I just finished Impostor Factory, a little short indie game by Freebird Games. They have a few other games under their belts including To The Moon, which is probably their most famous title.
Impostor Factory is meant to be a prequel in a way to To The Moon, although it’s slow to link the puzzle pieces together. It all makes sense by the end. You will see some familiar characters from To The Moon by the end.
I had thought I reviewed To The Moon here at some point, but I couldn’t find the review to link to it, so perhaps not.
I really love To The Moon though. I’d been very excited for Impostor Factory for a long time. But for me, it didn’t live up to its predecessor. That doesn’t mean it was a bad game though. I enjoyed Impostor Factory too.
I really disliked the first act of Impostor Factory – not only because it’s repetitive and confusing (intentionally so on both those accounts) – but because it lacked the emotion of the first game.
That emotion slowly begins to build in Acts 2 and 3 – and really hits home at the game’s end.
It’s an extremely short game. I clocked about 5 hours, but I went AFK a few times during that – so probably average playtime will be around 4 hours for most folks. – I feel like To The Moon was longer – but it’s been years since I played so perhaps I remember it incorrectly.
Like To The Moon, Impostor Factory also deals with illness, age, death, and regrets and unfinished business. I’d say Impostor Factory has more of a mysterious and dark tone.
You’re thrown in not knowing anything about any of the characters and it takes a long time to really build that emotional connection.
The game soundtrack is both equal parts memorable and minimal. Often times the game relies simply on ambient background sounds, but when it does use actual music, it is very beautiful. To The Moon also had lovely music.
The dialogue in Impostor Factory is usually pretty good, sometimes a little cheesy, but mostly heartfelt and endearing.
Eventually, once you figure out what’s going on near the end, there is a large emotional impact, so you do end up caring about the characters in the end, it’s just a slow build up before they really connect the dots there.
Short, sweet, mysterious, intriguing, and thought-provoking, all of these are words I would use to describe the story of Impostor Factory.
I’d rate it as follows:
Geeky: 4/5 – Yes it only has pixel “RPG Maker” style graphics, but it deals with time travel and scifi geeky themes. Very geeky indeed.
Sweetie: 5/5 – Once you figure out who or what everyone’s roles are in the game, it’s very sentimental indeed. Concepts of family are key.
Story: 9/10 – It was slow. Didn’t like Act 1, but the rest was good and pulled me in. It was short, but it was sufficient.
Characters: 9/10 – Once you figure out what’s happening, you see their lives from different perspectives and points of view, each building more character depth and revealing more about each character’s inner thoughts and feelings. At first I couldn’t connect with the characters, but that changed by act 2.
Graphics: 5/10 – Oldschool graphics don’t bother me, but for most people they’re not gonna be their cup of tea.
Music: 8/10 – what’s there is very nice and adds to the emotion – just there wasn’t much there really.
Voice Acting: N/A No Voice Acting
Replay Value: 0/10 – No need to replay – it is a linear short game with only 1 achievement and 1 story and 1 ending.
Overall Score: 67% D – Average Game For Girls
My personal enjoyment of the game is actually much higher than a D – but when analyzing each part, that’s the highest I can give it based on our website’s scoring system, mostly because I focus on reviewing Otome and Visual Novels or more complex RPGs where player choice matters – if it wasn’t graded 0/10 on replay value, it’s score would actually be 80% which is closer to how I feel really towards the game. But the fact that it has no replay value and is so short and is still a $9.99 purchase – well that does factor into it too. – I still feel like To The Moon was closer to 10 hours instead of 5, but it’s been years so I could be wrong… Either way they are both great games, I recommend you check them out.
