Game Development: Starting by Healing the Players
Chapter 39: Then We'll Meet Again on the Moon
For the first time, the game's background music changed from purely instrumental tracks to a theme song with lyrics.
"Everything's Alright."
It was almost as if the song were singing directly from River's heart.
Accompanied by the sorrowful melody, River was gradually erased from Johnny's life.
At the staircase of the school building where Johnny believed he had first met River, the platypus and River, who had once been sitting on the steps, had disappeared.
All that remained was a book about lighthouses, its pages rustling in the wind.
Johnny's good friend Nicholas walked through the corridor.
In the library, River was no longer there.
Instead, Joey had taken her place. The two brothers chatted about Transformers and space exploration.
The Emperor's New Clothes, the book River had once loved, was covered in dust.
In front of the cinema where Johnny and River had once watched a movie together, Johnny and his brother Joey walked inside laughing and joking.
Yes.
Although River had been removed, Eva had altered Johnny's memories so that his brother Joey took her place.
At the same time, she continuously planted suggestions and guided Johnny's dreams and ambitions toward becoming an astronaut.
Without River, but with Joey by his side, Johnny's entire future had changed.
The horse ranch where Johnny and River had once ridden together was completely deserted at this point in time.
In front of the lighthouse named Anya, there was nothing but overgrown weeds. The man and woman who had once been there were gone.
Even the rabbit that had been accidentally run over during the wedding was nowhere to be found.
Inside Johnny's memories, his entire future had been rewritten.
Through constant training and study, Johnny finally received a recruitment notice from NASA and went there for a visit.
His goal was now within reach.
"Going to the moon" seemed to be only a matter of time.
Everything Eva had done appeared to be working.
But every player and viewer remained silent.
Yes, Johnny was about to go to the moon.
Eva and Neil were about to complete their mission as well.
But was this really the ending Johnny wanted?
Going to the moon without River.
Did that really mean anything?
In the future that Johnny had imagined, they arrived at NASA.
At this point, Dong Zhen and every player who had made it this far were simply moving their characters through the game almost mechanically.
There was only one feeling.
Pain.
It was unbearably painful.
But as Eva and Neil arrived at NASA and accompanied Johnny on his tour, they began talking.
"Not here either…"
"What are you talking about?"
"Anyway, let's go."
As Neil and Eva talked, Dong Zhen seemed to notice something different.
"Wait! This woman!"
"She seems to be looking for something!"
Standing in the waiting room, thinking about what had just happened and remembering Eva's words, Dong Zhen came up with a bold theory.
A theory he desperately hoped was true.
But before he could say it to everyone in the livestream, the already-somber background music suddenly fell silent.
It was replaced by the sound of a heartbeat.
Then a cheerful melody began to play.
A girl with orange-red hair tied in a single ponytail appeared in the doorway.
"Ah! She's also one of our new recruits. River, is it? We're so glad you could make it," said the unnamed director of NASA.
"Hello, I'm Johnny."
Johnny stepped forward to greet her, just as he had all those years ago.
At the same time, the final missing fragment of memory was finally restored.
Standing by the window, Eva let out a relieved breath.
"Phew! I was starting to think she'd really disappeared."
"What the hell, Eva?! But you… you deleted her!" Neil said incredulously.
"No. I told you, I only moved her. How she chooses to live her life is still up to… her."
"This new world is constructed from public data and Johnny's personal beliefs. Since River is an individual person, her data obviously wasn't recorded in the public database."
After hearing Eva's explanation, Neil finally understood.
"So… this all came from Johnny…"
Yes.
River still came.
Even though their lives had changed.
Even though Johnny and River had never crossed paths in this altered timeline.
In this fictional world, Johnny still remembered that promise.
"But what if you get lost, or forget?"
"Then let's meet on the moon!"
Yes.
In the end, they would meet again on the moon.
The tears Dong Zhen had managed to hold back earlier began welling up in his eyes again.
Inside NASA, the piece being played was no longer called For River.
It had been given a new name:
"To the Moon."
In the hall, Johnny sat at the piano, playing the piece.
River stood below and quietly murmured:
"I like that name."
…
In Johnny's fictional memories, the two of them went through years of training and preparation.
Finally, the rocket was ready for launch.
Neil and Eva also invited Lily, the caregiver who had looked after Johnny, along with her doctor and the others, to witness the moment.
Under the setting sun, countless people stood on a bridge spanning the river, watching the distant rocket launch facility.
With a tremendous roar, the rocket lifted off.
At the same time, the sound of a heartbeat could be heard.
A deep, heavy heartbeat.
It was Johnny's heartbeat in the real world.
Johnny was gravely ill.
He was nearing the end of his life.
As the piano piece "To the Moon" played, the rocket lifted off.
Ahead of them was the destination of their journey—the moon.
Inside the rocket, Johnny and River turned toward each other at the same time.
Then, gently, their hands found each other and intertwined.
As the moon appeared, the screen faded into darkness.
The next moment, Johnny's memories began flashing before his eyes like scenes from a life passing in review.
Watching those memories and recalling Johnny and River's story throughout the game, Dong Zhen finally couldn't hold back his tears.
He covered his face with both hands, then reached for a tissue beside him.
This time, he wasn't wiping his nose.
He was wiping his eyes.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck! Even a tough guy cries twice!"
"I fucking broke down!"
"I can't see the screen through all these tears!"
"But what if you get lost, or forget?"
"Then let's meet on the moon!"
"But what if you get lost, or forget?"
"Then let's meet on the moon!"
As the game's final credits appeared on the screen, the barrage of comments in Dong Zhen's livestream gradually became filled with the exact same sentence.
At that moment, everyone was moved by the game's story.
They had even forgotten that this was actually a game created for a science-fiction game competition.
No one was thinking anymore about whether it technically counted as a science-fiction game.
Everyone was simply immersed in the story of Johnny and River.