#john vanderslice
went to post this song then found out i already fuckin did it! then i’ll post the song preceding it instead
Here are some of the inspirations for "Before The Green Moon". There are a lot, a LOT more but these are some of the most impactful and were forward in our minds when working on it.
Harvest Moon 64
Harvest Moon 64 taught me about small moments, time passing, subtlety and quietness. It taught me that you could find a story anywhere. That stories happened all around us whether we noticed or cared or didn't. A game could be just the stuff a story is made of. And as the player, you could reach in and pull out a lump of something and it would have meaning and you could fire it and it would sit on a shelf in your heart for the rest of your life. I wanted to know what it felt like to make something like that so we tried.
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
I read this twice while working on the story and dialogue for BTGM hoping that just a drop would soak into the story and themes. A messy, small, tense, complicated world that is imaginable - tangible and hardy. A seed for a better future. I struggled through the whole project trying to uncover a world with the same depth and truth, and maybe that tension created some other kind of meaning.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul movies
One night in the back yard, the summer we started working on Green Moon, I watched Tropical Malady on a whim because I liked the title. Weerasethakul's films hypnotize the viewer with fairly simple tools: images of rural Thailand, ambient sound, unassuming but interesting buildings and interiors, light, waiting. Their meandering stories almost always progress from a place of irrational, emotional logic, rather than hitting typical plot milestones in order to complete themselves.
Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor by Sundae Month
This is the first game I remember playing that showed me you could make a brand new game. It didn't have to be like everything or anything before it. You could make it exactly how you think it should be and present it to the player, and for the player there is an excitement inherent in feeling it out, exploring its rules and edges- having it tell you how it works. It's a beautiful, living thing, and that's something games can be that other media can't in the same way.
Lucifer Rising by by the Mountain Goats and John Vanderslice
I had two playlists during development - one of songs to try and capture the general sci-fi essence and one for when I was writing the more romantic scenes. This was the first song on the general sci-fi playlist from "Moon Colony Bloodbath" and it was mainly for one line.
"It's a straight walk home- through the generation fields and the ventilation dome"
My favorite sci-fi is rich in mundane details. How does the invented world hold up to a long walk home?
Thinking about inspirations means looking back on a project for what you hoped it would be, not what it became. These stories above have affected me foundationally, as an artist and as a person. Shown me despair and hope and peace and dizzying uncomfort. It probably isn't fair to try to reconcile what I've made against these hazy mountains. We spent 3 years walking towards them and they still seem as distant and looming as they did when we set out. Anyways, mountain or molehill, "Before The Green Moon" is its own thing and I'm proud of it.