I don’t know what I was expecting with Animal Well, but I knew I would be getting a solid game. I’ve long been a fan of Videogame Dunkey so when he started his own publishing company to promote new and exciting indie games, I was excited to see what he’d put his money behind. I can safely say that when the man calls his shot, he doesn’t miss.
Animal Well captivated me in a way that not a lot of games have. Sure, I’ve been reviewing a lot, and I’ve been genuinely enjoying most of what I’ve played recently. But so many of the games I’ve played have fallen into the, “I really need to get back to that category,” buried under a tidal wave of games I need to review, and games I can play for easy fun.
But Animal Well is almost the perfect kind of game—interesting, enjoyable, and deeply engaging. It does a lot with a little and it doesn’t overstay its welcome. Once I started playing it, I genuinely couldn’t put it down, and when I reached the end, I was both surprised and a little disappointed because I wasn’t ready to stop.
I’m not really sure how to talk about the story in Animal Well, because I’m not really sure what it is. You play as a little orange blob who emerges from a bulb in a strange subterranean system filled with animals. Some are small and cute, others are huge and hostile. Heck, some are small and hostile and some are downright ghastly. While there seem to be some hints as to what this place is, there’s no clear indication as to what the Well is or why you’re here.
“Animal Well captivated me in a way not a lot of games have.”
It’s a bizarre and beautiful blend of life and death with living enemies that are dangerous—in the way wild animals can be dangerous—but usually just minding their own business, and ghostly aberrations that actively pursue the player. It creates a unique atmosphere of moments that are quiet and cute, and others that are genuinely horrifying. And while, after I had beaten the game, I was left with more questions than answers; I was desperate to dive back in and see if there was anything I had missed in the story—and I’m sure there was.
Gameplay in Animal Well is like a super-condensed Metroid. Players will need to explore the Well in order to find four flames—the finding of which will open the fifth and final area. However, it differs from Metroid in both the micro and the macro sense. Whereas in Metroid, players will usually explore an area until they’re met with an impasse, then encouraged to explore previous areas for secrets they may have missed—usually resulting in the item/ability that will allow them to proceed.
However, Animal Well is a much more contained experience, with every item needed for immediate progression hidden somewhere within its designated area. Furthermore, thanks to incredibly intuitive game design, circumstances within each area usually give you an idea of how an item might work before you even find it.
In the Water area, for example, I was presented multiple times with aquatic creatures blowing bubbles that I could stand and jump off, acting as temporary platforms that sunk under my character’s weight and popped once I jumped off. Once I had fallen into a deep pit with seemingly no return, I had found a Bubble Wand, capable of creating bubbles at will.
Similarly, in the Jungle Area, I was presented with buttons that would cause platforms to move, initially needing non-hostile animals to stand or walk over them. But I came to a roadblock when confronted with a room with buttons arranged on stairs and no way to hit them. It was only after further exploring the area that I found a Slinky that could walk down the stairs and hit the buttons while I moved about freely.
“Both visually and thematically Animal Well is beautiful and horrific.”
Every item, though presented as children’s toys, adds an incredible amount of usefulness and depth to the gameplay, and further opens the entire Well to further exploration, as you’ll undoubtedly be confronted with rooms that don’t make sense in the moment, but once you get a particular item, you remember the spot and realize you have a way of approaching it now.
All of this is punctuated by simple but precise controls that make the platforming incredibly satisfying, all packaged in an incredibly tight experience. If you’re like me, you can probably clear the game in about five hours, but you’ll spend countless more combing every pixel of this world for secrets, namely in the form of collectable eggs, and there are A LOT—I think I’ve clocked over 10 hours now.
Both visually and thematically, Animal Well is beautiful and horrific. Its world is so packed with colour and little details, that it’s easy to get lost in just how vibrant each area is. Adding to this is a brilliant use of light and darkness to create areas that are genuinely tense and scary, to ones that are mesmerizing—due in large part to its use of bright, neon colours.
But it’s also genuinely terrifying at times. Honestly, there are so many moments I want to talk about in this review for how well they got me, but I would be doing you a disservice to spoil the surprise. Obviously, being a little orange, armless blob in a Well filled with giant animals is going to be an intimidating prospect from the start, but there were so many moments that crossed the line from general tension to outright horror.
The aforementioned bubble area starts with an ephemeral seahorse spraying you with water—trying to knock you off your platform, but not incredibly dangerous. As I progressed, I saw a silly-looking whale who I assumed would operate the same way…until it jumped out of the water and swallowed me whole. There was another moment within the Ruins that I won’t spoil, but I will say it genuinely made me jump when it happened.
Animal Well makes an incredibly effective use of sound and music…or lack thereof. So much of the game takes place in silence, backed only by the quiet ambiance of the area you’re in. The Water Area is filled with the sounds of little drips and gentle streams, whereas the Ruins area is highlighted by the sound of empty wind and strange animal sounds echoing in the distance. When it does include music, it’s eerie and intense, adding to the strange and scary nature of the Well.
“From start to finish it was constantly engaging, constantly surprising, and constantly FUN.”
If I have one minor complaint with Animal Well, it’s about its map. Unlike Super Metroid, where the map is laid out on a grid, with rooms containing items or potential secrets clearly labelled, Animal Well’s map is sort of drawn in the same pixel aesthetic as the rest of the game. Details within each room are pixel-painted within the map, and while certain things are highlighted with brighter pixels, they easily get lost amidst all the extra detail. This isn’t helped by the fact that the map doesn’t allow you to zoom in for greater detail—only letting you zoom out to see the whole thing.
Furthermore, it isn’t particularly great that an item you get that lets you draw and make notes on the map is hidden behind collecting a certain number of eggs. While it isn’t a lot, it was a bit disappointing that such a basic feature was hidden behind collectables—especially when the item you get before it that requires way less eggs is far more useful to the entire game.
But minor gripes aside, Animal Well is an incredible experience that kept me hooked until the very end and far beyond. From start to finish, it was constantly engaging, constantly surprising and constantly FUN. If you’re a fan of Metroid-likes, or even a newcomer to them, this game will give you everything you want and more. After seven years, Billy Basso has created something really special here and you should definitely check it out!
