Mothmen 1966

About Mothmen 1966

Mothmen 1966 is the first of the Pixel Pulps, a series by LCB Game Studio, the Argentine team of novelist Nico Saraintaris and artist Fernando Martinez Ruppel, inspired by mid-20th century pulp fiction and 80s home computer graphics. Chorus Worldwide published it on 14 July 2022 on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox and Switch, and it reached GOG in December 2023. Varney Lake and Bahnsen Knights complete the first volume of the series.

It is November 1966, the night of the Leonid meteor shower. Holt runs a gas station on a quiet road. A college student, Lee, and his girlfriend Victoria pull in, and a paranormal investigator is not far behind. Strange things are happening at the edge of their reality: nightmare creatures with wings, and mysterious men in black who seem to know more than they say.

You read the story in chapters, each from Holt's, Lee's or Victoria's point of view, choosing what they say and do in a choose-your-own-adventure style. Some moments are short puzzles played through the dialogue, such as sorting a shelf or a simple card-guessing game, and tense scenes ask you to fight off animals or the creatures by picking the right actions in the right order. A wrong choice gets someone killed and sends you back to try the scene again. The text is in English, Japanese, French, German and Latin American Spanish, with no voice acting.

The horror is pulp horror: a lonely night, dread building at the gas station, a dead bat in the headlights and red eyes in the trees, told in sharp writing and four-colour pixel illustrations with creepy music. Critics praised the writing and art; the common complaints are the short length, the trial and error in the tense scenes and, on PC Gamer's part, the lack of a chapter select for replays.

It suits readers who want a short, atmospheric story in one evening, and fans of cryptid and men-in-black folklore. Next to branching horror visual novels such as Scarlet Hollow it is far shorter and more linear, closer to a gamebook with puzzles.

How to play Mothmen 1966

1. Start the first chapter and read the text under each illustration.
2. Choose lines of dialogue and actions when the story offers them.
3. Solve the short puzzles played through the dialogue, such as moving objects or guessing cards.
4. If a choice gets a character killed, retry the scene and choose differently.

Tips

• Read carefully; small details in the text often point to the right choice.
• In the tense scenes the actions have to happen in a set order, so if a character dies, think about what had to come first.
• There is no chapter select, so try different dialogue lines on your first run if you want to see them.
• Play it in one sitting at night for the full mood.
• If you like it, Varney Lake and Bahnsen Knights continue the Pixel Pulps series.

Questions