FMV titles are a nice distraction sometimes from the hundreds of indie titles that filter through every week alongside a couple of triple-A goodies we get month to month. The Dark Side Of The Moon is a first stab in the gaming space from developer and publisher Tayanna Studios and is now available on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S after just under two years on Windows PC. It is nice to see another studio having a crack at this genre on consoles as Wales Interactive seems to dominate when it comes to interactive movies but there is always room for more. This is a sci-fi thriller that is well worth checking out as it brings out a whole plethora of different emotions, especially as a parent. At a reasonable price point, there is plenty of hours and replayability if you want it in this movie based journey.

Introduction

Where would you even start if your kids went missing? Even if you don’t have children, the prospect of someone else’s going missing is heart-wrenching. Here you’ll play Dean Hamilton who is seemingly a hard-working and loving father. He puts his little ones to bed and wakes up to the worst thing imaginable. His children have gone missing overnight and with no obvious clue as to where they have vanished, it is up to you to find out what has occurred. Unravel the storyline as you explore your home village of Marywine in an effort to solve this mystery. Are the kids alright? Do we trust the characters we come across during the game? What is going on with the incoming solar eclipse and its constant mention? It is up to us as Dean to make the right decisions and work through this captivating sci-fi thriller.

The Dark Side Of The Moon features the acting talents of “Anarosa Butler” (“Contradiction: Spot The Liar!”, “The Shapeshifting Detective”) as computer geek conspiracy theorist “Alyx” and “Rupert Booth” (“Contradiction: Spot The Liar!”, “The Shapeshifting Detective”) as the evil “Gedeon”

Gameplay

The entirety of The Dark Side Of The Moon is observation and point and click as you work through several slides to uncover clues to solve the mystery of your missing children. Obviously, throw in some acted scenes in the mix to stitch the portions of gameplay together and you have yourself an adventure that you must unravel through personal detective work, some mild choices with the occasional puzzle or riddle. If you’ve never divulged in an FMV experience before then you must be aware that gameplay is minimal to next to none and it is more of a Netflix-style programme that you’re playing along with.

For the majority of your time with the game, it will be a press of the A button to make choices with the analogue stick to cycle through the decisions. There are some items that will go into your inventory that will be able to interact with certain objects in the game world. For example, a mobile telephone to contact certain characters or your son’s laptop to try and discover some information on what may have happened.

Graphics & Audio

It’s quite clear that The Dark Side Of The Moon has been put together on a very low budget but this doesn’t get in the way of a believable storyline. For the most part, the acting is also quite convincing although there are certain areas where it could be improved. I enjoyed the mixture of making choices and following your own path although when you’re trying to dig out the next clue it became a little mundane going through the exact same cutscenes over and over again. The camera quality isn’t as crystal clear as other FMV games I have endured, but I actually prefer the dulled-down and gritty presentation of the camera work. In turn, the acting style and overall package made everything a little more realistic.

The team has done well to carry the storyline across with characters that feel true to life and a close family unit. I much prefer this than to cast some robotic and over-enthusiastic actors and actresses. With the setting quite clearly being set in England, I found it more relatable and easy to submerge myself into though I’m unsure if others in different countries would feel the same way. Dean, Sara and the children Ruby and Andy all come across as a natural yet loving family and that is the draw into the rest of the game. Music when available brings an aura of tension and intrigue at the correct moments.

In Conclusion

The Dark Side Of The Moon is a solid first entry to the FMV genre for Tayanna Studios. As a parent myself I became immediately immersed in the panic of finding Dean’s lost children. Whilst sometimes it became frustrating passing through several areas repeatedly to find the only clue to latch onto the next part of the story, I enjoyed that it tried to stray a little away from being too linear. Whilst I feel the camera quality and certain portions of acting could be improved, I do appreciate that this must have been an extremely low budget for a first-time project. Replayability and longevity are there if you are a completionist as there are five different endings to sift through and admittedly I haven’t uncovered them all as yet.

There are a good few hours for each run and enough to carry you through a casual evening’s gaming or two. If you’re a fan of the genre and are always looking for a new FMV experience to indulge in then I would recommend this as it does feature some actors you may know and love from other games of this nature. Whilst it may not be the best I have played in the catalogue of movie-based titles on offer for Xbox, it is certainly a memorable story and I hope Tayanna Studios cracks on with more of the same with improvements along the way.