- Pace82 · frantic
- One phrase from the Moon, then yours, with no pause: an answer every two seconds, from 92 to 124 beats per minute, and one stage where you play while it is already singing the next.
- Difficulty69 · rather merciless
- Every wrong or missed note wears the signal down; when it drops, you restart the current half-stage, about forty seconds. The halo keeps the phrase in sight only at first: after that, you have to have remembered it.
- Tone70.9 · rather unsettling
- The Moon answers, then starts to look like us: seas, a cyclone's eye turned our way, cities lighting up there as they go dark down here. No monster, no scream: a double that learns.
- Story6 · silent
- Not a word of story. The title, a drawn hand for your first touch, one line of advice when the signal breaks, and the rest is read on the changing Moon and the Earth going dark.
- Scale81.5 · cosmic
- From the first second, the Earth and the Moon face to face, with light making the round trip between them. By the end, two worlds have traded places.
- Form35.5 · in between
- The Simon you know, in rhythm: the Moon plays a phrase, you play it back. Each stage adds a notch you can see: held notes, off-beats, the canon, then the double.
- Look95 · lush
- Thousands of stars, the Milky Way, a full moon crater by crater, the night Earth with its cities and auroras, and beams bursting into sparks at every note. Toned down on old phones.
The theme
On the night of October's full moon, you send a signal to the Moon to hear its echo, and the echo answers something else. You play its phrases back, and with every phrase returned the Moon looks a little more like the Earth: seas, clouds, the eye of a cyclone, continents, then, in the shadow of an eclipse, cities. Its last phrase is the very first one you played. When you play it back, the two worlds trade places, and the Moon plays along with you, without delay.
The mechanics
A call-and-response rhythm game. The Moon plays a phrase on four voices (a colour, a pitch, a column of the screen); you play it back in the next bar by touching the columns (finger, mouse) or with ← ↓ ↑ → on a keyboard, holding the long notes. The halo above the Moon shows the bar's eight beats. Every wrong or missed note wears the signal down; when it drops, you restart the current half-stage. At the eclipse, the notes fall towards you and you play in canon, one bar behind the Moon.
Palette
A full moon seen from space, like the night photographs taken from the space station: blue-black void #04050c, plum Milky Way with gold dust, bone Moon #e8e4d8 with grey seas #8a877f, night Earth #081226 with sodium cities #ffb347, an atmosphere rim #4fa3ff, aurora and airglow #7dffb0. The four voices: aurora green #6cf5a8, glacier blue #5ab8ff, violet #c58bff, amber #ffbe5c; mistakes in coral #ff5a4e; eclipse copper #b4532a. Syncopate. Cold, luminous, a disquiet that sings.
