Moth Lake: A Horror Story
Stefano Mazzotta (Il Sui) · 2022 · Lore-Rich, Puzzle, Point & Click, Action-Adventure, Third Person
PC
Very Positive82% · 99 📉 Recent reviews down 72%
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About Moth Lake: A Horror Story
Synopsis:
This is the story of Moth Lake,
a small town that, behind its peaceful facade, hides a terrible secret.
Only a group of teenagers, with a difficult life, will reveal what has been hidden for generations.
Mysterious events will intensify starting from the eve of a solar eclipse,
and our young friends will start a journey into the shadow and into their own soul.
What to expect from this game:
In short:
• 2.5D pixel art (Frame to frame animations, as if we are still in '90s)
• A soundtrack that is original, suggestive, and exciting
• Simple controls (Supporting touch screen, mouse, keyboard and controllers)
• Unconventional puzzles (Don't worry, there's a free walkthrough if you need help!)
• Stealth-action
• Choices that will change the bonds between the characters as well as the spirit of the experience (Just like in life, a choice can make the difference between friendship, love, hate, life or death)
• Thrills, suspense and horror (Not a survival game, but it can be creepy or scary at times)
• Bad humor and strong language (They are teenagers, don't judge them)
• At some point this experience might even move you to tear (I'm not crying, I just got a pixel in my eye)
• 6 different endings
In detail:
Moth Lake is a story-driven experience, with a lot of textual contents (more than 20k words), and hundreds of different scenes (more than 300 scenarios).
The script is a long journey through a mystery, through horrors and through the characters hearts.
It contains dark topics and very sad stuff, but also a lot of non-sense jokes and weird conversations, so it's hard to say whether it is a horror game or not.
The main characters move around a 2.5D world, interacting with many hotspots and NPCs.
They can pull objects and perform a set of specific actions to solve very different puzzles.
The artwork is a modern pixel art, with a big colour palette and a lot of frame-to-frame animations.
There's a very large set of animations, including talking, walking, running, crouching, crawling, pushing, climbing, sneaking, punching, throwing... and much more.
Scenarios have some modern lighting/shading work, with particles effects and a constant use of parallax, to simulate a 3D environment.
There are 6 main characters and more than 50 NPCs, with their own look and personality. You can control 7 characters through the main story and more in the additional chapters.
They all move their eyes, they change facial expressions, and they have some peculiar behaviours.
As the story proceeds, the player has to take some choices, affecting the characters mood and sometimes even the plot.
Characters with a good mood are always smiling, they perform funny idle animations and they help each other.
On the other hand, characters with a bad mood show an angry face, they insult their friends and they are generally edgy and selfish.
The general mood can even unlock hidden scenes, and personally I would play this game multiple times just to see these little details.
You can see the Mood indicators in the character selection menu, and right above, you can see the energy indicators.
As in survival games, the energy level goes down if a character gets attacked.
The energy level must be above 0, or the game will be interrupted by the game-over screen.
The game-over itself is not a big deal, because there is an automatic save on each scene, but a low energy level makes it harder to progress.
To restore the energy level, you need to find energy drinks, (sometimes hard to find).
There is an inventory where you can store energy drinks and other items to be used later on some hotspots.
For most of the time the player controls a character surrounded by his/her friends.
Each one has some kind of skill to be used at the right moment, and sometimes even their personality will be important to solve a puzzle.
Some puzzles can be solved by a single character, while other must be solved using the whole squad cooperation.
This game contains close-ups of character faces, often appearing during conversations.
Watching their faces should give more rhythm to conversations, helping you growing fond of the main characters, and provide you with a deeper experience.
Every character has a background story that will show up with flashbacks and shattered memories, emerging as part of the story and as first person perspective puzzles.
Solving these puzzles is crucial for them to move on and leave the pain behind.
As I said, the game aims to give psychological horror vibes.
So keep in mind that this game is not for everyone! Some scenes are disturbing, some scenes may give you anxiety, and some other scenes are extremely sad.
Characters are constantly called to face their difficult past, and to go through their scary present.
They need to hide, to take terrible decisions and sometimes even to fight for their lives.
...But after all, your choices can lead you to the best possible ending, and if you fail, you can always try again.
This is the story of Moth Lake,
a small town that, behind its peaceful facade, hides a terrible secret.
Only a group of teenagers, with a difficult life, will reveal what has been hidden for generations.
Mysterious events will intensify starting from the eve of a solar eclipse,
and our young friends will start a journey into the shadow and into their own soul.
What to expect from this game:
In short:
• 2.5D pixel art (Frame to frame animations, as if we are still in '90s)
• A soundtrack that is original, suggestive, and exciting
• Simple controls (Supporting touch screen, mouse, keyboard and controllers)
• Unconventional puzzles (Don't worry, there's a free walkthrough if you need help!)
• Stealth-action
• Choices that will change the bonds between the characters as well as the spirit of the experience (Just like in life, a choice can make the difference between friendship, love, hate, life or death)
• Thrills, suspense and horror (Not a survival game, but it can be creepy or scary at times)
• Bad humor and strong language (They are teenagers, don't judge them)
• At some point this experience might even move you to tear (I'm not crying, I just got a pixel in my eye)
• 6 different endings
In detail:
Moth Lake is a story-driven experience, with a lot of textual contents (more than 20k words), and hundreds of different scenes (more than 300 scenarios).
The script is a long journey through a mystery, through horrors and through the characters hearts.
It contains dark topics and very sad stuff, but also a lot of non-sense jokes and weird conversations, so it's hard to say whether it is a horror game or not.
The main characters move around a 2.5D world, interacting with many hotspots and NPCs.
They can pull objects and perform a set of specific actions to solve very different puzzles.
The artwork is a modern pixel art, with a big colour palette and a lot of frame-to-frame animations.
There's a very large set of animations, including talking, walking, running, crouching, crawling, pushing, climbing, sneaking, punching, throwing... and much more.
Scenarios have some modern lighting/shading work, with particles effects and a constant use of parallax, to simulate a 3D environment.
There are 6 main characters and more than 50 NPCs, with their own look and personality. You can control 7 characters through the main story and more in the additional chapters.
They all move their eyes, they change facial expressions, and they have some peculiar behaviours.
As the story proceeds, the player has to take some choices, affecting the characters mood and sometimes even the plot.
Characters with a good mood are always smiling, they perform funny idle animations and they help each other.
On the other hand, characters with a bad mood show an angry face, they insult their friends and they are generally edgy and selfish.
The general mood can even unlock hidden scenes, and personally I would play this game multiple times just to see these little details.
You can see the Mood indicators in the character selection menu, and right above, you can see the energy indicators.
As in survival games, the energy level goes down if a character gets attacked.
The energy level must be above 0, or the game will be interrupted by the game-over screen.
The game-over itself is not a big deal, because there is an automatic save on each scene, but a low energy level makes it harder to progress.To restore the energy level, you need to find energy drinks, (sometimes hard to find).
There is an inventory where you can store energy drinks and other items to be used later on some hotspots.
For most of the time the player controls a character surrounded by his/her friends.
Each one has some kind of skill to be used at the right moment, and sometimes even their personality will be important to solve a puzzle.
Some puzzles can be solved by a single character, while other must be solved using the whole squad cooperation.
This game contains close-ups of character faces, often appearing during conversations.
Watching their faces should give more rhythm to conversations, helping you growing fond of the main characters, and provide you with a deeper experience.
Every character has a background story that will show up with flashbacks and shattered memories, emerging as part of the story and as first person perspective puzzles.
Solving these puzzles is crucial for them to move on and leave the pain behind.
As I said, the game aims to give psychological horror vibes.
So keep in mind that this game is not for everyone! Some scenes are disturbing, some scenes may give you anxiety, and some other scenes are extremely sad.
Characters are constantly called to face their difficult past, and to go through their scary present.
They need to hide, to take terrible decisions and sometimes even to fight for their lives.
...But after all, your choices can lead you to the best possible ending, and if you fail, you can always try again.
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
Very boring and random! Too many characters to control, tons of reading with many spelling errors, slow reaction time when fighting/avoiding/hiding, and hard to keep track of what some characters can and can't do. Some puzzles are super easy, others are impossible until you go and watch the provided walk-through on the pause menu. Any game that voluntarily gives you a free walk-through for their game IN THE GAME... you know you're gonna get frustrated and stuck. Lame game. Unless this game is somehow FREE to try, spend your money elsewhere.1 found this helpful
very good game very good history pls do more games like this
Moth Lake is an evocative and melancholic indie adventure that captures the uneasy beauty of adolescence while weaving a tale of mystery, tragedy, and psychological horror. Created by Stefano Mazzotta, known as Il Sui, and published by Sui Arts, the game takes place in a deceptively peaceful town that conceals dark secrets beneath its surface. At first glance, Moth Lake feels like a nostalgic coming-of-age story—a small group of teenagers spending their last summer together—but it quickly becomes clear that something is deeply wrong. As a rare solar eclipse approaches, strange phenomena begin to emerge, turning what should be an ordinary day into the catalyst for a descent into the uncanny. The blend of supernatural tension and emotional storytelling creates a layered experience that feels deeply personal, as if the horror is as much psychological as it is otherworldly. The presentation of Moth Lake immediately stands out for its distinctive visual style. It adopts a retro-inspired pixel-art aesthetic but enriches it with modern animation techniques and detailed environmental design. The result is a 2.5D world that feels alive and tactile, with shifting light, expressive character…
Great game
Absolute banger of a soundtrack, especially when dealing with any of the monsters. It would be cool if it was available. I do recommend this game, although I do think it can be frustrating at times. All of the puzzles are fairly intuitive, but actually knowing/figuring out what specifically to do for those puzzles takes a bit more brain power. I might just not be used to the developer's style for creating these puzzles. I like that there are multiple endings, but I'm less of a fan that some sections are just so tedious if you don't do them perfectly the first time (83 game overs according to the credits XD, definitely a test of patience). Looking forward to finding the other endings.
Moth Lake – A Nostalgic and Stylish One-Time Ride Moth Lake surprised me in a good way. The pixel art style instantly brought me back to the 90s. The atmosphere is moody and unique, and it kept me curious all the way through. The puzzles are mostly trial and error, often requiring you to fail (or die) to figure out the right path forward. While that can be frustrating at times, it kind of fits the game's dark and mysterious tone. I managed to get the good ending on my first playthrough, and while there are multiple endings, I don’t feel the need to replay it. Once was enough, but it was definitely worth it. Recommended if you're into retro-style indie games with a creepy twist — just don’t expect deep mechanics or replayability.
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