What Happened on the Moon? Review – My Blog’s First Game Review That Has Horror Elements!

I typically avoid games that have the tag of “Horror.” However, in the case of What Happened on the Moon?. I was curious about the side scrolling 2D pixel art, so I decided to give it a try.

Story and Gameplay

When I first started the game up, I was surprised by the fact that it is a rather story-heavy game. The opening sequence has a couple of main characters talking for about 5 minutes before you are able to control your player character, which is an autonomous lunar rover. After a tutorial sequence (and more story), you are placed on the moon and supposed to follow instructions from the people who were introduced at the beginning of the game.

They give you commands and objectives to complete which usually involve going from left to right, moving rocks to make a way to traverse across the lunar landscape, and to stop at certain locations for more story sequences. Note: For the latter of the things just mentioned, when you reach the predetermined places to advance the story the game will stop to have you read more dialog. This can happen even if you are in the air or upside down, which can take you out of the story. i thought it was an oddity, but not a terrible thing.

All the while you are also supposed to use your grabber arm, or gripper, to move the aforementioned rocks. You’re also able to raise a solar panel to restore your energy before it goes down too much. While it isn’t super deep, I still enjoyed the experience quite a bit. The use of the solar panel and gripper were in similar amounts, demonstrating balanced gameplay mechanics. All the while I found the story to be intriguing. Even though it wasn’t amazing, I wanted to know what would happen next.

Music and Graphics Work Well, Along With the Controls

What Happened on the Moon? was also helped by a simple musical score that works well with the tone of the story and the graphical design of the game. None of it was amazing, but both were effective. Once on the moon, things are unsurprisingly barren and simple, while also enjoyable if you are down with the story (like I was). Plus, I thought the physics of movement on the moon’s surface was reasonable and not too frustrating. Surprisingly, even though this game doesn’t support controllers natively, it seemed to work fine anyway. The key bindings made sense and they were easy to use, even when I needed to utilize the mouse for the grabbing arm. This is in contrast to Colossal Crisis which I reviewed yesterday.

As is obvious from the images, this is a game with a relatively simple aesthetic with black and white graphics and pixel art that is of the same style throughout the story. The only thing that really stood out graphically was how the physics were handled for your rover. The portraits of the characters were fine, but there was only one picture per character. The game didn’t have multiple images for varying emotions, which was slightly disappointing.

Story and Difficulty Rebalance

After playing the game, which took about 45 minutes to complete, I went to the Steam sales page and found that a few weeks after the game’s release there was a large rebalance patch that made it easier to complete. This was the version I played, and found it to be an enjoyable experience. I kind of wish that you could play the earlier edition as well, but that was not an option from what I could tell. Because it wasn’t frustrating, I was able to focus on the storyline and the mood of the experience. In a lot of ways, I felt like it was worth it, and it was enjoyable to watch the story unfold.

Perhaps the original version was too frustrating for some players, and it would have made the game more monotonous than it is now. Based on watching a YouTube video (from Jon Renish), I know that one section now has about 1/3rd the number of boulders to move than before. That is probably the reason I didn’t feel like it was tedious to play.

Horror

Shockingly, I never felt that this was a very scary game. Especially since I was worried about the Horror tag. I felt like it was more of a game of suspense. As such, I am unsure if hardcore horror fans will enjoy it. Yet, those who are focused on tone and atmosphere will probably like this one quite a bit. In some ways I feel like it’s more of a visual novel or walking simulator. Which is unusual to say based on the visual design. Because of that, I added those tags to my review

Conclusion

Overall, I think What Happened on the Moon?’s combination of storyline, graphics, and sound design mesh well together in an effective manner. With the reduced difficulty compared to the original version, this is something that many can enjoy if they appreciate story and tone more than gameplay. I’m glad I played it!

Title: What Happened on the Moon?
Genre: Side-scrolling Exploration
Year Released: 2025
Developer: Copperwaif (YouTube Channel)
Played On: Steam
Price Paid: Free

Remember, we can have different opinions about the games we play. If you like something more (or less) than I do, both of our perspectives are valid.