Moth Lake

Moth Lake is a story-driven game set in a small town whose peaceful appearance conceals a terrible secret. A group of teenagers with difficult lives begins to uncover what has been hidden for generations as mysterious events intensify on the eve of a solar eclipse. Their journey through the mystery also takes them into their own pasts and inner lives, with choices that affect their relationships, moods and sometimes the plot. The story has six different endings.

The town and its characters

You explore a 2.5D pixel-art world, interacting with hotspots and more than 50 NPCs. The story has six main characters, and you control seven characters through the main story, with more playable characters in additional chapters. Each has a distinct look and personality, and their background stories emerge through flashbacks, shattered memories and first-person-perspective puzzles.

Choices affect characters’ moods. Characters in a good mood smile, perform funny idle animations and help one another; those in a bad mood look angry, insult their friends and act more selfishly. The group’s general mood can also unlock hidden scenes. Character-selection menus show mood and energy indicators, while close-ups of faces appear during conversations.

Exploration and puzzles

Characters move through hundreds of scenes—more than 300 scenarios—interacting with people and objects. You pull objects and perform specific actions to solve unconventional puzzles, sometimes with one character and sometimes through cooperation across the group. Each character has skills that can matter at the right moment, and their personalities can also be important to solving puzzles.

An inventory lets you store energy drinks and other items for later use at hotspots. Characters lose energy when attacked; energy must stay above zero to avoid a game-over screen, and low energy makes progress harder. You can restore it with energy drinks, which can be difficult to find. The game automatically saves at each scene.

Stealth and story

The game combines stealth-action, suspense, horror and puzzles. Characters must hide, make difficult decisions and sometimes fight for their lives. Their personal histories are explored through first-person puzzles that are crucial to helping them move on from their pain. The story includes dark and sad material as well as jokes and strange conversations; some scenes are disturbing, frightening or anxiety-inducing.

The script contains more than 20,000 words. The pixel art uses a broad colour palette and frame-to-frame animation, with characters shown talking, walking, running, crouching, crawling, pushing, climbing, sneaking, punching and throwing. Lighting, shading, particle effects and parallax are used to give the scenarios a 3D appearance. The game also features an original soundtrack.