For a long time, games that simply followed the formula for a hit left me feeling numb. But by the end of 2025, I rediscovered the emotional experience I used to feel when playing games back in the day while playing the buy-to-play indie title *The Moment of Moonlight*.
At first, I didn’t have high hopes for this game. Back in early 2025, while writing about buy-to-play visual novels, I came across this title labeled as a “uncle-niece romance.” At the time, at least 20 such games had been announced. As they were released one after another, selling 5,000 copies was considered a decent achievement; even the most popular one only sold 40,000 copies, making it difficult for any of them to make a splash in the broader gaming market.
I saw the title *Moonlight Reflected* again on the data platform SteamDB. Having launched just last Friday, December 5, it quickly climbed to the top 5 on Steam’s weekly best-sellers list.
To date, the game has received "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews from 3,000 players, with a 95% approval rating. *Moonlight Reflection* has not only become a hit in the buy-to-play visual novel genre but has also carved out a niche among new releases on Steam.
Looking back at the development diary for *Moonlight Shines Bright*, I realized that signs of its massive success were already evident during the 2024 crowdfunding campaign: the campaign, which had a goal of 10,000 yuan, ultimately raised 440,000 yuan.
The popularity of *Moonlight Reflections* stems, on the one hand, from its compelling storyline as a narrative-driven RPG; on the other hand, it demonstrates a mature approach to marketing and promotion, as evidenced by both its clearly organized crowdfunding page and the promise made upon its Steam launch that the game’s price “would not drop below the launch discount for at least a year.”
I had assumed that a production team so skilled in both content creation and marketing must be led by an experienced game producer. But when I asked around about the producer of the indie game and the indie development team, I couldn’t find any trace of them in either the indie game community or the independent development circles.
After finally tracking them down after quite a few twists and turns, I learned that out of the three producers, only Huazi, the programmer, had prior experience working at a game company; Gouzi, the artist, and Zai, the copywriter, were both new to game development. Despite having no experience in game production or marketing, they managed to excel at both content creation and promotion—all thanks to their simple philosophy: “If we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it right.”
(This article contains no major spoilers, so feel free to read on.)
01
A Story Born Under the Wisteria Tree
Moonlight shone on the wisteria-covered tree, and the petals drifting down in the breeze reflected the soft glow, making it impossible to tell whether it was the moonlight or the blossoms.
The opening animation for *The Moment the Moonlight Shines* echoes the very scene in which this story was born.
In the spring of 2020, the pandemic kept everyone stuck at home. Gouzi and Zizi were high school classmates and were living together at the time. During the day, they would curl up on the couch and watch Gordon Ramsay’s cooking shows. In the evenings, the two would go downstairs for a walk around the neighborhood.
There was a huge wisteria tree in the neighborhood, and it was in full bloom at the time. “Every day, we’d just look at the wisteria tree and the moon,” Gouzi recalled.
It was on a night just like this that Zizi told Gouzi the story of *The Moment the Moonlight Shines*.
This is a story set during the Northern Song Dynasty. In the bustling city of Kaifeng, where teahouses and restaurants lined the streets, there seemed to be room for the dreams of two young girls. The protagonist possessed exceptional culinary skills, while her close friend harbored grand ambitions; together, they vowed to turn their family’s “Peiyunlou” into one of the top restaurants in Kaifeng.
However, a sudden fire destroyed their dreams. The once bustling Pei Yun Lou was eventually left with only the protagonist and his grandfather to rely on each other. Grandfather took over the ruined restaurant and managed to keep it barely afloat. That is, until a business loss left Pei Yun Lou on the brink of bankruptcy.
To save Pei Yunlou, the heroine married into the Hao Lian family, who had promised her a large dowry and guaranteed that they would not interfere with her management of the restaurant. But after marrying into the Hao Lian family, she discovered that the fire that destroyed her dreams and the sudden debt crisis were no accidents—a much bigger truth awaits revelation…
The story of *The Moment the Moonlight Shines* completely captivated Gouzi. Zizi remembers two details that left a deep impression on her.
One morning, the dog got up early on his own to make breakfast for the two of them, then asked her with a sycophantic look, “Is it good?”
“Mmm, that’s really good,” Zizi said earnestly.
“So can you tell me what happens next in the script?” Gouzi immediately asked.
“I thought it was so brutal at the time,” said Zizi.
At first, the story was told only orally and never put into writing, but Gouzi committed every detail to memory. Sometimes Zizi would try to slack off, making excuses like, “I’ve forgotten what happened earlier,” but Gouzi would recite the previous parts word for word and then press for the rest of the story.
“There’s no way you can escape,” Zizi recalled with a sigh.
This isn’t the first time they’ve worked together like this. Back when they were first creating comics, Zizi was riding his bike when he suddenly told Gouzi a story. Deeply moved by it, the two of them teamed up to turn the story into a comic.
This time, Doggie, who is obsessed with *The Moment the Moonlight Shines*, came up with the idea of turning this story into an otome game.
As seasoned players of full-price games, Gouzi and Zizi have distinct aesthetic preferences when it comes to otome games. Gouzi is a huge fan of the *Heartbeat Memory: Girl's Side* series, which offers an incredibly immersive experience, while Zizi prefers more nuanced visual novels.
*Heartbeat Memories: Girl's Side*
But the kind of game they crave most is almost impossible to find in the domestic market. Gouzi described this expectation in detail: “It needs to be heavily story-driven, with multiple branching endings, and allow players to roam freely across the map, exploring the world through an RPG format. It should also feature plenty of side quests and Easter eggs, with a fully realized world—and it has to have a Chinese aesthetic.”
If you can’t find it on the market, just make it yourself.
But putting this idea into practice wasn’t easy. Although Gouzi and Zizi had experience creating small games with RPG Maker for class assignments, their majors weren’t related to game development, so they had to acquire all their skills through self-study and elective courses. More importantly, they didn’t have a programmer on their team.
This dilemma had been plaguing them for two or three years, until Hua Zi came along.
Huazi was a colleague of Gouzi at his previous company. As a programmer who had worked at a game company, he had always harbored a dream of creating an indie game. He tried teaching himself how to draw, but failed; he tried teaching himself screenwriting, but failed again. He gradually realized that he needed to find teammates, so he reached out to Gouzi, whom he had previously consulted about art-related issues.
Gouzi agreed right away and immediately shared the good news with Zizi: "We finally have a programmer—we can make this game!"
At the time, Zizi was busy working on her thesis, but seeing how delighted Gouzi looked, she thought to herself, “Since she’s so eager to do this, let’s get started together.”
“And just like that, the three of us embarked on a three-year journey through hell,” Gouzi said.
02
A Three-Year Ordeal
The three of them got together to form "Knights of the Dog Studio," and Hua Zi even moved to a neighborhood near Gou Zi and Zai Zi's homes. While Zai Zi juggled writing his thesis and a screenplay, Hua Zi and Gou Zi worked during the day and developed games at night.
When they first started working together, the three of them often ran into minor conflicts and friction due to differences in their work styles. Fortunately, since they lived close to each other, they could resolve any issues quickly by talking things out face-to-face.
These minor hiccups in their collaboration were merely the opening act of the creative journey behind *Moonlight Reflections*. Next, the primary challenge they had to tackle was how to weave these scattered story fragments into a cohesive game.
In *The Moment the Moonlight Shines*, aside from the mysterious love interest, the other two characters are the protagonist’s husband’s twin brother and a friend of the youngest brother in the family—both of whom address the protagonist as “sister-in-law.”The tags “Northern Song Dynasty” and “uncle-niece romance” drew massive attention from players when the game was first unveiled; some even joked, “Is this the story of Wu Song, Pan Jinlian, and Wu Dalang?”
*Water Margin* was indeed one of the sources of inspiration for *The Moment the Moonlight Shines*. But it wasn’t just *Water Margin*; they also loved *White Deer Plain*, which is why the “uncle-niece-in-law” dynamic was included. The Kunqu opera *The Peony Pavilion*, as well as other operas, musicals, and plays they enjoyed, all served as creative inspiration and were woven into the story.
“At first, I probably didn’t think too much about it; I just thought these things were fun,” said Zizi. “But when it came time to actually turn them into a game, there was a lot more to consider.”
At first, Zizi felt completely hopeless. She had never written a game script before, and she struggled to figure out how to weave the scattered story fragments into a cohesive game.
After *The Moment of Moonlight* was officially greenlit, she rebuilt the story framework, mapped out a tree-like structure, and then gradually filled in the script content following that framework. Initially, Zizi designed over 40 endings, but later they worked together to refine the main storyline, eliminating plotlines that weren’t compelling enough or weren’t closely tied to the main plot.In the end, the number of endings presented to players in *The Moment the Moonlight Shines* was reduced from 40 to 29.
Zizi's Workstation
The artist in charge of the visual design also ran into quite a few challenges. While she was skilled at drawing, she wasn’t very familiar with the relevant software. At first, the images she created always looked blurry and unclear when imported into the game. She spent days studying Photoshop’s batch processing features, repeatedly adjusting the settings, and exported three or four versions of each of the hundreds of character portraits before finally achieving a satisfactory result.
As the issues with the script and art were gradually resolved, new challenges arose in game design. To create *The Moment the Moonlight Shines*, Gouzi took it upon himself to teach himself map design. But just when he had finally finished designing the map, Huazi reviewed it and found that the flow of movement was illogical—players simply couldn’t follow the intended paths.
*Moonlight Reflections* went through several major overhauls and even faced financial difficulties at one point, forcing the team to launch a crowdfunding campaign. Although crowdfunding meant extra work, they had no other choice at the time. In the end, the campaign raised far more than expected, which not only eased their financial strain but also gave them the confidence to keep going.
For the first year or so, all three worked on the game part-time. It wasn’t until they began preparing for the crowdfunding campaign that Gouzi and Huazi quit their jobs to devote themselves full-time to the development of *Moonlight Shines Bright*. Even so, the project’s progress was still slowed by numerous unforeseen setbacks.
Dog's Workstation
As development entered its second year, even greater challenges began to arise. Starting in April and May, Zizi began experiencing serious health issues; the pain in her eyes made it impossible for her to look at a computer screen. She could only use a Kindle-like device connected to a keyboard to painstakingly write out long sections of the plot.
“That was a really tough time,” Zizi recalled. “I wanted to get better as soon as possible so I could finish my work on schedule and not hold everyone else back.”
In the end, Zizi simply couldn’t keep going, so the three of them had no choice but to put the project on hold for six months. As a result, the game, which was originally scheduled to launch in early 2025, had to be postponed until late 2025.
As the game development neared completion, a new problem arose while organizing the script for the voice director. With a million words of text, they had to extract the lines needed for voice acting, delete all the narration, and assign an ID to each line. They had originally thought it would take two or three days, but it ended up taking five or six.
“There have been so many instances of this kind of thing from start to finish. They aren’t particularly difficult, but you’d never expect to have to deal with all these little details,” Gouzi concluded. “When you work at a company, you just have to do your part. But when you’re making an indie game, you have to figure out how to bring all the pieces together, and that takes a lot of time and effort.”
03
“The Aesthetic Appeal of the Golden Age of the China League Two”
"Moonlight Reflections" was released at the end of the year, offering countless players an unforgettable emotional experience; some netizens have described it as "evoking the aesthetic of the golden age of Chinese B-tier games."
In today’s online world, people criticize so-called “romance” while simultaneously yearning for genuine affection. This is an era where expectations for love have been steadily raised, yet people remain utterly “incapable of love.” Compared to just a few years ago, it has become increasingly difficult to craft a love story that is both deeply moving and exquisitely detailed.The rich storytelling and emotional depth found in every route of *The Moment the Moonlight Shines* make it all the more precious in today’s world.
Gouzi said that *The Moment the Moonlight Shines* aims to tell a story about courage and authenticity.
“What is the truth, really?” Gouzi added. While the truth may look different to each person, these fragmented perceptions come together to form a single, complete truth. Every romanceable character in the game presents the true nature of the world to the player from a different perspective.
One can also glimpse a character’s personality traits through their costume design. In the game, the sincere and straightforward Hao Lianzhong wears vermilion robes, while the morally ambiguous Shen Siduo is dressed in purple. “Vermilion symbolizes orthodoxy, while purple carries a hint of darkness. Jin Yong once created classic, contrasting characters like Ah Zi and Ah Zhu.” Gouzi explained.
Pursuing authenticity and embracing courage—these are the hallmarks of the ultimate idealist. The romanceable characters in *Moonlight Reflections* were designed precisely with these traits in mind. Zizi explains that what she aims to convey through the game is this: “These characters are all facing their own life challenges; they meet the player at a crossroads of fate, and together they explore, grow, and ultimately become the best versions of themselves.”
The Song Dynasty depicted in the game was similarly a time of deep division—on the surface, the economy was thriving, but in reality, the empire was plagued by internal strife and external threats. Beneath the bustling streets of Kaifeng, countless homeless refugees lived in the sewers. While *Moonlight Reflections* appears to tell several tales of passionate romance, it is, in essence, a journey of growth shared by the player and the characters.
This central theme of growth and perseverance has also become the key criterion for distinguishing between good and bad endings in the game. In many of the “bad endings,” the characters abandon their ideals and gradually become twisted and unrecognizable. “In the bad endings, we show how an idealist is destroyed,” said Zizi.
“And the happy ending we define isn’t about career success or achieving great things in the conventional sense, but rather that, along this journey, they’ve grown into people capable of facing themselves and have found what they truly desire deep down,” Gouzi added.
In addition to the main storyline, the game’s supporting characters also have distinct character arcs. There’s A-Shuo, the bright and adorable younger brother of the Hao Lian family; the matriarch, who is determined to uphold the family’s reputation but is ultimately consumed by its constraints; and even Zhu Feng, a relatively antagonistic character—a timid and cautious man who nonetheless has his own philosophy on life.
Each character lives by their own personal creed. Their physiques, skin tones, and muscle definition vary, and even details like their dietary habits are taken into account, making each character feel authentic and fully realized.
The first person to be moved by the script for *Moonlight Shines Bright* was voice director "Reiizumi Yozuki." As a renowned voice actor who has lent his voice to popular games such as *League of Legends*, *Marvel vs. Marvel*, and *Black Myth: Wukong*, he plays both twin brothers, Hao Lianzhong and Hao Lianqing, in *Moonlight Shines Bright*.
Lengquan Yueyue admitted that this was an extremely compelling script. When Gouzi and Zizi expressed their desire to invite “Dabai Siro” to voice Shen Siduo and “Senzhongren” to voice Liao Zhengqin, Lengquan Yueyue enthusiastically helped them make the connections.The addition of these renowned voice actors has elevated the audio quality of *The Moment the Moonlight Shines* to new heights, making the characters’ emotions even richer and more moving.
04
The Comeback from "Bad Reviews" to "Good Reviews"
During the three years they spent developing the game, they struggled with self-doubt every day: “We really can’t go on like this—how on earth are we ever going to get through all this?” They would often stare at the mountain of tasks on their to-do lists, so anxious that they couldn’t sleep a wink.
The game was finally finished, and it still felt surreal to them. On the day the game launched on Steam, the three-person development team went out for hot pot together, ordered everything they wanted, and ate until they were stuffed.
However, after a brief moment of relief, a dark cloud loomed over the three of them.
Today, the game has garnered "overwhelmingly positive reviews" from 3,000 players, but upon its initial release, it was bombarded with a flood of lengthy "negative reviews," resulting in a mixed reception. The game was also reported for inexplicable reasons, forcing the developers to appear before the Cultural Affairs Bureau to explain the situation. Even creators in the fan community who produce fan art have reported that their accounts were reported and suspended.
Perhaps it was because the launch date promised during the crowdfunding campaign was delayed, or perhaps it was due to the controversy between fans of the female lead and those who identified with her over her personality—to this day, they still can’t pinpoint the source of these negative reviews and reports.
“I really didn’t know what to do at the time,” Zizi recalled, still feeling a bit emotional.
“Sales were really bad the first two days after the game launched,” Gouzi said. “So bad that we started to doubt ourselves: Was it really that bad? What was the point of all our hard work over the past three years?”
Fortunately, the voice actors—who have always been big fans of *The Moment the Moonlight Shines*—stayed active in the group chat during that time, offering comfort and encouragement to the cast.
As real players delved deeper into the game and reached the ending, public opinion began to shift. More and more players were moved by the story, characters, and world-building of *Moonlight Reflections*, and positive reviews poured in. When the game received unexpectedly high scores, the three developers did not feel elated, but rather a sense of calm that comes after weathering the storm.
Three years of struggle, doubt, and perseverance have finally paid off.
They’ve thrown themselves into a new round of busy work: updating the *Moonlight Reflected* DLC and starting preparations for its sequel. At the very least, the sales of *Moonlight Reflected* have allowed them to focus on their next project without any financial worries.
The story that began under the wisteria tree has finally come to fruition. And this is just the beginning; many more stories are yet to come.
原创文章，作者：游茶妹儿，禁止转载：https://youxichaguan.com/en/archives/195457
