Make a game like Mothwell

Step 1 · Your game, and step 3's level size

An explorer is a handful of screens joined by doors. Mothwell has five: a Title, the Lamp Hall (two screens wide), the dark Wick Chamber (two wide), The Wick Shaft (one wide and three tall — a climb) and The End.

1. In Your game, press + Add screen for each room and name it. Mark the title with Start here.
2. In Build the level, pick the screen and use Level size: 2 screens wide for a hall, 3 screens tall for a shaft. The camera follows the hero through anything bigger than one screen.
3. Join rooms with Door from Stamps: put one in each room and give both the same pair name. The list under Keyboard shortcuts shows every pair, e.g. Door (Lamp Hall) ↔ Door (Wick Chamber).

Step 2 · The cast

1. Under Add someone, press Hero. It arrives able to walk and jump.
2. Draw him: Draw with AI → Someone new, pick The hero, describe him in one sentence (Mothwell's: "a small moth-cloaked cave wanderer with pale grey skin, large dark eyes and an amber belt lamp") and choose the movements. The price shows before anything is spent. Or press Make a simple one now (free) for a code-drawn hero.
3. On his card, tick what he can do: Can crouch, Squash & stretch, Can dash, Wall slide & wall jump, and Run up walls and cling. Leave the ones he should find later unticked — step 6 turns them on from a pickup.
4. The feel lives in his Platformer ability. Mothwell's: fall 1.6× faster than he rises (a weighty landing), a 0.35 hang at the top of a jump, jump speed 560 against gravity 1400 — about 108px of jump.

Step 3 · Build the level

1. Paint the floors with a tile grid, then mark tiles in the palette: floor (brown badge) holds the hero, gold is jump-through, red hurts, cracked breaks when the nail hits it. Unmarked tiles are only a picture.
2. From Drop in: a Ramp to walk up without jumping, a Jump-through plank, Spikes, and a moving platform (a solid thing with the Patrol ability and gravity 0 carries whoever stands on it).
3. Turn on Show jump / dash arc while you place ledges. The rule of thumb: every step up no higher than one jump (Mothwell uses 64 and 96px for a 108px jump), and gaps a run can clear.
4. A shaft is the same, turned on its side: ledges zigzagging wall to wall, 2 or 3 tiles up each time, with a moving platform across the widest gap.
5. Press ▶ Play this screen after every change. Test the climb, not just the look.

Step 2 for the swing, step 4 for the rules

The swing is its own cast member, Nail: a picture of the slash with the Projectile ability, speed 0 and a life of 0.2s — it appears, hits whatever it touches, and is gone. Tag it nail.

Aimed held swings the way the arrows point: up while ↑ is held, down in the air while ↓ is held, otherwise forward. The offset puts it at chest height in front of him.

The pogo — bouncing off spikes and enemies with a down-swing:

Tag the spikes pogo — and the enemies, so they can be bounced on too. A sideways hit never bounces.

Step 2 to make them, step 3 to place them, step 4 for the fight

1. Draw with AI → Someone new: A walker for something on the ground (Stand, Walk, Hurt), A flyer for something in the air (Fly, Hurt). Or press Enemy under Add someone for a ready one.
2. A walker gets Patrol (tick Turn at the edge of a platform); a flyer gets Chase with Chase sideways only off and a detection range — Mothwell's fly notices Wick from 420px and dives.
3. Give each health:2 in Starting stats, and the tags enemy and pogo.
4. Place them in Build the level. Scale them to size in the Inspector — Mothwell's are drawn at 128px and placed at 0.45–0.5.

The fight is four rules, the same on every screen with enemies:

The iframes matter: after a hit, whoever was hit can't be hit again for that long. Without them a hero standing in an enemy loses his whole health bar in a quarter of a second.

Step 4 · Rules, and Charms and items

The explorer's reward is a new way to move. Leave the ability unticked on the hero, and switch it on when he touches the pickup — Mothwell's cloak gives the dash:

And so it isn't forgotten at the next door (a kept number, from step 1):

The same shape gives the claw (wallClimb) and anything else on the hero's card. For something the player chooses to wear, use Charms and items in Rules: a charm has notches and effects (Moth Wings: 2 notches, maxJumps 2 — a double jump), a Give item rule hands it out, and the player wears it on the charm board with I.

Step 4 · Rules

Soul and healing. Kills fill soul (step 5); holding a key spends it:

Benches. The Bench stamp wires a rest spot: touching it stores where he is and restores his health, and a fall wakes him there. Talking. A Tablet with When Wick touches Tablet · and Key E was just pressed → Say; everyone stops to listen while the words are up, and {geo} in the text shows the number. The map needs nothing: hold M and the rooms walked through are drawn, a room being each Camera room piece.

Step 3 · Layers, and step 4 · screen numbers

Darkness is one number: give a screen a darkness value that resets each screen (Mothwell's chamber: 0.78). Anything tagged light glows through it, and a lightRadius starting stat gives the hero his own lamp.

Depth is layers scrolling at different speeds. Under Layers, press + Add and set each layer's scroll speed:

Paint a far layer with Draw with AI → A background (the price is a fraction of a cent) or Paint a simple one now (free). Keep the front layer thin and at the edges — it is in front of the game, and anything it hides the player can't see coming.

Step 5 · Test & share

1. Test game plays from the title; ▶ Play this screen from the room you are on. The bar above the game lists the game's own keys.
2. Read Before you share: every screen reachable, nothing missing, nothing out of reach.
3. Publish. Pick a cover with Use this frame as cover while playing, and Record a clip — a moving game gets looked at.
4. On a phone the game gets a stick and a button for every key your rules listen for, on its own.