TIMEMOON is a VN all about being a time-traveling taxi driver, and it was my TGS 2025 game of the show

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I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s important to say again – I especially enjoy seeing independent games at big industry events. At Tokyo Game Show 2025, the game that really caught my attention was TIMEMOON – a story-driven adventure where you play as Clark, a taxi driver working on the moon in the future. However, there’s a unique element: your taxi isn’t just for getting people from point A to point B. It’s a time machine, much like in Back to the Future, and hitting a certain speed lets you send passengers to different points in time. With the President’s recent death, people suspect time travel might be involved, and it’s your job to uncover the truth – to find out who is responsible and their motives.

Everything unfolds in a peculiar cycle. Before taking on your next client, you’ll receive two copies of the same newspaper. Any differences between them stem from a time travel paradox, and these discrepancies serve as clues about past events and suggest what you should focus on when looking into the situation. However, these investigations are rarely straightforward.

Clark is limited to examining shifts in space-time from inside his taxi. This means all interactions with passengers happen as part of your driving experience. The choices you make are diegetic – they’re shown as how you naturally guide the conversation in a specific timeframe, like deciding to turn left or right. Occasionally, a passenger might offer an object for you to look at or examine, and you’ll need to react fast, as if you’re trying to stay focused on driving. It’s all about maintaining control of the vehicle while dealing with the unusual events unfolding around you.

Often, you’ll have a moment to consider your choices, but the quick shift from a calm drive to the fast-paced time travel sequence – and your final, desperate attempt to solve the mystery – creates a really captivating rhythm, similar to a class trial in Danganronpa. You start with limited knowledge, and I felt it was completely possible to uncover the truth, even if you might accidentally mishandle your passenger’s responses. It’s a thrilling experience! The balance is key.

During our demo, we figured out the motivations and actions of our first suspect, ultimately reaching a satisfying conclusion after taking him back in time and helping him understand his errors. The journey to get there demonstrated some impressive writing. We haven’t had a chance to evaluate the quality of the English translation yet, as I wanted to experience the game without an unfinished translation affecting my impressions. Fruitbat Factory is handling the localization, so I anticipate the final game will be a well-polished product.

When it comes to polish, this game is full of charm, from how it looks to its music. The art style feels like a classic PC-98 visual novel, but made with today’s technology. The overall atmosphere was perfect and really matches the game’s intended mood. It’s still too soon to say how the rest of the game will turn out, but I’m confident the presentation is already excellent. The team’s previous game, Mamiya, was apparently very popular – I plan to check it out soon, as I was so impressed with the TIMEMOON demo at TGS – so I’m optimistic they’ll deliver a great final product. Everything just feels right, and I’m really excited to see more.

TIMEMOON will be available for Windows PC at some point in the future. Keep an eye out for more details in the coming weeks and months. Stay tuned as we release more information.

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2025-10-01 01:26