Animal Well
Developed by: Shared Memory
Published by: Bigmode
Played on Nintendo Switch
The Skinny: You know where you are? You’re in the jungle, baby! You’re gonna DIE!
With its throwback graphics and simple character blob, one could be forgiven for thinking that Animal Well is a simple exploration game. But the deeper a player ventures into the labyrinthine screens of the well, the more complex and layered the game becomes.
With graphics reminiscent of a 80s console, Animal Well tasks the payer with retrieving the flames of four lamps, scattered throughout a huge maze of single-screen rooms full of puzzles and secrets. Like in any Metroidvania, the player will gain tools and weapons along the way, but the tiny blob of the player’s character can’t do much fighting, and is better off running away from the menagerie of animals found inside the well, most of which will try and make a meal out of the protagonist. The tools you discover on the way are all interesting riffs on children’s toys, such as the Slink, the Bubble Wand and the Throwing Disk. Impeccably designed, each tool has multiple uses. For example, the Disk can be used to hit switches, be ridden to distant places, or thrown to distract dogs who would otherwise chase you. Learning the different uses for every item is key to solving the mysteries of the Well.
In addition to your main objectives, there are eggs to collect, a host of different animals to interact with and a truly staggering amount of secrets to uncover. Even after rolling credits on the game, there will still be puzzles and mysteries to uncover, with an old-school expectation that you will solve them without hints, and even an ARG-like component to puzzles that require multiple players in different instances. Truly, there is no end to the depth of this Well.
Animal Well’s graphics and sound design are also deceptively simple, but their masterful implementation shows hidden depth. Each of the single screens is full of clever lighting and animation effects that surprise and delight, elevating the Atari-style graphics. Much like with modern pixel art styles, it creates the feel of how you remember old-school graphics rather than the graphics themselves. The sound design evokes the hidden world of the Well with dripping water, off-screen effects, animal calls, and other mysterious sounds.
Animal Well is a rich, complex exploration game filled with hard as nails enemy encounters, fiendishly tricky puzzles, and tantalizing mysteries. It is available on PC and all major consoles.
Hugh J. O'Donnell 