Not to diminish your point, but I do think that the idea of Shechu has been so imbued in contemporary Chinese popular culture that for many Chinese this is not

Not to diminish your point, but I do think that the idea of Shechu has been so imbued in contemporary Chinese popular culture that for many Chinese this is not that serious or artsy a game (think any Netflix popular show that touches some serious social issues -- it can be well-made but usually not that artsy). It will be harder for a general audience to explore a past social culture (e.g. cold war, great depression) than to explore a present, popular culture. Also not disagreeing with you -- it will be awesome to play some serious game about the new deal/anti-vaxxers. In general, seeing discussions on game design across HN, I think we (HN as a whole) can be more exploratory in our games, going beyond "being serious, well researched, and non-predatory". The sense of ambiguous loss brought by To the Moon is one direction in this. Some other random examples pioneered by films that I think we should explore include more subtle ambiguity in narratives (e.g. Burning (2018)) or delicacy in depicting the adolescent female experience (e.g. Marie Antoinette (2006)).