For the first time ever I present one of my original homebrew creations directly to the 'Temp! Today, I bring to you
Moth.
Moth is a game that I started quite some time ago and I nearly finished it but then lost the motivation to do so. With the possibility of winning one of those fancy GBAtemp DSTwos that motivation was restored and the finishing touches were added to the game.
This unique game was inspired by the song
Moth by Audioslave. As I sat in class on a boring school day with this song stuck in my head the idea came to me. "That'd be a really good idea for a game", I thought.
So I began to doodle the basic mechanics of the game in my notebook. The game would be a DS game and would have a top-down view. The view would span across both screens. At the top of the top screen would be a flickering light. The player would control the movements of a moth. The player would be able to steer the moth as well as make the moth flap its wings. Every time the moth flaps his wings he would speed up. The moth will feel bliss every time it flaps its wings while moving in the direction of the light. However, as the moth goes faster and faster it would be more and more drawn to the light.
The moth becomes harder for the player to control as its desire to reach the light grows. Eventually, the player will not have enough skill to control the moth and the moth would touch the light. At that point, the moth would reach the light, only to find that the light was a fire. Game over.
The more I thought about the idea, the more I liked it. I realized, however, that it would be too easy if the light was the only danger to the moth. Moths face more dangers than just being attracted to light. They have to survive against the attacks of predators.
The first predator that came to mind was a bat. Bats, using echolocation and moving swiftly through the night, are a very serious threat to a moth's survival. In the game, the player would hear the screeching of a bat just before it flies into screen to eat up the moth. If the player can think quick enough, the location of the bat can be predicted and the bat can be avoided.
The second predator that came to mind was a frog. The quick, stretchy tongues of frogs are difficult for moths to avoid. Get too close, and the moth is a goner. The player must not move in front of the frog. If the player moves in front of the frog, he'd better hope that he is moving quicker than that tongue.
Facing all of these challenges, is there really any way that the little moth can win? Well, maybe. I'll leave that up to the player to figure out
I thought about how the idea could be adapted to other consoles. The console that came to mind first was the PS3 due to its SIXAXIS controller. The view would be third person from behind the moth. You would see a light off in the distance. Up close, you would see approaching obstacles such as branches, spider webs, and predators. The player could still speed up by flapping his wings while the movement of the moth about the screen would be controlled by the tilting of the controller. The game could be as fast paced as the player chooses to go by flapping his wings. The faster the player goes, the quicker the score goes up.
Now, on to the homebrew adaptation of my idea. I would like to note that all of the artwork in the game and in this post was done by yours truly. The entire concept as well as all of the programming was also done by me. The sound effects are from SoundBible.com although some of them were edited to better meet the needs of the game. The music you hear in the background while playing the game is a piano cover of Moth by Audioslave done by
vkgoeswild.
Enjoy.
Controls
A - flap wings (tap repeatedly)
L/R or D-Pad Left/Right - steer moth
Start - return to home
Download Page
