Whispering Willows vs Moth Lake
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Whispering Willows
Embark on a harrowing journey as Elena Elkhorn to find her missing father and uncover the secrets of Willows Mansion. Utilize a unique amulet for astral projection to communicate with the dead, solve puzzles, and help lingering souls in a beautifully hand-drawn 2D world.
- Astral projection to communicate with the dead
- Solve mansion tricks and puzzles
- Help lingering souls
- Explore a hand-drawn 2D world
- Immersive haunting music and sound effects
- Unlock puzzling secrets
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Young Elena Elkhorn embarks on a harrowing journey to find her missing father and discover the secrets of the Willows Mansion. Aiding her journey is a unique amulet, she received from her father, which allows her to astral project her spirit into a ghostly-realm and communicate with the dead. Play as Elena to find her missing father, use your astral projection to solves the mansion’s tricks and puzzles, help the lingering souls and discover so much more in Whispering Willows. Game Features: • Immerse yourself in a beautifully hand-drawn 2-D world as you traverse the Mansion grounds • Allow the haunting music and chilling sound effects to send goosebumps across your neck. • Let the history of the Willows Mansion draw you into a plot full of twists and betrayal. • Explore the vast Mansion and unlock its puzzling secrets as you search for your missing Father. Awards: • First Place- Seattle Indie Game Competition • Best Story- Casual Connect Indie Prize • Most Immersive- OUYA CREATE Game Jam • Successfully Funded Kickstarter • Winner- Cerebral Indie Developer Grant Supports: • Most wireless bluetooth controllers • 20 achievements • 720 and 1080p resolutions If your device crashes or has issues while running the game, please contact "support [at] nightlightint [dot] com" and we'll do our best to help you!
Moth Lake
Uncover a small town's dark secret through a story-driven adventure. Navigate a 2.5D pixel art world, solve unconventional puzzles, and make choices that impact character relationships and the narrative's outcome. Experience thrills, suspense, and horror with a touch of dark humor.
- 2.5D pixel art with frame-to-frame animations
- Simple controls for touch, mouse, keyboard, and controllers
- Unconventional puzzles with optional walkthrough
- Stealth-action gameplay
- Choices affecting character bonds and narrative
- Multiple endings
- Original soundtrack
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Synopsis: This is the story of Moth Lake, a small town that, behind its peaceful facade, hides a terrible secret. Only a group of teenagers, with a difficult life, will reveal what has been hidden for generations. Mysterious events will intensify starting from the eve of a solar eclipse, and our young friends will start a journey into the shadow and into their own soul. What to expect from this game: In short: •2.5D pixel art (Frame to frame animations, as if we are still in '90s) • Simple controls (Supporting touch screen, mouse, keyboard and controllers) • Unconventional puzzles (Don't worry, there's a free walkthrough if you need help!) • Stealth-action • Choices that will change the bonds between the characters as well as the spirit of the experience (Just like in life, a choice can make the difference between friendship, love, hate, life or death) • Thrills, suspense and horror (Not a survival game, but it can be creepy or scary at times) • Bad humor and strong language (They are teenagers, don't judge them) • At some point this experience might even move you to tear (I'm not crying, I just got a pixel in my eye) • 6 different endings • A soundtrack that is original, suggestive, and exciting In detail: Moth Lake is a story-driven experience, with a lot of textual contents (more than 20k words), and hundreds of different scenes (more than 300 scenarios). The script is a long journey through a mystery, through horrors and through the characters hearts. It contains dark topics and very sad stuff, but also a lot of nonsense jokes and weird conversations, so it's hard to say whether it is a horror game or not. The main characters move around a 2.5D world, interacting with many hotspots and NPCs. They can pull objects and perform a set of specific actions to solve very different puzzles. The artwork is a modern pixel art, with a big colour palette and a lot of frame-to-frame animations. There's a very large set of animations, including talking, walking, running, crouching, crawling, pushing, climbing, sneaking, punching, throwing... and much more. Scenarios have some modern lighting/shading work, with particles effects and a constant use of parallax, to simulate a 3D environment. There are 6 main characters and more than 50 NPCs, with their own look and personality. You can control 7 characters through the main story and more in the additional chapters. They all move their eyes, they change facial expressions, and they have some peculiar behaviours. As the story proceeds, the player has to take some choices, affecting the characters mood and sometimes even the plot. For most of the time the player controls a character surrounded by his/her friends. Each one has some kind of skill to be used at the right moment, and sometimes even their personality will be important to solve a puzzle. Some puzzles can be solved by a single character, while other must be solved using the whole squad cooperation. As I said, the game aims to give psychological horror vibes. So keep in mind that this game is not for everyone! Some scenes are disturbing, some scenes may give you anxiety, and some other scenes are extremely sad. Characters are constantly called to face their difficult past, and to go through their scary present. They need to hide, to take terrible decisions and sometimes even to fight for their lives. ...But after all, your choices can lead you to the best possible ending, and if you fail, you can always try again.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Whispering Willows at 4.6 against Moth Lake's 4.2. Whispering Willows also leads on iOS requirement (6.0 vs 11.0). Moth Lake's advantage is review sentiment (72% vs 51%) and chart position (#188 vs unranked). On ratings volume, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Whispering Willows costs $4.99 and Moth Lake $3.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Whispering Willows holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.2. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 20 and 11 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 51% of Whispering Willows's written reviews are positive against 72% of Moth Lake's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Whispering Willows ships an update every 6 weeks, Moth Lake every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 19, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Whispering Willows | Moth Lake |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | $3.99 — better |
| Rating | 4.6 (20 ratings) — better | 4.2 (11 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 50.6% of reviews | 72.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 20 — better | 11 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Best chart rank | — | #188 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 6.0 — better | 11.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 1.5 GB | 121 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Akupara Games | Stefano Mazzotta |
Customer experience
Whispering Willows
Moth Lake
Bugs and requests
Whispering Willows
Reported bugs
20 issues- Game crashes frequently
- Black screen on loading
- Status bar not disappearing
- Long loading times
- Trophies not registering without manual login
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- No screen size support for iPhone X
- Game won't load on iPad
- Game crashes when entering mansion
- Game closes after starting credits
- Game crashes when changing screens
- Controls are poorly rendered and cumbersome
- Joystick control scheme is bad
- Game crashes when walking down a new passage
- UI is bugged and ugly
- Game closes on second chapter
- Text in bubbles exceeds screen
- Character movement is slow and clunky
- Ghost movement is sluggish
- Buttons are too large and insensitive
- Game crashes on older iPads
Requested features
8 requests- Update the game
- Make controls more responsive
- Add more chapters/content
- Improve UI
- Add a task list or map
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- Make puzzles more challenging
- Full screen support for newer devices
- Make cinematics illustrations more professional
Moth Lake
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Whispering Willows
No in-app purchases
Moth Lake
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Whispering Willows free?
Is Moth Lake free?
Which has better reviews, Whispering Willows or Moth Lake?
Do Whispering Willows or Moth Lake have ads?
Which is updated more often, Whispering Willows or Moth Lake?
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