorite stories have come from emergent gameplay situations, such as the Saga of the Tuff Boyz that was chronicled in our podcast. Moon Hunters takes this concept further, using a clever mix of procedural generation and player choice to allow them write the stories of their own characters through their action. Adding to that, the game’s unique Sumerian setting, an intriguing mythology seldom explored in video games, and you have a package that is very compelling, though hampered by its somewhat light gameplay.
Moon Hunters has you playing one of four heroes who are tasked by their village elders with finding the moon, which has vanished from the sky. You will then set out on a journey through a procedurally generated world to find the temple of the moon, and with it some answers. If you are like me, the words “procedurally generated” are an immediate red flag. It is not that there is anything wrong with the concept itself. It can be a great mechanic. But it is deceptively difficult to make a procedurally generated game that also plays well. The most common error developers make, in my experience, is to assume that procedural generation is completely random. Looking at the games that do it well, however, one can see that procedural generation done well is far from random. Luckily Moon Hunters falls in the positive camp. Kitfox Games seems to understand how to use procedural generation to keep the title feeling fresh through multiple plays, but not so random that a player would not be able to use what they learned in subsequent playthroughs.
At its very core, Moon Hunters is a game about stories. While your primary interaction with the game world will be via combat with the game’s monsters, there will also be a number of unique encounters in every level. These can range from simply having to answer a question to optional boss fights. Depending on your choices you will gain points towards your reputation. These reputations can open or close future events and perks in the future. For example, you might listen to a woman’s sorrowful tale and gain a reputation for being patient. On the next level you may find a tree in the middle of the forest, and as a patient adventurer you will be able to meditate and get boosts in your stats from it. A less patient character will not have this option. Not all of the choices will open up paths that will have major effects on your future playthroughs, but occasionally they will, giving you an incentive to try different paths and make different options every time you go through the adventure. The game likes to challenge those expectations. Some inconsequential conversation might open up whole new areas, while an encounter that seems vital will have very little effect beyond giving you some points towards your reputation.
This playful attitude is also used to great effect with the mythical inspirations that Moon Hunters draws from. Your adventures will see you attempting to fix marriages, finding old and forgotten races, matching wits with trickster spirits, seducing mythical creatures, defying the gods, and helping grieving mothers find closure. And after you complete a play through, you will get a cleverly written summary of your deeds seen through the lens of ancient histories. It is a tone that is reminiscent of an academic summary of a mythological hero. And this part of the game is fantastic. It gives you an incentive to try new things and play different ways through different play through beyond just finding out what can be unlocked.
Moon Hunters will allow you play with your friends as well, whether online or via couch coop (though that will require that you have multiple controllers for your PC). I found the design of the game for multiplayer to be simple and elegant. During each encounter each player can make their own decisions, and thus build their own reputation and craft their own stories, making it possible to avoid conflicts in the decisions. More importantly, the game skillfully approaches the way opals, the game’s currency used to buy upgrades, are shared. Specifically, every opal that is picked up is shared between each player, but each player gets to spend the total number of opals to buy upgrades. In other words, if between all the players the total number of opals picked up in a level are 400, then each player will get to spend 400 opals to buy on upgrades. This avoids having to compete with those who are ostensibly your allies for resources and upgrades, and makes the multiplayer smooth.
Unfortunately, the actual gameplay for Moon Hunters is very shallow. It is not necessarily bad, in fact I would say it is perfectly serviceable, but there is not just a lot to it. Each class has its own quirks and powers, but the learning curve is very gentle. Once you are past those awkward learning moments, and are familiar with them the game simply becomes a matter of managing it carefully. There is little to surprise you beyond anything that you will find in the first level, save for the occasional optional boss battles. While all of the classes start off the game being fairly weak and requiring some thought, the upgrades systems in the campsite at the end of the levels, and the upgrades that can be traded for opals will make them into unstoppable killing machines within just a few sections. This gets to the point where the final boss is all but trivial by the time you reach it. Moon Hunters is clearly designed to be played several times, and with each play through lasting about 45 minutes, you will see most of the enemies within a few runs, but still not be near finished with all the content the game has to offer. This means that after a few runs the central gameplay for the game will be a chore on the way to the aim of writing your own story.
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On the technical side the game ran fine for me, for the most part. There was a strange bug that would make my game crash on a loading screen when trying to load a game after quitting in the middle of a level. This has since been patched out, but I have seen reports of other issues since then. There is also a curious lack of polish in the game, such as the almost jarring way the game flows into cut scenes. There are small details that might indicate a rush to get the game finished by the release date, such as skill that has its description in Russian.
I have enjoyed Moon Hunters immensely. However, as a reviewer I must admit to my own biases. The idea of building the story of a mythical figure in a world based on Sumerian myths is something that I absolutely love. I can (and have) spent hours with this game, exploring its nuances, seeing the differences between the differences options and choices, and seeing all the small stories hidden in the game. But there is no denying that the gameplay of this game can be an insurmountable obstacle for people who are more interested in playing a mechanically sound ARPG. It is not terrible, but it is boring and uninteresting in a market filled with ARPG’s that do this better. I cannot blame any player who decides to skip it on these basis. However, if you are interested in the narrative aspects of this game enough that you think you will be able to tolerate its combat, I’d give this a go.
