Great Hoax: The Moon Landing

Great Hoax: The Moon Landing is an interactive VR comedy about the Taiwanese faking a moon-landing, in which you play the first Taiwanese astronaut on the moon.

Synopsis

In 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Despite all the conspiracy theories around it, The US successfully showed the world what a powerful country can accomplish. 50 years later, people in Taiwan are struggling between an identity crisis and economic fluctuations, hoping for something or someone that would show up and save the day.

This desire is why you are hired to be a national hero - the very first Taiwanese who lands on the moon. However, real space travel is expensive and without the budget for space exploration, a fake moon landing video will need to be made instead, just like in the famous Kubrick conspiracy.

The whole shooting is in a studio, decorated like the surface of the Moon, with a film crew and government agents watching over the operation. You follow orders from the director (or not) doing all the heroic actions and poses, while playing around on set by throwing objects at the crew and antagonizing them.

Finally, comes the release day. You wait for the broadcast in your dingy apartment, only to realize it’s not about a moon-landing anymore. It has become a gaudy Taiwanese Karaoke-style propaganda music video, leaving you isolated and depressed. Hallucinating, you stand on the real moon, looking back at Earth and down at Taiwan, the little island that will be forgotten, just like you..

Director John Hsu: "I wanted to make an interactive political satire about the Taiwanese government faking our own moon landing and show the world that we can be “great” too. You, the audience, are going to become “the first Taiwanese astronaut landing on the moon.” If we cannot solve actual problems on Earth, we can always stun everyone with a spectacular show."