To describe what they’re aiming for with Mothmen 1996, the Argentinian developers behind LCB Game Studio could not have hit upon a more fitting name than “pixel pulp.” Stylistically, the game approximates the pulp-paperback-channelling look (read: fast, cheap, and out of control) of the 8-bit ZX Spectrum home computer from the ’80s. And where pulp fiction is meant to deliver quick gratification for its lurid, sensationalized subject matter, Mothmen 1966 takes a similar approach, as it’s a swift visual novel whose bizarre twists and many violent deaths pack plenty of ideas into a deceptively modest framework.
The game is broken up into chapter segments, each taking the POV of one of three characters: square-jawed history major Lee, his pregnant girlfriend Victoria, and gas station proprietor Holt. Soon enough, they’re all facing a terrifying onslaught of bipedal mothmen, who are perhaps the least strange, most “traditional” part of a story that includes besuited men who bite cards, a meteor shower, Civil War documents, and a really hard variant of solitaire.
Playing Mothmen 1996 largely consists of paging through its brisk dialogue, all of which is accompanied by detailed, neon-tinged pixel images that are distinctly eerie. There are also a few light puzzles—little tests of logic that bring welcome variety across the game’s brief runtime. Failing a puzzle leads to a death screen with art that varies depending on the manner of death, though you’re able to give a puzzle another try without much of a fuss.
Unlike the many branching paths of something like Supermassive Games’s The Quarry, the story of Mothmen 1966 more or less runs on a set trajectory. For the most part, LCB Game Studio’s comparatively tiny work is more satisfying for being able to come together in more focused, concrete fashion than the patchwork storytelling of The Quarry. But there are other times where the stylistic tics of Mothmen 1966’s ZX Spectrum aesthetic do the game few favors, particularly in sound design largely composed of screechy lo-fi effects and cornball music cues. It’s the most overt part of the game that feels less like a pleasantly scrappy effort to transcend development constraints than just deferring to the sparseness of the toolset.
The story, too, is left a bit wanting, though not for lack of ambition. Mothmen 1996 includes many character and conceptual threads that allow for the game to be engaging from moment to moment, but then the end suddenly arrives and it can feel as if a bow hasn’t been tied on everything. In particular, we never get a complete picture of everyone’s interpersonal relationships and insecurities. Mothmen 1966 is a compelling introduction to “pixel pulp,” though it’s something of a mixed success for the degree to which it leaves us wanting more.
This game was reviewed using a code provided by Stride PR.
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