In mid-November 1966, a couple in the town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, reported being chased by a large, red-eyed, winged creature while driving an old WWII munitions factory. Following that sighting, many others began to report similar experiences tracked by monsters that became known as “Mothmans.” Today, Mosman is a big part of Point Pleasant’s tourism industry, and the statues and the entire annual festival celebrate it whatever it is. Mosman is my favorite mystery that the United States has created so far. The main reason to mention all this is that the Mosman 1966 was the first thing that caught my eye, and I can feel my slight disappointment when the Mosman 1966 turns out. In the long run, that wasn’t really the case.
Mothmen 1966 is a visual novel / retro style adventure game where players switch between the perspectives of three characters. Holt is a local gas station owner, modelgun enthusiast, caring for his paraplegic grandmother, and spending his free time playing with the impossible version of solitaire. Victoria and Lee are young couples at the instability of their relationship, both worried that they may settle for the most convenient option. When Lee surprised Victoria by dating at Holt’s station, an ideal place to see the next meteor shower, a swarm of bipedal animal-like monsters, or “Mothmans,” gathered for gas. When they start attacking the stand, the four are drawn into a violent scenario. Together with a writer and researcher named Lou, the group must understand how to survive the night, escape, and possibly eliminate monsters forever.
From time to time, the game offers players a choice of dialogue, but I personally didn’t realize that it had a real impact on how the story progressed as a result. The most prominent part of gameplay is performing a few actions that may be called mini-games. These can range from scaring coyote packs to having to shoot certain streetlights to get rid of some Mosmans. There are two issues with these sections. The first problem is how to format it in exactly the same way as the dialog selection. A group of menu options is displayed, selecting one to see another set of options nested within the previously selected option. This method is generally simple, but it feels very clunky because some parts of the sequence get a little complicated, such as the tile rotation puzzles that are quite frustrating near the end of the game. The developers have the feeling that they knew that some of these puzzles were frustrating with the formatting method. At least one of them has an option to let the game solve it. Another problem with these sequences is that many of them feel like trial and error and you need to find the exact combination of actions to take in order to succeed. Usually you have to fail multiple times because there is no actual guidance. How to reach positive results.
There are several things that Mothmen 1966 is good at. Its pixel art and overall aesthetics are amazing. The developer’s attempt to recreate the feeling of playing a very old PC game has been completely successful and is probably what I remember most about this game. The problem is that this alone isn’t enough to avoid the general clunky feeling of gameplay and, ultimately, less unique and less memorable stories. If you’re slow-paced, enjoying a text-based horror approach, or want to feel nostalgic for DOS-era games, Mothmen 1966 may be worth a look. But without these very specific desires, I’m having a hard time recommending it to others.
