Animal Well Review

What is Animal Well?

Animal Well is an indie metroidvania game released on May 9, 2024 for the Nintendo Switch, PS5, and Microsoft Windows. It was developed by single developer Billy Basso and published by famed YouTuber, Dunkey and his publishing company, Bigmode. The game costs $24.99 and is also available on the PS Plus Extra subscription service. I played it on PS5 through PS Plus. Animal Well takes 5-10 hours to beat the main game according to HowLongToBeat.com.

Game Review:

Animal Well is one of the latest entries in the metroidvania genre, one of my favorite genres of games. You play as a little creature that I can only describe as a blob. You emerge from a flower at the beginning of the game with only the ability to jump and are sent out into the world. As you play the game you will obtain items that allow you to do more things just like in all other metroidvanias. All of these skills have to do with traversal or puzzle solving because there is no combat in this game. You don’t fight back against any enemies, you simply need to find ways to avoid them and make it through the world. The items you pick up in this game are great because they are all household items or random little human objects that don’t have any magical properties to them. The first item you get for example is firecrackers which you can use to light up dark areas or scare certain animals away. There are other items that I won’t spoil here but I love the choices for the items and how the levels are designed so excellently around them.

Platforming is often a crucial gameplay element for metroidvania titles. Animal Well is no different in that regard. The early portions of the world contain manageable platforming challenges while going deeper in any direction will yield the truly challenging platforming sections. This game isn’t trying to be a brutally challenging platformer but there are sections where it took me a number of tries to figure it out. You never get more than one jump but you can find creative ways to use the items you find to get you through obstacles. I found the platforming to be fun and challenging but reasonable.

Animal Well is also a puzzle game. A lot of the challenge in this game is figuring out what you need to do, and it gives you the freedom to explore and experiment. Some of the solutions to puzzles are brilliantly simple and can give you that “Ah-ha” moment. I loved trying to sort out how to do what the game was asking of me with the limited resources available to me in the game. 

There is no dialogue throughout the entire game, you figure out where to go and what to do based solely on environmental cues and details. For some people, this could be frustrating or difficult but the world is so expertly designed to guide the player to important landmarks. Animal Well also offers the player a ton of freedom from the start. Once the player emerges from the tutorial area, you are able to go off in any direction in the world. You know that there are four objectives which are highlighted on a map, and it’s up to you to figure out how to get to them. So while the game isn’t explicit in its direction, I think it has great ways to shepherd a player to getting to the right spot so that they don’t just feel completely lost and stuck. 

The map also isn’t terribly huge, so if you get lost and take a wrong turn, it doesn’t take ages to get back on track. I appreciated this in my playthrough because there are a number of areas where I would fall or take a wrong turn and end up in a spot where I couldn’t backtrack but would have to make the journey around. The game being small helped keep this from getting too frustrating. The game is also chock full of secrets. There are tons of tiny nooks and crannies that you wouldn’t think would actually have anything and then there’s something to see there. So even in those situations where you find yourself off the main path, there still might be some things to discover.

Animal Well has an incredibly unique art style. It’s done in pixel art but done in such a way that I’ve never seen before. It uses scan lines and lighting so expertly to convey an otherworldliness. The environments and animals are very wavy and erratic and move in unnatural ways. Some areas are incredibly dark but can be lit up. Some areas have incredible uses of color. I think that this game looks unlike any other game out there and it really shines for it.

Family Friendliness:

Animal Well is tricky in regards to family friendliness. It doesn’t include combat and there isn’t gore. But there are some moments that can get real spooky and horror-ish. I wouldn’t call this game horror by any means but some moments get very tense and scary because of the sense of urgency demanded of the player. Most of the animals in the game are cute however and the lack of dialogue means there isn’t language that might be in poor taste.

Features for Parents:

Indie games like Animal Well tend to not have as many accessibility options because there aren’t necessarily enough resources to support it, so there isn’t a lot that you can change in Animal Well. Save points are great but there aren’t a ton of them and you can’t save without them. The map being small helps alleviate this but it still requires the player to make it back to the save point. It can pause whenever you need however so it can be easy to pick up and put down.

Final Verdict:

I haven’t played many games like Animal Well. It has an entirely unique style and is ingeniously crafted in its environmental design. It is short and sweet but has enough depth and secrets that it can support longer play times if desired. I think it’s a masterclass in game design and all the more impressive that only one person made this. This is one of the top games of 2024 in my opinion.