Moth Simulator

Moth Simulator on itch.io

This atmospheric digital game uses exclusively the cursor to control a moth, who moves around the screen consuming lamps and absorbing their light for himself. The game's narrative is largely in the background, but involves the moth getting larger and larger until he meets the last creature who managed to eat as much light as he has, and consumes the sun. I wanted to continue to explore themes of consumption, as in Teethmaster, but with Moth Simulator I wanted to explore the idea of something small that is encouraged and capable of rapidly consuming energy in order to become larger than life, like the beings around it. The game references the natural world through the bug characters within it, but toys with ideas of space and scale, with the moth moving into different strata of light as it continues to consume.

I worked on Moth Simulator for 3 weeks, from the end of September to the middle of October in 2023 as the sole writer, artist, and programmer. Once again, I wanted to create a vaguely uncanny atmosphere through collage elements, but instead of photorealistic background characters, I chose to use illustrations from medieval manuscripts as the art direction and style for the background bugs. The moth and the lamp elements I drew myself in GameMaker's sprite editor to give the game a sense of depth and dynamic scaling through art style. Moth Simulator was featured on itch.io's "Latest Fresh" games list on the website's front page on October 24th.