Animal Well really is a thing you need to experience with a controller in your hands and full focus because it is a living, breathing art piece that sucked me in. I bought this game 5 hours ago and I haven't put it down since. The way everything animated is like drinking cool water on a hot night. Refreshing.

Seeing the previews of this game, I thought "ok big youtuber videogamedunkey is firmly in his 30's and wants to expand beyond making shitposts and make money by becoming an indie publisher". I wasn't moved at all by any of the promotion for Animal Well. I am bored to DEATH of 2D platformers and this game only teased a pleasant art style which is not enough to make me care. Most 2D games all mostly play the same. I'm sleep.

Thing is I got 24.68 on my Steam Wallet, so why not give it a try.

It is a Metroidvania logic puzzler. There are no tutorials in Animal Well. You are left as to guess how you progress forward. It's not Baba is You go FUCK yourself hard. It is quite simple and natural gameplay that leads to bigger and bigger "ah-HA!" moments. The kind where you feel dumb and smart. Smumb. Darmbt. I felt like I was one of those things.

The gameplay mixed with the environments and ambient music just clicked with me hard. I was 45 minutes into the game after being cynical about the whole thing and my brain just snapped after a certain puzzle solution and I realized this game has a hidden power level of cleverness. It is so meticulously well thought out. It's not trying to reinvent the wheel. It just was catered for you to have a good time.

I recommend this game for everyone. I've been in a gaming slump where no new game releases has really excited me, but Animal Well is the game that pulled my brain out of that fog. Not saying it will do the same for you, but if you give it a shot, it just might.

It ain't as good as Hollow Knight, but this is right under that (so far) as a jaw dropping 2D game with content that keeps upping the ante in amazement.

Jamal Dunkey picked a banger to kick off his publishing venture.

How can I explain a game that I got the platinum trophy for and found every item, egg, candle, and everything it asks you to get yet still have no idea what’s going on story wise and barely scratched the surface as far as finding all the secrets? A game where I feel like I know so much about yet somehow know very little. It is hard to explain but I also think most people that have completed it will understand.

Animal Well is a uniquely wonderful experience that was made for serious gamers as it doesn’t tell you anything and refused to hold your hand or coddle you. If you’re new to Metroidvanias this is not where to start but if you are experienced in the genre I can’t recommend this game enough.

The number one thing that in my opinion this game does better than anything is it’s very unique clever puzzles. Very few games have made me think to myself “damn that was a clever design” but I felt I was thinking that in every few rooms in Animal Well. The puzzles and traversal forces you use not only your brain but every item at your disposal. Some puzzles make you use multiple in quick succession at the proper timing. Some have many solutions. Some will have you so stumped you start believing you don’t have the correct item yet. But every single one is designed wonderfully. The mystery in this game is unbelievable. Every single small detail seems to have a rhyme and reason to it. Nothing is wasted. Yet still the game remains a mystery even as the credits roll. The maker of the game has said it may take years before everything in this game is figured out and while that sounds crazy I believe it. Another thing that stood out to me was the art. I understand it is devolved graphics but that doesn’t mean anything to me. It just feels right for some reason. It fits with the mystery and I honestly feel like better graphics could possibly take away some of the things that make this game great.

The only real negative I have is a few of the items are absurdly difficult to find. But at the same time it adds to the mystery so can I really count that as a negative.

There are many games better than Animal Well. There are even many Metroidvanias that are better than Animal Well. For me this a rare case of a game though. It isn’t so much about how good of a game it is. It isn’t about the gameplay, or the art, or the music, and it surely isn’t about the story, as again, seriously wtf is going on. What Animal Well should be judged by to me is less the game and much more an experience. I know a lot of my feelings on this may sound like a mix of cliches and confusions. I hope I’ve made some sense. But it really is a game that’s a lot easier experienced than explained. One thing that I am certain of is you owe it to yourself to experience Animal Well.

One of the most unique and polished metroidvanias I’ve ever played. The art design is one of a kind, blending pixelated retro graphics with neon colours and modern smoke, fluid and lighting effects, all coming together to give it this very surreal, very serene yet sinister atmosphere. There’s the open ended structure, full of branching paths and skips, I honestly can’t see any two players having the same first playthrough, and it goes without saying that it gives value to subsequent playthroughs. There’s the items, which take an almost Outer Wilds or Tunic kind of approach, where throughout the game you discover you have abilities and functions that you’ll realize were actually there the whole time. There’s the puzzles, some of which have more than one solution and encourage thinking outside the box. There’s all the surprises and hidden secrets, some of which really drive home the Outer Wilds/Tunic parallels. There’s the lack of tutorials or lines of text telling you what to do, its complete trust in you the player to figure it out yourself. All of this being made by just one guy. Billy Basso really had a thorough creative vision and an exorbitant amount of passion and talent to see it through. I think he’s made something special, I feel pretty confidently that this is among the top 3 metroidvanias I’ve ever played.

Say what you will about Dunkey, but he has a damn good eye for indies and it’s endearing to see him use the platform he’s built to prop up smaller independent creatives like this. I’m excited to see what else Bigmode publishes down the line.

Billy Basso, you beautiful bastard, you did it. How did one guy make this?

I've always been a victim of hyperbole. The internet told me that Animal Well was making people feel things. I listened to YouTube reviewers describe it as a game that reminds you of what gaming is all about. I read tweets calling it an obvious front-runner for GOTY and one of the best, most unique games in a very long time. I'm not about to say those people were speaking disingenuously--I truly believe the 5/5 reviews--but I do think that Animal Well is at its best when its understated and allowed to silently speak for itself.

Not unlike your biological mother, Animal Well is a short, tight, and gorgeous experience that manages to rapidly shift between quaint charm and instinctive terror at the drop of a hat. How Basso managed to jump scare me with a kangaroo that many times is beyond me. A friend described the artstyle as "Neon Wet" and that's probably the best short hand I can give for the game's look without really taking away some of its magic. Just go play the game if the visuals even remotely interest you.

Like all the best horror-adjacent games, your combat options here are extremely limited. Unlike those same horror games, Animal Well takes that lack of offensive capability and uses it to empower you. You are challenged to pause, and contemplate, and plan, and observe--to ask yourself "wait can I do that?" And you usually can. It takes a special game to offer you that sort of reward to meet your effort.

I'm not done with Animal Well. I rolled credits but there's so much game still here (think Fez or Tunic), but I do think I'm at a point where its socially-created hooks aren't as deeply in me. I can sit with it now and enjoy it. That may be how I should have approached the game from the start.

If you plan to play the game, I recommend that you don't go too quickly. Poke around. Mess with things that look out of place and let yourself consider Billy Basso's first game as its own world rather than a "GOTY contender" or "reason to game again." Be a little pensive dude and let yourself get swept up in it all. It's worth that.

I'm not the biggest metroidvania fan, I normally get burned out playing them, but this maintained my attention the whole way through, the last section is really damn intense! I'm not going to give any spoilers since I believe it's best if people walk in blind! The puzzles are largely straightforward if you stand still and think about them, but they can have some severe difficulty spikes in certain portions. The only negative aspects I can think of are that the ladder can be awkward to climb at times, and the spikes are difficult to see when doing platform jumping with the bubble! The jumping felt fluid and smooth and the world's colours and animal designs were fantastic. the game rewards discoverability with cool items to progress the map, The boss battles were enjoyable and some were even creepy! This is my favourite game of the year so far, which I was not expecting to say when I started playing it. It makes me want to play other greats of the genre, which is the highest compliment I can give it.

Seeing Animal Well getting so many perfect scores kind of put me on the offensive with it, and that's not fair. I should be looking at it in a vacuum, removed of comparisons to other Metroidvanias, and the opening gambit of a comedy YouTuber who had the gall to start his own publishing house. It's a game that invites scrutiny, but not on those criteria.

The core of Animal Well is its sense of physicality. There's a very grounded and well-supported sense of logic behind each puzzle and obstacle. There doesn't appear to be any attention given to lore or narrative (and if there is, it's hidden behind additional challenges in the post-game). Your player character is essentially a walking sprite tile, with little other defining features. You get a sense of how high they jump and how fast they move, and that's all you learn about them. As far as I can tell, they don't even have a name. The design's focus is on utility above all else. You gain an inventory of toys, and find out how they can be used in a range of different scenarios. Unlike a lot of games in the genre, your items don't feel like elaborate keys, only introduced to solve specific sets of puzzles, but useful tools that you'll need to experiment with to discover their full value.

The game's ruthlessly abstract, rarely giving any explanation of its ideas. You have to figure it all out through experimentation. It wraps itself up in neon pixels and ambient soundscapes, and you just pick away at it, slowly uncovering more of the map and gaining a deeper understanding of how to traverse it. I spent hours doddering around with puzzles before I realised what I was focusing on was optional post-game content, and discovered what my immediate objective was supposed to be. I have to go really far back to find other games that took such a hands-off approach. Like, 8-bit microcomputer far back. And none of those games could dream of approaching this level of complexity. The closest modern comparison I can think of is VVVVVV, and that's, what, fourteen years old now? I think you only get these games when one guy makes the whole thing himself, and spends an entire console generation tinkering around with ideas, reworking the entire thing each time some new mechanic has an unintended knock-on effect. When someone never has to get a team on-board with their logic, and can just play around with the esoteric ruleset that lives in their own head.

Animals appear to be the game's one constant theme, and I think it's probably just because the developer liked them and they're fun to draw. It doesn't appear to be making any statement about real-world animals, and they all appear in different scales with clashing art styles. Some are cartoony, some are realistic, some have complex logic and a wide range of movement, some are very constrained and function as part of the fundamental level design. They're just a soft face on an otherwise abstract gamepiece. They're not the point. It almost seems coincidental that so many of the things that the game's made up of are animals. Play this game for the experimental approach to Metroidvania design, and the ever-expanding depth. Don't play it because it has Animal in the name.

It's a good game, but it feels a little cold to me. Like they didn't want to give us something to love. I'm not saying it should have Kirby in it (not that I'd complain, but the suggestion would undermine the point I'm making), but a big part of what I love about Metroid is how cool Samus is, and how exciting it is to see her doing cool stuff. Animal Well can feel a little like playing with a desktoy or something. It's so barebones in its expression of character and worldbuilding, and that's not going to be a problem for a lot of people, but it makes me feel a little too detached from it. Again, I can try to appreciate it on its own merits, but it's my main complaint. Maybe it's childish, but I like being the cool hero on the big adventure. Metroid Dread makes this look like Minesweeper.

Just rolled credits. I usually like to yap a lot with my reviews but I really don't want to spoil anything so I have to keep it a bit vague and short-ish.

This game is just a constant stream of mind-blowing discoveries. Every little nook and cranny that I stumbled upon is just so satisfying. And the same goes for every calculated thought/plan that worked.

The level design overall is absolutely impeccable, I never felt so enthralled in exploring every orifice of the game's world. And it's not just because of the highly varied and consistently top notch puzzles, even the moment-to-moment platforming sections just felt great. Not to mention the mysterious atmosphere that the game's beautiful art style bolsters. Easily one of the, if not the, best pixel art style I've ever seen.

And I have to gush a bit about all the tools you get along the way. Everytime I get a new one I always thought "oh my god this is game changing!", and I'm immediately thinking of areas where it would be useful. That's a good tell of how in sync the item designs are with the level design.

What Animal Well has done is not exactly unique, but the way it approaches its concepts feels so fresh, and it creates this sense of grandeur by condensing it all into an absurdly tight and dense package. The game never misses. It is easily the best game of its ilk, and my favorite game this gen so far.

I still have a ton of secrets to figure out, so I'll do just that. Who knows, it could be a 20 outta 10 game by the time I get the plat.

P.S. Rolled credits for the 2nd time and got the plat, doubled my play time from when I wrote this review first haha (12 hours to 26 hours). Collecting all the eggs was incredibly fun. Very interesting and inventive puzzle designs overall. But I have tasted a bit of the so called "3rd layer puzzles" and they're quite unhinged, haha. This game just keeps on giving. Shout out to the folks at the official AW discord for helping with everything after the 15 hour mark, my brain power wasn't enough to keep up. Also, the last 12-13 hours were in one sitting, and considering I get so easily tired these days, that just speaks to how good the game is. Haven't been enjoying a new game to this level since 2020.

There's a lot I could shotgun blabber about how much I adore Animal Well, but I think what's personally flooring me is Billy Basso's fluency in video game language here.

Back when I was a kid I developed an ironic phobia of computer programs acting on their own, and it manifested itself into a hilarious curiosity for games that really screw with player expectations and UI affordances - DDLC, Pony Island, etc. Very few seem to really convey that a jumpscare isn't the thing that's deeply unsettling; it's that gap between expectation of a game's rules and, by extension, the apparent limits. A game has a framework with discrete inputs, display elements, and sound effects, so to knock the framework down is a good "scare" and one that begs the player to wonder what else could happen. But to keep it going the length of a narrative requires deeper understanding of a player's mind once they're on the defensive, the ability to pace the novelties neither too slow nor fast, and the chops to keep that story memorable past a string of funhouse tricks.

Animal Well does it. It's not just that it's a fun puzzle game - I adore it because it's a puzzle game juxtaposing the jaw-drop when an item's depth becomes apparent against horror elements; a pixel art backdrop with worms that have two-sprite animations and bloop sound effects against a smoothly-animated, human-moaning death machine; simple controls and Metroidvania platformer gameplay against ever-increasing gameplay dimensions in a game smaller than many DS cartridges that has to have exhausted everything at this point to a home stretch. Right? No.

I think Basso gets that the childlike wonder we chase in video games is often unsaid, in our heads, or between the CRT scanlines. In his first attempt to show us this, he beautifully said it in pure mechanics rather than through a lick of traditional dialogue. I love it, and I'm gonna devour anything he puts out next.

EDIT - Changed my rating to a full 10/10 because, despite my qualms, it really does deserve it.

Honestly, if it weren't for PS Plus making this free for this month, I might not have checked out Animal Well right away. And what a shame that would be, because this game is truly special.

I will admit, it didn't seem that way to me initially. With the retraux pixel-art style and the TV scanline filter (which thankfully can be toggled off), it wasn't too appealing to me visually. No disrespect to games that also employ those visuals, but they can usually be a mixed bag, at least for me anyway.

Despite that, however, I do believe that Animal Well uses them to its benefit and helps sell its eerie, otherworldly atmosphere.

Speaking of which, there's next-to-no overt narrative in Animal Well, which is entirely a show-don't-tell experience that thrives on worldbuilding naturally during gameplay. That approach also extends to the gameplay itself, as your goals and abilities are things that you have to uncover as you go. This lends itself to some truly excellent Metroidvania level design and gameplay mechanics as you experiment with button combinations and obstacles to reach said goals.

Seriously, I cannot praise the puzzle design in this game enough. It genuinely belongs up there with the likes of Portal 1 + 2, Myst, and Obra Dinn. It's all incredibly intuitive, and really only once did I refer to a guide, and even then it was to confirm the answer.

That said, admittedly, Animal Well can get in its own way with how obtuse it is. There are a decent number of save points scattered throughout the map; however, backtracking to them is still necessary in some segments. There are also a couple of tedious parts, including a long-winded chase sequence with some jumps that you have to be pixel-perfect to make.

Nevertheless, Animal Well is truly spectacular and well-deserving of the 89 it currently has on OpenCritic, and then some. Any other Metroidvania developers currently playing through it must be equal parts excited and frustrated for what Billy Basso has brought to the genre. Kudos to you, sir.

10/10

Animal Well kinda took me by surprise, what I thought would be a short little metroidvania turned into something more vast than I ever could have imagined. There are so many secrets and hidden areas to discover. Even after collecting all 64 eggs and getting all the secret bunnies, I find out there’s even more that I’ve missed. Plus, I’m sure there are still more hidden secrets out there yet to be discovered. It’s clear how much thought and time went into making this game and It’s hard to believe this game was made by only one person. That, plus the fact this whole game is a measly 30MB, absolutely blows my mind.

Off the rip, I appreciate that you’re immediately thrown into this world with no tutorial and forces you to figure out how this game works. It made exploration a blast and gave you a real sense of discoverability. The use of colour in this game is simply astonishing. Neon pixel art paired with dynamic lighting completely immerses you in this dark and mysterious world. Additionally, the fluid dynamics and physics are outstanding. As enemies disappear and blocks get blown away by TNT, the wisps of smoke left behind lingers ever so beautifully. I’ve never seen better smoke effects than in this game.

The puzzles in this game were super engaging and made good use of the tools you find along the way. Instead of the usual attack, bomb and double jump in your standard metroidvania; you are instead treated to the yoyo, slinky, and bubble wand. Each expanding your moveset and allowing you to unlock even more of the ever growing map. I never felt stuck as there was always somewhere else to explore and by the post-game, there were countless rooms that I felt I exhausted everything it had to offer until I found a new tool.

Slowly pulling back layer by layer, this truly is the lasagna of gaming.

Thank you Animal Well.

Um tempo atrás eu lembro de ter ouvido "Busca e Ação" como uma boa definição para o que entendemos como metroidvania, e Animal Well prova que realmente, ir de encontro com um level design não tão linear pode ser benéfico para a atmosfera do jogo.

Me senti perdido muitas vezes, mas a sagacidade entre os encontros e quadros de puzzle me seguraram por todo o tempo. Entretanto, ainda sinto que o jogo perde a mão em ter tantos coletáveis (que acabam sendo importantes para um "final verdadeiro" e um ARG mais pra frente) o que fez que me sentisse fora de uma conversa legal, mas que pedia demais pra eu participar.

No mais, como que o estrupício do VideogameDunkey botou as mãos em uma joia tão interessante quanto essa?

Hit credits after about four hours or so and thought to myself "this was a nice short little game, I wouldn't mind grabbing the rest of the collectibles before moving on". Like five sessions, ten hours, and several pages of notes and ciphers later, I can confidently say that I've had my fun here - and that is to say that there are still more things left to find!

This game's got layers, man.

If you like games like Super Metroid or Tunic and are looking for a densely atmospheric puzzle adventure, this is not a game you should be missing. With a few more fast travel points and a little less platforming precision in some areas (if you found all the bunnies, you'll know what I'm talking about), this would be an easy five star for me. But even with those few minor shortcomings, it's on my 2024 Game of the Year shortlist and I am confidently inducting it into my indie game hall of fame. I can already feel that this'll kick off another wave of indie game fever for me like Outer Wilds did a while back, too.

TL;DR: Animal Well is a fantastically unique experience from start to finish and it is absolutely worth all the high praise you've been hearing.



...still can't believe a donkey published this game...

Game's cool. You play as Meatwad. It’s filled with smartly designed puzzles, making engaging use of an oddball toolset that rewards out-of-the-box thinking… but only so much. Beyond manoeuvrability skill checks that are satisfying enough to clear, and a few cool mechanical revelations, there wasn't a lot of head scratching here for me. Animal Well is tremendously well-accomplished for a solo project, I had a great time with it! It's just lacking a certain star power for it to really raise the bar.

For complete transparency, I had this game sold to me as an ‘Outer Wilds-like’ - and upon seeing that it was a sidescrolling metroidvania, I was beside myself with hope that I’d get a few notes of La-Mulana in Animal Well, too. In practice however, I think the more apt comparisons for Animal Well would be games like Environmental Station Alpha, Super Junkoid, A Monster's Expedition, or Knytt. The distinction is important, to me at the very least, because I approached Animal Well with pure intentions but spent most of my runtime hoping for an experience that never actually came. This isn’t a game about losing yourself in the sprawling tendrils of a world’s unfolding internal logic - Animal Well is an array of screens containing pressure plate puzzles. The world feels utilitarian, and even with the animal themed ruins that politely aim to conjure a sense of dread and mystery, it’s all misaligned and mismatched in a way that lacks the cohesion of a place with a history worth learning. The latter end of my runtime was characterised by backtracking through areas to collect the final few tools, but it was made excruciating by way of the fact that practically all of the screens merely become desolate roadways once you’ve solved their focal puzzles. I don’t think I spent any more than five minutes on any given puzzle in the first ‘layer’’ of the game, and for as much as I like how left-field the player toolset is, their interplay with the puzzles themselves is usually shockingly obvious and leaves very little room for doubt.

There is, undeniably, an inclusion of outtadisworld ARG-like puzzles that at the time of writing are still being unfolded by dedicated Animal Well researchers, but I’d be lying if I said I value things like that remotely as much as game content I can be trusted to learn and master on my own. Will the community uncover a secret back half of the game that turns the whole joint on its head Frog Fractions-style? I kind of doubt it lol. I’m a sicko that completed La-Mulana 2 on launch week before any guides were even written, the distinction here is that that series takes great pains to contextualise its puzzles in multiple ways - through cryptic hints and also through things like inferred historicity and synergy. Animal Well doesn’t do this, it scatters codes and event flags around the map in obscure nooks in the hopes that a friend group is putting together a Google Doc.

One of the rooms in this game has the shape of a heart and is full of capybaras, and if that doesn’t prove to you that this is the clear GOTY of the year of the decade of forever so far then I don’t know what will.

Despite being a highly anticipated game for me, probably one of this year’s releases that excited me the most this year… I had no fucking clue what Animal Well really was. By that I don’t mean that ‘’I didn’t know what to expect’’, there have been a ton of games I didn’t have expectations of what they would be prior to playing them, but at least I had a small idea what they were about, their mechanics, and overall ideas. But with Animal Well, I had no clue about how it could even play like.

It was supposed to be a Metroidvania? Is it Puzzle-Platformer? Or perhaps an immersive-atmospheric experience? Maybe a highly experimental take on open spaces and secret finding? I didn’t really know before I hit ‘’start game’’ to be honest, and yet, even before that point there was something that called me, that fascinated me. This world of blues and greens seen through the lenses of an old CRTV is an aesthetic I didn’t know I missed this much, or maybe is that it’s done so effectively here; the surround sound and flickering lights that accompany such abandoned yet beautiful looking structures and the nature that melds perfectly with it… I don’t know, it reminisces of feelings and memories I don’t think I can properly put into words, but still filled me with a desire to explore this rabbit hole.

Well, I finally played it, and I have finally found the answer to all of those questions that once plagued me:…

…Yes.

Animal Wells is an experience that feels like it takes inspiration from a million different places and ideas, and yet it molds them together to create something unlike any other game I can think of; is the idea that surrounds the ‘’Metroidvania’’ genre distilled in its purest form, yet it’s far from being simple.

The well is a place of few words; none of the areas have a proper name, there are no NPCs to chat with, and it’s not like the small slime-like creature we play as has a mouth to begin with. The only text present is one found in menus, small one-word prompts, and the name of the items, and that’s more than enough… because the rest speaks for itself. Each area and the animals that live in them chant a different song, each room a part of a puzzle of their own; I didn’t know for them to have a name for places to stand out vividly in my mind, like the Lake of the Cranes, or the Giant Bat’s Cave, or even smaller locations like the Peacock’s Palace or the Disc’s Shrine. The world of Animal Well may be quiet, but everything speaks volumes, like visting an abandoned virtual zoo: every encounter with a new-found critter, whether friendly or aggressive, every new interaction like distracting dogs using the disc, or every major tense moment like running away from the Ghost… Cat? Dog? I actually don’t know which of the two is supposed to be, nor do I need to know that the entire sequence and puzzle is an amazing highlight and super satisfying to overcome completely on your own… No wait, that’s also the rest of the game!

Managing to create a world that feels so well thought-out and designed so every puzzle feels intuitive, while at the same time offering such fun to use and multi-purpose items that can break open the game completely and taking ALL THAT into account is honestly worth getting up and applauding. The Bubble Wand is the clear star of the show for me; being able to create temporary platforms is already a game changer, especially when pairing it with fans and wind currents, but then you realize you can ‘bubble hop’, as I like to call it, by pressing the action and jump button both at the same time and completely bypassing many parts and sections that otherwise would have required other actions, and best thing is that even if it seems that it breaks the game at times, the dev clearly accounted for it since some rooms have passages too thin for you to maneuver or create bubbles or even animals like hummingbirds that immediately pop them once you make one. I normally wouldn’t like when a game makes a tool completely useless for the sake of a puzzle, but in here it makes total sense and balances out the moments were you make out your own path with pre-designed puzzles this amazing, and it’s not like that’s the only tool that lets you get creative anyway.

The moment you get any item, about two seconds is all you need to realize the possibilities it can offer, yet, as in the rest of the caverns, nothing is ever spelled out; you yourself and your own imagination and problem-solving are the ones that need to overcome the challenges this wildlife imposes; I’ve never felt so rewarded in such a long time than when using the Yo-Yo effectively, learning the code to fast travel to the main hub with the animal faces —which remind me of a certain game, I think it starter with ‘’Super’’ and ended with ‘’2’’… can’t put a finger on it tho—, or skipping completely the Ostrich escape sequence and its puzzles, near the bowels of the map, by using the Spring, Yo-Yo and myself. It honestly comes really close to feeling like the levels in Mosa Lina, now that I think about: you have incredibly useful tools that serve a clear purpose, but ones you can also use whichever way you like to, only with the difference that Animal Well is an already built, profoundly engaging and interesting world, and using all this arsenal while interacting with the animal and the curse that seems to affect the well is amazing, and little things like fall or water damage aren’t taken into account to incentivize and reward experimentation even more than it would have otherwise.

If I had to point out a flaw, and one that may honestly be a ‘’only me’’ thing, is the inconsistency with how it handles some switches and shortcuts. While I get and really enjoy some gauntlets of puzzles, he fact some of them reset, like the ‘’On and Off’’ switches, reset every time you teleport or get out of a room, just makes things a tad more annoying, in contrast to how the yellow door switches stay activated even if you don’t press them all or die, which makes other rooms kind of a joke and strips them from the tension found in the boss encounters, for example. I understand that this won’t be that big of a deal for many people, but when the rest of the game is so impeccably designed and each room amounts to so much, these little annoyances are noticeable.

A game that otherwise… I still don’t think I can say I've come close to experiencing all of it. In a way, it’s kinda interesting to have played this so close after beating Fez for the first time, because while both of those games have a similar sense of wonder and are brimming with secrets, that game created its mysteries through the tools you can find within a same room and code-finding through a fragmented world , while Animal Well is an ecosystem on its own, with the complete freedom that entails. Even after finding out what dwelled at the bottom of the well, it's insane how much there’s for me to find, not only the Eggs, but I’m convinced there are things that I haven’t even seen yet, and I know for sure that there are far more items than it seemed at first.

At this point, it shouldn’t be a secret that one of the things I love the most in games, or in any form of art for that matter, is when they give so much food for thought, letting the imagination run wild and feel so massive and grand even if their locations are small; Animal Well is only a 30 MB game, and it’s the perfect representation of all this, the wild desire to explore, to have fun, and to fear the unknown, even when it's scary as all hell.

I’m obsessed with Animal Well, and its ambience, roars, and silence speak to me in a way few games do, and I’m happy to see that’s a sentiment already being shared by so many people.

i absolutely love animal well. i was expecting to enjoy it, but really i wasn't prepared for just how magical it feels. the map is incredibly dense, the puzzles are intuitively designed and have a great sense of accomplishment, the boss fights (which i wasn't expecting at all) are actually really creative puzzle fights, which i usually dislike.

my only MAJOR complaint is that it does feel a bit railroaded at times, a lot of areas deliberately prevent you from sequence breaking, which is something i find annoying. but other than that, just a ridiculously good game.

I am a frisbee god.
Seahorse with bubble bridge?
Sorry, but you're wrong, dog;
I'm using the frisbee.

I am a frisbee god.
Spike pit spanning the ledge?
Though I should walk the dog,
I'm using the frisbee.

Chinchilla's head goes thunk,
I dance to frisbee funk.
I am a frisbee god;
I'm using the frisbee.

Adding to the list of quality Metroidvanias lately, Animal Well is a largely vague game about a blob creature (?) that explores an atmospheric labyrinth with many secrets to find. There’s no combat save for avoiding occasional enemies and mainly focused on figuring out how to progress using the items you find throughout. The level design and platforming puzzles were well done and made clever use of all the mechanics, though were still straightforward enough that I wasn’t stuck on much for very long. The pixel art is really great too

Reaching credits took about 8 hours for me, but this also appears to be a game with a lot of hidden depth to it going off reviews and how much unexplained stuff I can still find (similar to Tunic it seems). Curious to see how much more you can get out of its postgame, but for the main content alone it’s well worth it

"𝑺𝒐..”

"𝑰 𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝑾𝒆 𝒈𝒐𝒕 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒐𝒇..."

"𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑩𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝑰𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒎𝒂𝒅𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆..."

Animal Well: Um Monumento em forma de Jogo

Cara... Eu tenho muitas dificuldades em descrever esse jogo... Mas assim eu não vou dar nenhum spoiler dele aqui, pois acho que ele deve ser experienciado por você em primeira mão.

Então se você não jogou Animal Well, vá e jogue tendo o mínimo de conhecimento prévio sobre ele... Vai valer a pena...

Animal Well é um jogo que muitos vão considerar ser um Metroidvania... E de fato em sua base, no seu game design, ele pode ser descrito como um... Porém a algo que o diferencia dos outro... Algo que eu acho que jogos como The Last Case of Benedict Fox deveriam ter levado a frente...

Ele não tem nenhum combate.

E para essa experiência, para essa construção, isso é magnífico... O jogo em só foi feito apenas por uma pessoa, Billy Basso, que não apenas fez todo seu design, como também sua pixel art, trilha sonora e design de som...

E deixa eu afirmar... Tudos esses elementos acima citados, são MONUMENTAIS, principalmente para oq Animal Well se propõem a ser. Embora sua pixel art realmente seja simples.

Ele é um jogo de puzzles e exploração, na qual você vai progredindo no seu tempo, e principalmente diante do que você quer explorar... E tudo é extremamente bem feito.

Eu mais do que entendo as pessoas que dizem que esse aqui é um dos se não o melhor Metroidvania de todos os tempos. Ele tem muitas coisas que levam a isso.

Porém eu devo dizer que ele ainda não é o meu favorito... Acho que Aria of Sorrow, Symphony, Order of Ecclesia, e o próprio Hollow Knight ainda estão acima dele...

Mas isso não tira o mérito de um trabalho primoroso de um jogo fantástico, feito por uma única pessoa...

Para Animal Well, um fantástico 9.7/10 ou 5/5... Se tiver chance jogue, você não vai se arrepender.

Animal Well is an undeniable passion project brimming with personality; evidentially shown through the immaculate presentation, the ominous yet inviting atmosphere, and the intuitive but thought-provoking puzzle design. The amount of freedom provided to the player is astounding and often grants the sensation that you're breaking the game even though it's obviously intended and meticulously crafted to feel that way. The only sore spot for me were the boss encounters as I didn't feel like they encouraged ingenuity and creativity from the player in the way that the rest of experience does.

Dunkey really wasn't exaggerating!

Animal Well is an absolute spectacle of an indie game, with unique gameplay elements and incredibly clever puzzles that push the limits of what a Metroidvania can expect from a player. I'm quite surprised that I was able to finish this game without a guide, but that just goes to show how effortlessly the mechanics are communicated!

And of course, the biggest stand-out is the GORGEOUS animation that I couldn't stop admiring from start to finish. If this game should be remembered for any one thing, it HAS to be the phenomenal art design.

"Completionist" Update:

THIS GAME IS SO DEEP AND COMPLEX THAT I CAN'T 100% IT! ONE OF THE PUZZLES REQUIRED 64 CORRECT INPUTS IN A FUCKING ROW!!! MY BRAIN HAS MELTED TO SLUDGE AND THERE IS NO END IN SIGHT!

Astonishingly incredible. The idea of a puzzle-metroidvania is fucking genius. From the handful of experiences I’ve had with the genre, the combat has always been the worst part of the package. These games demonstrated engaging puzzles and encapsulating atmospheres, but dithered about with lacklustre combat; combat that is somehow presented as a third pillar of the game, as an equal to its atmospheric and puzzling counterparts. Neglecting this element to the extreme brings out the best part of metroidvanias (and is really, really fun to play).

Becoming intimate with this huge web of puzzles, slowly unravelling it yourself, and reaching the bottom of the rabbit hole. It’s an incredible concept, yet is so simple and so naturally delivered that it's hard to conceive how new this game feels. As both a publisher and developer debut, this is an explosive arrival to the scene, and hopefully a sign of great things to come for both.