Mothlight (working title): A Tiny Overview

The moth is invisible by default.

Invisibility is neither a skill nor a piece of equipment, but her natural state of existence within the manor. It protects her, allowing her to explore the manor unseen by its monsters.

Being invisible, however, does not mean being undetectable.

The moth can deliberately reveal herself, for instance by lighting her lamp to illuminate the darkness. But even while invisible, her movements can betray her presence: making noise or disturbing objects near a monster can arouse its suspicion and trigger a hunt.

As the monsters begin searching for her, the moth feels increasingly cornered. Her fear rises, making her more detectable and increasing the risk of being caught.

Once a monster spots her, it immediately attempts to kill her, treating her like a pest to be eradicated before she can infect the entire family.

Invisibility is both a blessing and a curse: it keeps her safe, but some truths can only be faced by revealing one’s true self.

She is drawn to light, and the manor is scattered with the monsters’ memories: luminous objects hidden by its inhabitants, never meant to be found, yet irresistible to the tiny insect.

She is so drawn to them that whenever she spots one, her body reacts: her breathing quickens, her small wings begin to flutter, and she makes noise.

The memories she collects are stored as light inside her lamp, which she carries hidden beneath her cloak. But memories have weight: the more she carries, the slower and noisier she becomes, increasing the risk of being discovered.

The lamp can also reveal hidden traces of the family’s past, depending on the memories it holds. Yet using it means exposing herself to whatever might be watching from the darkness.

The player is free to decide the fate of the manor and its inhabitants:

• Explore, observe, and gather memories to restore the monstrous family dwelling there.
• Devour memories to grow stronger and slaughter every single monster.
• Manipulate the monsters to become the mistress of the manor herself.

The player receives no guidance on these choices. The game is designed to let them make the decisions they deem most appropriate based on the monsters’ behaviour and the information they gather. There is no judgement involved, nor is there a single ‘correct’ way to reach the end.

The manor is gigantic and out of scale compared to the moth, as are the monsters.

This is how furniture becomes architecture: small movements turn into journeys, and reaching the highest recesses becomes a matter of finding the most efficient, quietest path while avoiding the monsters’ rage.

The manor is at once a home and an entity with a will of its own. It does not want to be understood, and it does not want the moth to break free.

Like an anglerfish luring prey into the darkness with light, the manor will do whatever it takes to draw the moth deeper, until she can no longer tell whether the real monsters are its inhabitants – or herself.

Monsters in Mothlight are not generic enemies to be evaded, killed, or ‘solved’.
They are distinct characters, each with their own lore, behaviour, territory, and possible resolutions.

Regardless of the choices made – whether to restore, kill, or manipulate them – the player must observe, interpret, and understand how to deal with each monster to find a way out of the manor.

Each monster is a member of the family, and they are designed to be systemically interconnected: restoring one might destroy another.

Some live and move in symbiosis, while others haunt their territories in solitude. Yet together, they form a single family system that cannot see the moth – and if it does, it will do everything in its power to kill her.

Mothlight makes the player feel small, insignificant, and unwanted.

To be seen in the manor is to be met with disgust by monstrous creatures – treated as something to be rooted out and killed before it can infect the entire house.

The game makes the player hate the monsters. It makes them want to fight back, devour their memories, and gain the power needed to defeat them and finally leave the manor.

Yet it also allows the player to be observant enough to truly know them: stripped bare, exposed in all their vulnerability and humanity. Or rather, what remains of that humanity.

In Mothlight, knowledge is power.

The power to restore the family members’ identities, to kill them, or to manipulate them.

It compels the player to question who the real monster is, while leaving the choice entirely in their hands.

Little Nightmares for scale and vulnerability.
Gone Home for environmental observation and non-linear exploration.
Bloodborne for fragmented lore, object descriptions, and indirect storytelling.

Mothlight began as a solo, documentation-first project: first, comprehensive gameplay documentation; then, in-depth documentation for each monster, defining their emotional patterns, spatial logic, memory structures, and the choices they present to the player.

It is now in production – with no budget yet – with a team of five: myself as creative director and narrative designer, a programmer, a 3D artist, an environment artist, and a sound designer.

An advanced game design document is complete, and a playable greybox prototype is running in Unity.

I started Mothlight because I wanted to design from meaning outward. I wanted to build mechanics from the story’s central ideas instead of attaching a story to mechanics that already existed or were tied to a specific genre.

I find that when a game has solid narrative pillars, it’s easier to scale it up or down depending on budget and time, as long as those pillars are honoured.

Which brings me to what I’m currently struggling with as the project’s creative director and narrative designer: making sure the nature and meaning of the game survive not only time and budget constraints, but also the instincts of my talented and eager colleagues.

I’ve realised that when people have to solve a problem, they’re naturally drawn to what already feels familiar. That instinct can become a problem when familiar solutions begin to dictate the design, rather than serve the experience we’re trying to create.

For example, someone might pitch a very specific and compelling approach to designing the skill tree – because yes, there will be a skill tree in Mothlight – but that solution could push the game towards becoming an RPG, stripping it of its distinct identity and, more importantly, losing sight of what the skill tree actually means within the game.

This doesn’t happen because my colleagues aren’t excellent professionals. It happens because human beings love putting things into neat boxes.

So the moment we call something a ‘skill tree’, the term itself can pull people towards the conventions of RPGs and away from what that system is actually supposed to mean within the narrative.

I’m having fun, though.