I must have lived a thousand times

*Minor spoilers about the beginning of the game*

To The Moon by Freebird Games was released for download yesterday. I've been looking forward to it since reading about it in that article. Eternal Sunshine was one of my most favourite movies for a long time, and a game that has storytelling likened to it is going to intrigue me.

What I love about indie games is that they're cheap, and good and fresh, unlike many recycled big-name hits that come out with a new iteration every year. I had a big "OH WOW" moment last night when I was playing in the dark. I began To The Moon wondering how it was going to be like Eternal Sunshine. Would it copy the story, because that'd be lame. Would it just be similar in theme?

It starts out with two scientists arriving at the home of an old dying man. His live-in caretaker and doctor are there. While walking around his home you learn he had a good life, and a wife that he loved but had passed away. He had good memories. His caretaker tells the scientists what his last wish is. "He wants to go to the Moon. Can you do it?" The scientists say yes.

I was so confused, but intrigued. Would they brainwash him and make him think he was on the Moon during the final hours of his life? Would they come up with some sort of metaphorical Moon for the old man? Surely they couldn't actually just send him to the Moon.

Setting up their little computer by his table, the scientists peer into the old man's memory as he lies unconscious. They speak to his memory from one week prior, in which they tell him their plan on how to get him to the Moon. We are going step-by-step further back into your memories, they say, all the way to your childhood, and we are going to influence you in your childhood, give you the desire to become an astronaut so later in life you will go to the Moon.
Oh wow. What about his good memories? His good life? His wife? Will those memories disappear? This is going to be good.