IMPOSTOR FACTORY

Kan Gao’s return to the moon is a trip in every sense

Developer/publisher Freebird Games

Format PC

Origin Canada

Release 2020

Story is everything in Kan Gao’s games. Since his 2011 breakthrough To The Moon, he’s ploughed a successful furrow using RPG Maker XP, creating narrative-led adventures with simple graphics and straightforward mechanics: they might look like 16bit roleplayers, but essentially Gao was doing walking sims before the term was even coined. With that in mind, he’s understandably keen not to give too much away about the third main entry in the series – which obviously presents a challenge when you’re trying to find out what it’s about.

According to Freebird Games’ own blurb, it’s “a bonkers time-loop tragicomedy murder mystery thriller involving multiple casualties and a suspicious cat”. We know it will star Dr Eva Rosalene and Dr Neil Watts from To The Moon and Finding Paradise. There will be a scene where a group of performers dressed as Watts dance and dab under disco lights in a concert on the moon which, dare we suggest, is almost certainly a dream sequence. Beyond that, the softly-spoken Gao is, in the politest way possible, staying coy about the details.

So what can he tell us? Impostor Factory, he says, was conceived a long time ago. While he was making To The Moon, in fact, he’d already figured out a direction the next two games would follow. Indeed, he’d originally imagined it as a quadrilogy of sorts, but he since managed to condense the ideas from the third and fourth into one game. Hence, presumably, that genre-hopping description.

Such a bold change of tack was always part of the plan, he says. Gao paraphrases the nearidentical Steam descriptions for To The Moon and Finding Paradise – “Two doctors travel backwards through a dying man’s memories to fulfil his last wish.” Having explored the idealistic and pragmatic perspectives of his speculative conceit, he says, “It’s now time for a twist.” Hence, presumably, those dabbing doctors we mentioned.

A conscious choice, then, but in some ways he admits it’s also a reaction. To The Moon understandably earned a reputation as a real tearjerker, but Gao wanted it to be seen as more than just ‘that game that made me cry,’ even if he’s pleased that it provoked that kind of response. “I’m glad folks found it moving – it is, in some ways, the core of the story. But I hope it’s become more evident through games like Finding Paradise that I try to travel different routes – where you can also have comedy and suspense-horror, or whatnot. I’m personally drawn to that kind of tonal whiplash. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s something I’m actually really fond of.”

As such, his biggest challenge with Impostor Factory has been to maintain a coherency between what he calls “the thinking and feeling aspects.” When you have a complex idea, he explains, it’s difficult to get the player to devote emotional energy to the story. “They end up fighting one another,” he says. “Particularly for something like Impostor Factory – compared to the other games, I’m probably trying to do more on both fronts.”

Gao composes the scores for all his games, and his musical inspirations give us another hint towards the kind of direction he’s going in with his latest game: he cites the soundtracks for Jordan Peele’s films Us and Get Out, and The Autopsy Of Jane Doe, as influences here. He confirms that Impostor Factory will indeed be darker and weirder than its predecessors, but he insists it’s not essential to play those games first. This is a fully standalone story, though there will nevertheless be a few references to To The Moon and Finding Paradise on the periphery. “Part of the vision for this series is that whichever one you play first becomes background information for the next one,” he explains. “It doesn’t have to be chronological – it’s just different setups and payoffs depending on how you go about it.”

Time for one more clue, then. If To The Moon is the game that makes you cry, then Impostor Factory is the game that…?

He laughs quietly. “It’s the game that makes you cry, and then smash your keyboard and then flip your table. And then write a positive review. In that order.”

“I try to travel different routes – where you can also have comedy and suspense-horror”

Gao is keen to ensure the conclusion of the three games doesn’t feel forced: “I think it’s something the series has been setting up for. But hopefully the execution isn’t what most people are expecting”

RIGHT Gao: “What I hope for is that when people have finished it, they’ll feel like they’ve gone through a wide variety of moods and tones and experiences”

ABOVE The game has been in development for over a year now. The tentative release date could yet change, though Gao says he’s learned to trust his instincts.

TOP Gao says he had the outline for ImpostorFactory during development of Finding Paradise – “although it did get a bit crazier since then.”

TOP Don’t worry too much about the stranger elements: Gao insists those looking for the emotional core of ToThe Moon and Finding Paradise will still find it here. “But in terms of tonal range, it has a lot more reach.”

ABOVE Gao’s art style hasn’t changed much, though some animations do seem more elaborate – the benefit, perhaps, of having an in-house team