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.

Animal Well was an absolute pleasure to play, it stands out in the field of metroidvanias and excels in the creativity of its mechanics. The setting and art style were stylish the whole way through and the process of exploring the map was on par with some of my favourites in the genre. I finished the game and have seen a fair amount of the side content but it seems like there is a lot more still to discover and I intend to keep playing. My views on the game are unlikely to change too much unless there is substantially more than just collectibles remaining (which there might be).
Something I value super highly in metroidvanias is the design of the mechanics which enable exploration. I really like when the tools/abilities take you by surprise, whether that be something unbelievably creative, something that enables more enjoyable movement and general map traversal, puzzles where it's difficult to infer the future mechanic that will solve it or seemingly innocuous parts of the environment being of later importance. Animal Well succeeds on all these fronts and culminates with some very memorable moments of unlocking an ability and figuring out a subtle use to reach a new area. Similarly there are some ways of using your items which you can more or less stumble onto and then have a eureka moment. Supraland was probably my favourite in the genre for its mechanics, with things like unlocking the magnetic power and realising every hammer, nail etc. strewn across the map is now important. This game might have surpassed it, for its design and for the creativity that the items permit - you often get to feel like you're sort of breaking the game as you learn new movements techniques.
There was always some part of the map I was curious to explore and you will definitely be rewarded in terms of the entire map coming together, in the same vein as you might expect from games in the genre. The overall polish is very high; aside from a few enemy hitboxes which felt off, the quality was amazing overall. There were a couple of moments where I thought something was slow or not implemented, and then immediately realised there was a button that could solve my problem.
I think the game is really, really good, but outside of the mechanics I was so fond of, I don't think that it crosses over into amazing or special. There weren't any bad puzzles but nor were there any really memorable puzzles (again this is in my experience so far). The enemy encounters are what you'd expect with a game with no combat and didn't have the spectacle that something like Ori could achieve. The art style often lent itself to make each biome feel fairly similar and they were nowhere near as distinct as something like Hollow Knight. There weren't that many major platforming elements, although there were some things you could do across multiple screens which were awesome. I assume there is some environmental storytelling that I missed, regardless any narrative that is there seems to take a back seat to the ambient setting and feel of the game.
I can definitely recommend the game and believe there is a lot to enjoy, but my current opinion is that it's nothing crazy. Despite the stellar mechanics, the overall package isn't that special to me, although I imagine it will be to some people. Maybe I'll find what I'm looking for in the rest of the game as I continue playing.

Update: the post-game content is fantastic, the map is way cooler than I realised and the puzzles have improved a lot, changing from 8/10 to 9/10.

Ok minimalist indie roguelike. Very effective art (held up by a courageous "bright colors on black" color palette and a scanline effect), feels OK, kinda rolled off of my brain, not unpleasant. ~spooky~ setting, snore.

My gut says this is 2.5 stars but I'm gonna give it another half because it grabbed me enough to play through in one sitting.

"Completed" = saw credits, lit all of the candles (looked the last one one up after credits), got half the eggs.

Coming from someone whose experience with 2D metroidvanias is dropping super metroid like 5 times when i was 11 and barely getting past the 4 hour mark in hollow knight, Animal well is a phenomenal game and is first 2D metroidvania i actually beat (which is insane considering I literally beat it within the first 24 hours of its release; even if its on a bit of the shorter side only taking ~5-6 hours).

It places more emphasis on intellectual skill rather than mechanical, as while there are cool bits of tech to mess around with in this game, it mainly revolves around getting items that help with solving puzzles, opening up new areas in pre-existing ones you passed previously, which made it a really fun gameplay loop as I would go down some random ass cave for like an hour, get a cool item, then as I'm walking back to one area that I think I use it on, I find another that leads to even more cool shit.

This game also has a TON of secrets. I found myself looking through each tile really carefully to find as many of the secret eggs as I could (i think I got ~29 by the time I beat the game).

The level design is also really well done, as I was playing around with a couple friends, and we all went into 3 completely different areas and still stood at around the same level of progress, and we could help each other out if we were lost as our knowledge on how to utilize different skills was varied, which is just something insane that I haven't seen in many other games. 2 people can actually have completely different playthroughs as they can go down 2 completely different routes and try out weird solutions to problems in other areas.

This game just blew my expectations away and is definitely a must play. Its currently on a 10% sale and is definitely worth checking out if you were like me and struggled to get into other 2D metroidvanias. Its a great starting point and playing this game makes me wanna go back and finish up my hollow knight playthrough. Billy Basso COOKED

- Short cute platformer with a focus on solving puzzles.
- Most of the sections in this game is done well with some notable sections being annoying to complete. Thankfully, there was really no real obtuse puzzles or stuff that feels like banging your head on a wall.
- The ost was here, it did its thing, i am not sure there was even music in the game.
- The art style is actually really good and i did enjoy how the lighting in the game was done.
- Did not join the ARG so i might be missing stuff on that aspect but did not feel like it would've changed how my playthrough went.

Wasn't super interested at first but seeing the comparisons to games like Outer Wilds and the Witness piqued my curiosity. I've gotta say, I think those comparisons are a stretch. This is ultimately still just a metroidvania, even if it's more puzzles than combat. Felt more reminiscent of Tunic, borrowing some of those thinky elements but ultimately layering them on top of a more traditional game. While it has some clever mechanics, I was waiting for it to blow my mind and it just never happened.

Getting the items and uncovering the map was decently satisfying, but as it went on there were more and more situations that felt reminiscent of the worst moments in a Super Metroid first playthrough, where you've got no idea where you even can progress and so you end up just poking around, shooting rockets at every tile on the screen, hoping that this hidden passage isn't yet another missile stock upgrade, and the pacing screeches to a halt. I suppose this is me being a metroidvania hater and I'll cop to that. Had my fill.

After sleeping on it, I decided to give the postgame a fair shake. It was as tedious as I expected, full of backtracking and pixel hunting. The additional powerups didn't break the game open quite like I'd hoped, and accessing one of the postgame areas depends on RNG spawns, which, IMO, sucks ass. Maybe the idea is that you'd run into the thing over the course of the game, but it just didn't happen for me - only seeing it once, very early in the game. Ended up spending as long as the base game just to track down the odds and ends to get to a generally lackluster finale.

This game, along with some crow game and some cat game (of all things) created a Holy Trifecta™️ that made May 9th, 2024 a game that will go down in indie game history forever. Or so what I was told. I know almost nothing about the crow game and I literally forgot the name of the cat game before I was reminded of it. And this game, well I’ll tell you that I think about it right now, after around 2 1/2 hours.

I don’t get the hype. At all.

Supposedly this is a life changing game with unique and intricate puzzles that unravel an incredibly deep story. I even bought this game with the expectation that it would influence my knowledge on game design. However I have seen none of that. All I’ve been doing is jumping around, finding some admittedly unique abilities (eg spring, yo-yo), collecting eggs that don’t do anything for the most part (besides the swan egg), and solving a lot of puzzles.

And the puzzles aren’t mind-blowing genius or anything. They’re mildly unique at best. Some puzzles that I can think of are one with a wave that you manipulate to cross 3 separate points, placing the spring at a certain spot to hit 3 switches without hitting one that sets off crows, and one where you distract weasels from destroying your spring that sets off switches to go through.

Speaking of the animals, this game is similar to Rain World in that the supposedly deep interactions with the animals are underwhelming. Most of the time they just stand there and make noise and don’t do anything. For example early in the game there’s a duck that quacks and that’s it. Doesn’t do anything else. The only useful interactions I can think of are the big rabbit things and the birds.

I have no idea what the story is. All I can describe it as is “you’re a frog and you need to collect 4 flame things for some reason”. The puzzles have told me NOTHING about the story. And supposedly if this game is like an onion then at least give me a hint on how to find and solve the juicy puzzles that MAYBE have lore. But I don’t have a clue on where to find them. The game hasn’t showed me anything. I saw a post saying someone didn’t know what the game was trying to tell them and I wholeheartedly agree. Where is the deep story?

Also, the graphics and music. The graphics make everything look the same, and the pixel art is just okay. Nothing to write home about. The game is really dark visually. Seeing the same shades of blue and black over and over gets pretty old. And the OST is non existent. Just the title theme and the simple telephone save point theme. You will be playing the game in silence with ambience most of the time. Again, like Rain World if you’ve ever played that.

I know some people are going to get mad at me for not giving this highly praised game anything but a glowing review. “This game isn’t for you” why not? I like Metroidvanias (I just finished Islets, a vastly different game but if you’re reading this play islets it’s amazing), puzzle games not as much but I’ll give them a shot if I’ve seen enough good word of mouth like this game. “You are taking the game at surface value” because I haven’t seen anything else that makes me think I shouldn’t. All I see is a game where you hop around and collect flames. Yeah there’s some vague cryptic stuff but if it’s just gonna sit there and look cryptic with absolutely 0 pointers on what it means then it might as well mean nothing.

TL:DR. Don’t get the hype, game is underwhelming and directionless

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!

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.

I feel like I share the same opinion that most do about this game. I'm shocked at how good it was.

The sound design was impeccable, im not the type of person to get chills often but in the final section of the game it legit scared me. The choice to have a very minimal soundtrack for a lot of the game really worked overall as when it did kick in it worked tremendously. the vibes were the best kind of awful with the sound design (and also art direction) really making this games vibe stand out.

Traversing the game was really fun which was surprising given how you really only have one jump and the bubble wand, but I think the main reason why it was so fun to traverse was the puzzles. The puzzles were the star imo, the tools you get given are all quite simple in their usage but when the puzzles that use combinations of your items were great. I genuinely cant think of a single way I could use any of the tools in a way that I hadn't used them in this game.

Now while I enjoyed my time with this game it wasn't perfect. The pacing could have been perfect but the telephone placements were a bit odd at times. The boss sections were hit or miss with the chameleon being my least favourite part of the entire game with the combination of it being an instakill and the lack of checkpoints around the first time you encounter it really killing the otherwise great pacing imo.

But overall I think its postive far outweigh its negatives and this game will (hopefully) be remembered for more than being Dunkey's first published game.

[ Reviewing this upon rolling credits after 5 hours - there's however still more secrets to find. ]

The first comparison that I drew after finishing Animal Well is to 2022's Tunic. Both are old-school, exploration focused adventures that have you constantly on a mental edge trying to figure out the mysteries of their insane worlds.

Though its striking artstyle might be the force of initial attraction, the world and puzzle design is the reason to stay. The world is built to not waste your time, and none of the puzzles require La Mulana-type divination making the entire journey a very effective process of trial and error.

The tools given to you (especially the second one) are incredibly versatile and can be used in a number of ways. There's more than one occasion where I used a combination of the items provided and some strange platforming maneuvre to find an alternate solution for getting to a location. That process doesn't feel like cheating, it feels like it's part of the game, part of the exploration.

Trying to review this game is quite difficult, as so much of what makes it special is its design, atmosphere and moment-to-moment design. It's my favorite (Balatro aside) game of the year so far.

8.5/10