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.