Ben Heid | Producer and Designer
Social Moth is a charmingly beautiful narrative platformer where you play as Aletris, a socially anxious moth trying to find their place in a daunting world. Navigate conversations, solve creative puzzles, and enjoy satisfying platforming as you hel

Social Moth

Social Moth is a narrative platformer where you play as a small moth contending with social anxiety. Set in a close-knit community on the forest floor, the game allows the player to explore themes of mental health, relationships, and finding a sense of belonging. Play as Aletris, a moth, struggling through interactions with other community members through dialogue choices that alter their anxiety level. Platform through the area surrounding your lantern home, finding collectibles and helpful friends throughout the environment that will lower your constantly rising anxiety. If Aletris gets too anxious and is unable to find any way to ground themselves, they'll come face to face with a manifestation of their anxiety...

Our goal is for players who have experience with social anxiety to find a comforting and relatable story in Social Moth. For those unfamiliar with social anxiety, the game offers a compelling lens into ways anxiety can manifest itself even in seemingly mundane interactions, in hopes of inspiring more compassion and support for those who struggle with social anxiety.

My Role: I was the Creative Director on this yearlong project that won best student game at the 2022 USC Games Expo hosted by Geoff Keighley (See final video on this page for our digital exhibition) and boasts Very Positive steam reviews with no marketing budget. I directed a team of 31 incredibly talented developers to create an experience that was clinically and experientially faithful to manifestations of social anxiety through consultation with clinical psychologists and patients with social anxiety. To this end my foremost development goal was to foster a a sustainable, safe, and anti-punitive development environment for the majority neurodivergent team. I owned the creative vision for the story of Aletris, while seeking out opportunities for the team around me to continually put their stamps on every corner of the game. I actively encouraged team members to try out aspects of development outside of their specific disciplines, whether this was joining our international cast and voicing a character, designing a small platforming sequence, or writing lines of dialogue. This game was meant to be an opportunity for growth into the unknown for player and developer both.

I created bi-weekly project update presentations to accurately convey project identity and progress to the counsel of faculty members acting as publishing partners. This involved creating space for my leads to present and fielding questions from faculty in ways that both protected and lauded my team and the project vision. I ran hybrid weekly meetings and worked with my producers to oversee sprint scheduling on a high-level to ensure milestones were met. Social Moth is the best marriage of appropriate scope and player impact of any of the projects that I have worked on, triple a or independent, and I am incredibly proud of the beautiful, moving experience my team created in one of the most sustainable development environments I have been a part of.

You can purchase Social Moth here or reach out to me for a download key! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1952910/Social_Moth/

Social Moth is a charmingly beautiful narrative platformer where you play as Aletris, a socially anxious moth trying to find their place in a daunting world. Navigate conversations, solve creative puzzles, and enjoy satisfying platforming as you hel

Social Moth is a charmingly beautiful narrative platformer where you play as Aletris, a socially anxious moth trying to find their place in a daunting world. Navigate conversations, solve creative puzzles, and enjoy satisfying platforming as you help Aletris contend with their social anxiety!

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Social Moth | USC Games Expo 2022 Presentation