FRAGMENTS OF LOVE

Every couple of years I find myself reinstalling Moon Remix RPG Adventure. It’s not even nostalgia, since I didn’t grow up with this game(I learned about it watching a thorhigheels video around 6 years ago, she’s great btw!), but it’s become one of those places I visit like you’d check in on an old vacation spot, you know what I mean? That kind of place where nothing really changes, but you do, and so every time the shit hits a little different. Some people reread a book every year, some people watch Twin Peaks when life gets weird(I do too, but I digress). I restart Moon.

It’s a vibe thing. The music is probably the first thing that grabs me, it plays in this oddly hypnotic way, like a mixtape you found in the backseat of an old friend’s car. And then later in the game, when you start collecting MoonDiscs and basically become your own DJ, it turns into this strange meta thing where you’re literally curating your own mood while wandering around. It feels kind of dumb, cause you’re not saving anyone, you’re just choosing background tracks; but it also feels kinda intimate, because suddenly this soundtrack isn’t universal anymore, it’s mine.

The visuals are like that too— colourful yet awkward, flat and jagged at the same time. If anything, it’s kinda diaorama-esque. NPCs move around with their own little lives, like ants in a terrarium, and they don’t give a damn whether you’re watching or not. One guy eats dinner, another one goes outside to smoke, and half the time if you try to talk to them they brush you off. I’ve literally trailed people around for entire evenings just to see what they’d do, only to watch them walk into their homes, sit down, and fall asleep. That’s it. That was the grand reveal. But somehow that mundanity is what makes it so funny, and so sticky in your brain.

It’s the kind of game that lets you waste time without punishing you for it. Or maybe it does punish you, but only in silly game-y ways, like making you collapse on the ground when you’ve stayed up too late, and back to the last save. And instead of it feeling frustrating, it’s… well, it’s hilarious. Imagine fainting face-first in the dirt outside someone’s house because you wanted to see if they’d go for a midnight snack. No boss battle, no fireworks, just a body snoring on cobblestones. That’s the content.

And that’s why I keep coming back to this game. Moon doesn’t care if you’re efficient or heroic, hell, it doesn’t even pretend the world needs you. It just lets you drift inside it, watch it, poke at it, get laughed at by it. And every time I do, I end up noticing different things. One year it’s the way the NPCs move, another year it’s how satisfying it feels to revive a little lizard and watch it scurry off like nothing happened. The game doesn’t change, but the way it gets under my skin does. That’s why I call it a vacation. A place you visit, again and again, because it feels good to exist there.

Here’s the part that never stops being funny to me, in Moon, you are absolutely not the hero. You’re not even, like, the sidekick. The actual “hero” is this Paladin-looking guy who storms through dungeons stabbing everything in sight, scooping up loot, flexing like he’s on a magazine cover. The game literally opens by tricking you into thinking you’re playing as him- like, “ah yes, here I am, about to begin my epic quest”...and then the rug gets yanked out and suddenly you’re not him at all. You’re just some kid dropped into the aftermath, staring at the trail of corpses he left behind. It’s kind of sad, but mostly it’s hilarious.

And your role? You don’t get to “become the real hero.” Nope! Your job is janitorial. You patch things up. You kneel by cartoon corpses and revive them, collect fragments of “love,” and move on. He destroys, you restore. He levels up through bloodshed, you grow through errands. It feels less like I’m on a grand adventure and more like I’ve been hired as unpaid emotional labor for a fantasy kingdom that doesn’t even know I exist. I’m not the chosen one, I’m the world’s intern.

At first, that setup just feels like a parody. Like, haha, funny twist: what if instead of slaying monsters, you hugged them back to life? But the longer I sat with it, the more it digs in. Because it made me start realising just how normalised it is that RPGs measure growth by body count. That experience points are literally a tally of how many living things you’ve put down, and the entire idea of “progress” in the genre is based on destruction. And here comes Moon, saying: actually, what if progress was built on care instead?

It doesn’t even announce itself as that. There’s no NPC sermon about nonviolence, no message splashed on the screen; it’s just baked into it. Revive a chicken, get love. Return somebody’s sock, get love. Be present, be kind, be helpful, get love. And without realising, you start to play differently. You start to notice more, stay around longer, and pay attention to things you’d normally skip. You find yourself thinking about kindness as the core loop, which sounds funny, but when a game’s mechanics are the place where you spend most of your attention, that’s where the lesson comes in.

And I think that’s why Moon’s “you’re not the hero” idea never wears off. Because it’s not just a joke at the expense of JRPG tropes, it’s a reorientation. You’re not the center, you’re not the strong one, you’re not the savior. You’re the one cleaning up, the one left behind; and in that position, you discover something RPGs usually don't talk about; that maybe love is harder work than violence, and maybe that’s the point.

Most of the time in Moon, I’m not really “progressing.” I’m kinda just there hanging around, shadowing the NPCs like a nosy neighbor who’s got nothing better to do. And the thing is, the shit works. Every character in Moon has a daily routine, and nobody’s waiting for you. The whole world is just… running, whether you keep up or not.

It sounds boring if you try to describe it out loud. Like, “yeah, I spent two in-game hours following a fisherman around just to see if he’d do anything new.” Spoiler: he didn’t. He cast his line, reeled it in, sighed, and eventually trudged home. That’s all. That’s the big reveal. But somehow it’s hilarious, because the joke is on me. I was waiting for fireworks, for drama, for some hint of RPG excitement, and the game just shrugged and said: nah, man’s tired, let him be.

And that’s not even the end of it, cause Moon has an energy meter. If you run around too much or stay awake too long, it’s just... game over. Straight up faint in the street, body on the ground, legs folded under like a sack of flour. You just crumple there, sometimes in front of their houses, which is probably the worst possible place to pass out if you don’t want the whole town to think you’re weird. Imagine trailing some guy for hours like a creep, only to black out right outside his door.

Even though it’s funny, after a while it seeps in that Moon is kinda doing something most games don’t. It doesn’t let you set the pace, nor does it revolve around you. If you want to catch an NPC at the right moment, you have to wait. If you want to stay up late, you risk restarting. You’re on their clock, not yours. And the longer you sit with it, the more it messes with you. Because so many games treat you like the sun, and the world orbits you, bends, and time itself stretches to fit you. But Moon says nah, you’re just one more body floating around, and if you want to belong, you better pay attention.

And that’s where the “boring” stops being boring. They turn into the whole point, waiting for someone to come out after having dinner becomes content. You learn that the world doesn’t pause for you, and that sometimes the only way forward is to stop moving, watch, and wait. It’s not exciting, but it is unforgettable.

The main thing that separates Moon from pretty much every other RPG is how it measures you. There’s no EXP bar, no leveling up after slaughtering a field of rats. Instead, the game straight up tells you, you grow through love. That’s the stat. Love is your currency, your measurement, your everything.

(and yes, i'm specifically not mentioning a certain game... for reasons! ☠︎︎)

The first time I played, I couldn’t take it seriously. I was like, “okay, cool, I’m out here reviving chickens and returning socks, logging love points like I was deranged. It’s absurd, love is literally turned into a number. You perform kindness, you watch the meter tick up, and suddenly your character’s stronger, your time gets a little longer. Which is funny on the surface, like the game has kinda invented wholesome capitalism. Collect enough good vibes, cash them in for growth.

But after a few hours of that, and the joke ain’t joking. Cause you realize that’s all there is, that love is the only true measure of progress in this world. You can wander, you can change outfits, you can DJ, but none of it counts unless you’ve gathered love; it’s the only things that matters. And once you feel that in your bones, the whole game changes.

You start playing differently, and pay attention to tiny details because maybe they’ll matter. You hang around someone longer than you normally would, waiting for the chance to help. You start thinking about kindness as a gift. Which sounds ridiculous, but it’s also weirdly moving. Because for once, a game is telling you: no, you don’t get to be measured by strength, or violence, or domination. You’re measured by what you care about, by what you notice, and by how much love you manage to get in this strange little world.

But it still feels like a game. It’s not preachy, like it’s not holding your hand and saying “love is important.” It’s just making that the core loop. Which means you don’t get the message because the game told you, you get it because you lived it, and practiced it. You worked for love until your brain rewired a little, and suddenly you’re like, “damn, maybe this is what progress could feel like in real life too.”

So yeah, I laugh at the idea of being the world’s love accountant, jotting down good deeds like expenses. But when I put the controller down, I realize those are the genuine moments that stuck in my mind. Not the fake hero flexing in dungeons, or some epic boss fight. Just me, greeting people, handing out socks, collecting love like it’s the only thing worth tracking.

And maybe it is.

The longer I sit with Moon, the more it forces me to think about what it actually means when it says love is progress. At the start, you’re literally out here reviving animals, handing back items, and the game’s treating it like some great achievement. You get your little fragment of love, your meter ticks up, and you laugh because it feels like bookkeeping.

Love in Moon doesn’t just happen, and it’s not some free aura you carry around, and it’s definitely not the cherry on top of a different story... it is the story, and it’s work. If you want love, you have to wait for it, put in the time, and show up when no one else will. You have to learn people’s rhythms, slip into their schedules, pay attention to things, and then do something with that attention. Love doesn’t spill out of thin air, it takes patience, energy, and sometimes the willingness to look a little foolish.

And that’s where the game feels truer than most stories about love, because it doesn’t romanticize it, it makes it awkward. You get brushed off, ignored, told to come back later. You waste nights waiting for someone who just goes to bed. You give without being thanked, and still, the only way forward is through those little, humbling acts. Which is exactly how it feels outside the screen too, cause love in real life is rarely grand gestures, it’s the quiet labour of paying attention to someone else’s needs, remembering things, and of choosing to keep trying.

Most games make love a reward, something unlocked after the real progress has been made. In Moon, love is the progress. It’s the bar that fills, and it’s the only way you know you’re moving forward; and it doesn’t let you cheat. You can’t grind enemies or brute force your way through; you have to put in the kind of effort that feels slow and unglamorous, that looks like nothing until you step back and realize it was everything.

And once you’ve lived in that system long enough, it sneaks into your bones. You start noticing how easy it is to treat love like a given, like it should just appear, when in reality it’s the hardest kind of work, it’s invisible to almost everyone else, and that only matters if you’re willing to give yourself to it. Moon makes you rehearse that truth over and over, disguised as a joke about patching up cartoon animals, until suddenly you realize you’ve been practicing the hardest part of being alive: making love real by choosing to keep doing the work.