At a time when the big video game companies are focused on building video games designed to function like sport, with seasons and passes and never-ending fixtures designed to dominate your leisure time, what a joy to be presented with a game that is so intricate and contained. This is a perfectly made contraption, with a start, a middle and an end, intended to inspire joy and build culture, and not, mercifully, shareholder value.
Animal Well is a masterclass in puzzle design, with tight platforming, set in a beautiful, oftentimes perilous world. It's actually at its weakest when it's just a Metroidvania, and instead, its world and the genre serve as a way to deliver some of the most intricate, interconnected puzzles of any game I've ever played.
Animal Well is something quite remarkable. A Metroidvania title that still feels fresh in 2024 thanks to its puzzle-centric gameplay, incredible atmosphere and army of secrets to discover, this is a must-play for those who like a bit of mystery in their games. Players should just make sure to discover the secrets themselves.
Animal Well is stubbornly traditional in keeping you in the dark as you embark on your adventure, but that's firmly to its credit as you unravel the mysteries sprinkled around its map. Puzzles involving animals, toys and mechanical devices demand creative thinking, while the sense that nothing is quite as it seems never lets up. This is an endlessly inventive Metroidvania with unfathomable depth.
Uncover secrets, evade dangers, and embark on an eerie journey in ANIMAL WELL. Billy Basso has crafted a dark neon aesthetic and enigmatic gameplay that delivers a Metroidvania unlike many others. The mystery and cryptic puzzles won’t be for everyone, but those who enjoy a challenge and a good platformer will be rewarded with a haunting adventure.
Bias of dunkey aside this game is soooo good art is some of the best pixel art I've seen in awhile all animal designs are fun cute and have fun puzzles behind them I'm not going to pretend I understand the narrative but its fun to get through if you play this game don't end after credits roll the first time make sure to find all eggs trust me don't look up anything about this game try and go in completely blind
Solid mysterious metroidvania with some unusual interesting skills to solve problems. I played the main game without getting every egg and it was cool. No real plot or worldbuilding though.
Appearance of depth is sometimes conflated with complexity, or more aptly, conflated with quality, since the longevity of a product is often on the line in terms of relevancy and shares some of that longevity with overall sales. So its easy to make the argument that, "As long as people are talking about it- its probably gonna sell." This doesn't work for every product on the market, but for Videogames (in particular no-name publishers or creators or small-time Indie studios) this word-of-mouth advertising is absolutely integral to their products success. Which brings us to: "Animal Well."
Animal well is a small indie game made by a small team about a seemingly small world with a moderate amount of platforming mixed with an absolutely absurd amount of puzzles, some so cryptic that its not surprising if you never even knew they existed (a point I will come back to). Though often thrown into the "metroid-vania" vein, I would disagree with that genre label entirely, this is more "Fantasy World Dizzy" meets the "Kings Quest" series, even down to the main sprite consisting of a small bean running on tiny little feet. Adorable as this may be, it is a perplexing design given every other NPC or creature you run into is an actual animal (done with sprite work of course). Unfortunately (or fortunately) Metroid never had any instances of failing a tiny jump or a series of switches meant to hit in a specific order in a specific series or with specific progression items only to outright respawn you at your local Telephone save game room. So I safely say that just because its "2D" and has a large interconnected map or a warp room, doesn't make it a Metroid clone of any kind.
I would in fact like to draw players to the fact that maybe.. just maybe- Animal Well is actually its own thing. For once, I would imagine people would agree, especially if they were just as confounded by some of the post-game surprises as I was. Not only does Animal Well feature two (three?) Credit roll fake-outs, but it is also has some of the most esoteric, mysterious and downright "how-could-anyone-have-figured-this-out" secrets in a Videogame in recent memory. There are clues on walls, behind walls, in rooms, in the shape of rooms, only accessible with items, most are literal easter eggs to collect, some are animals to set loose, some are animals so spook, some are bosses, some aren't, then you have actual secrets buried behind those secrets that took a team of people over 2 weeks to find and even then.. they still haven't actually found everything. So absolutely flabberghasted by the rate at which people found secrets, Billy Basso (one of the creators) was ostensibly in shock, so much so that he actually had hidden a recording of himself for players who found some of his most hidden work in the game itself.
Of course, all of this aside, I don't think Animal Well quite deserves a lot of its (at times) ridiculous and overzealous praise. For one, many of the puzzles are extremely rudimentary "trial-and-error" escape room challenges. The other massive issue I had is that after solving many of these challenges, you are forced (if you want to see more content) to traipse back through.. every room. This can sometimes involve re-doing puzzle challenges, even if you've unlocked portions of rooms that were already solved or warp areas to go back to, you are still reduced to going back through every nook and cranny just to find things you missed. Billy, I don't care how many secrets you have in your game, I should not have to solve a complex algorithm of numbers and memorize movement patterns just to gain the ability to move around everywhere without having to toggle through 12 different items just to get around a room I've been to twenty separate times. That's ridiculous.
The item swapping is asinine and tends to take up more of your time then necessary when most games have already solved having multiple abilities with item wheels or simplified mapping to various buttons. Your basic jumping arc is difficult to gauge maybe, and I'm being generous, here 40% of the time. Which makes it unreliable and finicky, as you often seem to be close enough to what you're jumping to, but won't always quite make it. I also felt like the movement was rather slippery and imprecise. Frisbee riding multiple times is totally possible- its just an absolute pain. I also tore my actual hair out trying to properly play the flute, since I found it weirdly picky about what was being input from 8-directions whenever I used it for some puzzles. All the amazing, mind-blowing stuff is buried beneath layers of what "could" have been a very good, tight three to four hour action plat-former with some cool puzzles sprinkled in. However, the excessive mind-numbing, bizarre and very impractical advanced puzzle solutions would challenge Bill Gates, much less a team of Bill Gates clones working around the clock. As clever as it is, its wasting your time in the end.
I wish i can turn back time and take my money **** so dark my eyes hurt worst game , blurry graphics like a 80s game,after i took my eyes of the screen i saw so many lines,curse yall the high score troll user and sites
Technically, it works well. The platforming is precise. Everything else is poor. Blurry graphics, an even blurrier map, too much backtracking, weak level design, the whole game world looks the same. It’s a shame, so many poor indie game developers can’t sell their games and this happens to be the critical darling. I don’t get it.
SummaryExplore a dense, interconnected labyrinth, and unravel its many secrets. Collect items to manipulate your environment in surprising and meaningful ways. Encounter creatures both beautiful and unsettling, as you attempt to survive what lurks in the dark. There is more than what you see.