ANIMAL WELL

thinking about this game gives me a sentimental yearning for the happiness i experienced when playing this game, almost like nostalgia, despite only having played it like 6 months ago. the sound and graphic designs is just so ingeniously crafted to establish a calming and ascetically pleasing atmosphere and general mood. the best word to describe this game would be beautiful.

fun puzzle game, I had a good time getting to the end. Though it's a bit too cryptic and if I wanted to 100% it I should have been taking notes on everything from the start. I didn't and also I have other games I want to play so I'll just leave it here having found over half of the collectibles and at least officially finished the game.

One of the best things I've ever played. Animal well is a really well designed puzzle platformer/metroidvania that goes very deep into the puzzle part. I think it would be a good game if you just want to get through the normal sequence of events, but sticking it out (and going crazy trying to convince myself I like doing hard things) is well worth the effort.

The hype is warranted. It's seriously very very good. If you like secrets and puzzles and very awesome art and music; retro gaming that does ALOT with a little, then you'll have a blast. 100% is not super hard, though you may need a guide. I'm using guides to find the bunnies, post completion.
You will get your money's worth, trust me. Just buy it and try it. I wish I could play it for the first time again.

Great little metroidvania game with a lot of charms. Kudos to the single developer that did all this, quiet an achievement really. I liked it so much I would have loved it to be a wee bit longer.

Lots of layers to this game. At 10 hours or so I thought I was almost done, but did not realize at the time that I had only just gotten started.

i typically dont play metroidvanias due to their intricate nature and the constant backtracking playstyle, but this game drew me in by its unique visual style and gameplay. the fact that you do not attack or fight any enemies, but rather outsmart them, really brings a refreshing taste to the genre

amazing game. so much to discover, so much passion in this game. devs are BIG brained.

This game is a lot like the old school arcade games. The issues with those games are they don't value your time. Manual save points that could reset 30-45 minutes of progress and having to manually traverse the same puzzles over and over to get back to the one you are struggling to finish make this game a lot longer than it needs to be. That, and if you happen to miss a secret passage, you could be looking for what to do for an hour before you figure out that you just needed to head left a little more to find that artifact that's key to the next section of the world.

Wow! Incredible debut from Billy Basso and BIGMODE. This puzzle platformer knocked it out of the park on both fronts. It has engaging puzzles all the way through, even after you finish the final boss the first time. The amount of post-game entertainment, puzzles, and secrets to be had is mind-blowing. I've played nearly 40 hours and still haven't even gotten all of the eggs, let alone the bunnies.

On the platforming front, everything feels crisp, responsive, and well-thought-out, which is what a puzzle platformer should feel like. I'm looking at you, Fez. I also love the amount of cheese certain tools in the game allow you to get away with in sections where you're not expected to use them, especially since the cheese still requires skill.

The music is pretty cool, nothing to go crazy over. The art is where the game really shines in my opinion, simply through the really cool shaders. It manages to handle incredibly precise, polished dynamic particle simulations that look incredible, especially in the context of a supposed older CRT-style pixel game, while still running buttery smooth. It's a testament to the skill of the developers when you're simulating the flow of smoke on my screen and I'm not even hearing my laptop fans kick into high gear.

Over all, the game is incredible, and a very promising showing for both the lead developer's and publisher's futures as their shared debut shines this bright.

Hooked in the first hour. Gameplay and atmosphere are excellent. So many details and thoughts have been put in this game. The difficulty is just right as well. Puzzles are witty but always fair.

This game is almost deeper than life for how little disk space it takes up. Gigantic respect for the sole dev, Billy Basso!

Anyways, it had been an honor witnessing the growth and birth of this highly unique title. Even if you aren't a platformer like me, I highly recommend you try this one out, a piece of wonder that will forever be mentioned in the annals of videogames for sure. Cannot say much more, don't wanna spoil anything for anyone game-wise, it is riddled with mysteries in every corner (and I'm not exaggerating) while being very compact in exposition and discoveries of new game mechanics and challenges.

Spaghetti and meatballs.

It has animals. It has music. It has pretty graphics.

I had such a fun time playing this. Would highly recommend that if you play it, try to avoid playthroughs for any of the rooms - if you can't solve it yet, leave it for later. Try to save guides for only after credits roll for best satisfaction and 100% big brain moments.

Thank you for making a game that helped me recharge while my little human napped :)

It is interesting but it just feels too tedious to me.
Edit: Got stubborn and 100% the game (all rabbits and the two flying puzzles after that and the speedrun decorations), still feels too tedious, even after the message i am not left with a sense of accomplishment just a headache.

The absolutely best game I have ever played. I think it has already surpassed Braid, which used to be the bast game in my mind for the past decades

I have a weird relationship with puzzle games in that I really like them and appreciate the hell out of them, but I'm also really bad at them and tend to get frustrated easily. So this game was the perfect game for me. It's a puzzle platformer that emphasizes both aspects pretty damn well. Never does it get too difficult with the puzzles and the platforming is decently forgiving. Add onto that a gorgeous art style and sound design that is really captivating alongside the music, and you got yourself a damn good game. I also really appreciate the story, like I didn't understand it, but the ending just like felt really profound. I think Billy Basso did a wonderful job with this and I hope if he ever releases another game it channels this same energy.

This game is great! Love how the game looks, the colours it uses, the music/ambience and atmosphere. The game's world is beautiful, mysterious, sometimes creepy.

The controls are great, the tools you find work quite well for the puzzles that were made for them, there are also different ways to use certain tools when you become familiar with them.

Nothing in the game came close to being annoying, difficulty and exploration is fair while still having some hidden spots that will make you scratch your head.

Amazing game well worth your time and the money that is being asked for it.

Probably the best puzzle game I've ever played, and the first game I went out of my way to get every single achievement for.

This is a delightfully nonlinear puzzle-based metroidvania with that proves that an open-world puzzle platformer can work really well. The abilities that you progressively unlock are notable in that they avoid common metroidvania-tropes, require a bit of extra skill to be the most effective, and all have multiple uses that aren't clear at first. Aside from the difficult and satisfying puzzles, one of the main ways the game truly shines is how well it teaches you about game mechanics without outright spelling it out for you through text. Instead, when you unlock an ability, it shows you how it works by having you complete a short section that requires it, and then leaving the more technical aspects for you to discover on your own. Thus, I advise you to start playing this game almost completely blind, only watching maybe a trailer or two before getting into it. Definitely my favorite game of the year so far.

This game is so good on so many layers. It's amazingly well crafted and totally worth experiencing

Honestly one of the most fun games I've played in a long time. The art is beautiful, the ambiance is enthralling, the gameplay is incredibly fun. This is the kind of game I want to make in the future, something this truly creative and entertaining. I hope we can see more from the dev in the future.

Fun and mysterious game with clever puzzles. The platforming is challenging, and requires good timing. The sheer amount of content in this game is absurd in a good way, and I'd recommend not using any tutorials but to instead discover areas on your own; its mysterious nature is a significant part of what makes it fun to discover, above all else. 9.5/10.

i'm still in the 'post game' but i think this would be worth it even if you didn't get into the secrets. recommended if you like games that make you feel like you're breaking them (but it's actually intended)

The atmosphere is great and the design of the levels, puzzles and items is really original.
Difficult enough to be challenging, easy enough to be enjoyable.


Since I am not a lover of ARG puzzles and "community mysteries", one of the few things I disliked is the fact that some of the optional mysteries (not required to 100% achievements) are impossible to solve without checking online or "being part of the community".

Among the top 10 games ever made. Read no guides, watch no videos, just play it. If you're stuck, look closely, pixel-closely, at the map.

brilliant game. Love the atmosphere. Once you've completed the game there is still sooo much to do! You'll have to go through the same levels to unlock all this new content, though.

Game of the year. Just a 98/100 puzzle platformer with a good dash of horror. This well goes deep.

I absolutely enjoyed playing this masterpiece!
The art style is amazing, the atmosphere is fantastic.
A bit unusual in a lot of aspects, but hits my taste 😁

when i first saw gameplay of this game i thought it looked a bit like rain world, but after playing it a bit its much closer to halo 2 mixed with halo 3.

This game definitely scratches the Jet Set Willy 2 itch you might still have from the 80s. Platforms and grimly fiendish puzzles - purely nostalgic.

Yeahhhhh... I didn't read anything about this game (only heard it got high reviews) before playing it. It looked like a great indie metroidvania. But it's more than just a metroidvania and that wasn't clear.

This is an "arg" game with "arg puzzles", a term I've never heard of. I did play some of Tunic, but didn't get very far and didn't come back to it. The game doesn't make it clear that it has arg puzzles in it and that is the main reason I don't recommend playing this game, I felt like it wasted so much of my time before I eventually gave up and looked stuff up online and realized I could not have solved a lot of puzzles on my own by design. Which makes a puzzle game pointless IMO. Since you're just looking it up and doing what a guide tells you.

I get the concept, it's interesting, it's kind of like a multiplayer single player game. And yeah it's kind of like a real time thing, when it first came out, if you were on Discord solving it with the community, sure that might be fun, but that's not what I want. And if the game had made that clear, I probably would not have bought it. The other issue is the game conditions you into thinking that you can solve all the puzzles by yourself, there is little to no indications that some puzzles are arg puzzles. The arg puzzles are intertwined with the single player puzzles, so that's a problem.

It really sucks to spend hours to try and solve something just to find out it's not solvable by you alone. I feel scammed in that way. I found the game to be pretty pretentious in this way.

The metroidvania portion of the game is just mid. It's got nice pixel graphics, but that seems par for the course these days as that's made easier by modern game dev frameworks, etc. The items are interesting and unique and not what you expect, so that's refreshing. But other than that, not sure I can even recommend this game even if you like arg puzzles, since most (?) of them have already been solved by the community, so you kind of missed the boat to participate in them?

At least getting all the achievements do not require solving all the arg puzzles or speed running the game, which is nice.

A great game, all of the items are original and fun. The puzzles aren't too difficult and the platforming is doable. Until.... you learn about bunny's, and all of the crazy stuff that comes with that.

I got Animal Well specifically because of videogamedunkey, so, you know, I am not immune to propaganda. I didn't think anything of getting the game besides that it was cheap and I wanted to support Dunkey's first venture into being an indie video game publisher.
What I was expecting was a simplistic, no-combat, platformer with pretty pixel art and I suppose that's what I got, but what I wasn't expecting was the incredibly smart game design and the level of secrets built into such a deceptively simple game.
The game's main arc can basically be completed by exploring every region of the map and solving various puzzles and platforming, but there are multiple layers or levels of secrets and achievements in this game that you don't notice on a surface playthrough.
The gameplay is so simple and the level of interactivity with the world is so basic that you would be shocked at what you can do in this game despite how fundamental the mechanics seem.

Very good. Nice controls, nice puzzles, nice graphics, nice sounds, overall very nice.

Very engaging metroidvania style game, but very little combat which makes for very fun casual exploration.

Finally beat.. What an amazing little game. So creative and so much fun. The atmosphere is some of the best I've experienced in a game. Extremely enjoyable.

What a crazy game. The design is fantastic, both in terms of mechanics and levels, where you learn to use everything you need in an intuitive way. But that’s not the only thing that makes this game a masterpiece.

It has a stunning visual aesthetic and top-notch sound design. All of this compressed into just 30MB—an absolute technical feat. But on top of that, the game has a ton of layers. Secrets are hidden everywhere, and finding them is incredibly rewarding!

It’s true that some puzzles are absolutely mind-blowing. I had to get a lot of help solving the final ones the game throws at you, but even with that, they felt like a wonderful discovery.

It took me more than 20 hours to finish, but if I hadn’t searched for so many secrets, it could’ve been done in about 4 hours.

Highly recommended, an amazing game. It’s definitely one of my favorite games. If you love exploration and puzzles, you’ve got to give this one a chance!

This is an awesome little game! Mechanics are great and the puzzles are just the right difficulty. Highly recommend playing this if you like other metroidvania games such as Hollow Knight.

great beautiful game
really cool puzzle plat former with secrets on every screen and tons of post game secrets to get as well. took me about 20 hours to get all achievements, and i did follow some guides, but did most of the puzzles without guides. each room felt unique and taught you something for the next puzzle.
it was fun getting a new item and then backtracking and seeing what i could do with it, a few of the later game items i did have to look up where to use them because the map gets pretty big with only a few hidden spots where items are needed but it didnt ruin anything, maybe using the map / markers more wouldve helped with that, but i didnt mind.
i really liked cave story and this reminded me a lot of it, this game seems to have so so sooo much love put into every crevice of it, and seems to be a culmination of so many things that the creator has themselves taken in (other metroidvania's / platformers / general forms of art) and it just seems like such an amazing passion project that i am so glad to have tried out and also supported. i heard in the time capsule recording that the creator didnt expect anyone to solve that puzzle but he was happy just knowing that the puzzle was in the game and "somewhat" solveable and that just really made my heart swell, knowing that he is just creating for the sake of creating. that is true love and i am so happy to witness it.
please give this game a try and honestly dont look things up, i tried to be relatively vauge on the game play as just finding out how the game and puzzles work is a lot of the fun 10/10

Relaxing, fun puzzles, forgiving obstacles that don't kill you too often, frequent respawns. Fun exploration and puzzles. Charming/fun/interesting/amusing behavior of various species of animals, and their attack tactics. Some of them are helpful and friendly and cute.

A very creative and unique game. I liked the first part which is a combination of metroidvania with survival horror. Then I was kinda put off by the whole ARG stuff, I get that some people like it, but it's just not for me.
The music reminds me of those survival horrors for PS1 which is really cool. I wish there were more games with this type of soundtrack.

8.5 out of 10

Gets the genre right - super fun, unique mechanics, and seems really well paced with lots to do. I can't stop playing it.

I did not expect less from Dunkey, and the game delivered. An amazing game which really stimulated my brain to resolve challenges in all kinds of ways. The world is cute, cool, vast and enjoyable. Big win for Big Mode, and for Billy, who soloed the development of this game!

Animal Well is not just a good game. It's a special game.

It is an experience that made me feel like I was 10 years old again playing alone in dark room a video game trying to understand what the heck is going on.

The artstyle, the dark atmosphere, the cryptic story, the sense of exploration, the variation and difficulty of the puzzles, the insane number of secrets, the rewards - all done perfectly.

This is the first time after a long, long time that I trully want to 100% - without a guide. Because I have to see how deep the well actually goes...

Amazing game but one with multiple layers, the average platformer enjoyer should simply beat the game, the average Metroidvania enjoyer should try and get most/all of the eggs, but the final layer is basically only for dedicated puzzle players, extremely deep and multi layered ones that are too vague for me to try and figure out.

Tools are used well, subverting the usual Metroidvania upgrades and with multiple uses.

Music is very sparse like a certain game everyone compares everything to, but this shifts focus to the atmosphere.

Visually it’s simple but also complex, beautifully animated and looks amazing on OLED (which you should be on in 2024).

Finally it’s pretty cool that a big video game creator used their influence to publish an actual video game. And I hope for more in the future.

A top indie puzzle game, on par with titles like Ori and Hollow Knight. While the collectibles aren't as rewarding compared to other games, the sense of satisfaction from exploration is top notch.

Animal Well is a mechanically great game, with literally nothing else going for it outside of hype and meta-gaming. It should win 2024 GOTY, but only because it's been an abysmal year for games.

It's also incredibly overhyped and a tad overrated.

This is an amazing metroidvania, with gorgeous graphics and artistic style. The world building, atmosphere, and platforming are top tier.

But it's difficult as hell, esoteric as shit, and has literally zero story or lore. I wish there was something here, an overarching story, even if it was a simple one. But the game is just a bunch of un-connected, really fun, platformer challenges.

Don't get me wrong, there is a GOAL. Get the four flames. But there is no explanation why, nor reason to do anything outside of "to do it."

The "end-game" is also incredibly lame. It's frustrating and un-fun, and you would never be able to do any of it on your own without outside knowledge. This is a literal design choice, and I think it's a bad one. There are so many things that are just literally never explained to you, and unless you cheated, you would have no way of knowing about them. It's engagement bait for "lore youtubers".

I would give the game an 8/10. It is good, but I personally have to dock points for the complete lack of narrative and some bad design choices.

This game is 33MB. Like you would not believe.

Consider this 33MB size, the map is massive and each area feels different. The mechanics are unique and often has multiple uses. The pixel arts are beautiful. The atmosphere is immersive. Puzzles are creatives and not difficult to solve. (Screw the mock disc shrine though.) The grass sways when you walk past it. The lamps swing when your head hit them. The animals look majestic and mesmerizing, even in pixel art forms. Every jump gives feedback on your controller.

All in 33MB, simply a coding marvel.

Spoiler warning

"The puzzles were not designed for me" is what I heard at the end of the game.
The main game was good, honestly besides the artstyle nothing too out of the ordinary. What left a sour taste was the optional puzzles were literally impossible (and I mean it, you cannot solve one of them on your own, physically), at which point I had to look up a guide which just removed any incentive for me to look further on my own because I've already "cheated". This may be the intended design choice, that does not make me like it more.
Alot of the puzzles that are solvable on your own were just short of being good design. Some of them just felt cheap or had extra steps attached to them that were just not necessary. In the end it doesn't even matter because you need to solve every single puzzle regardless to get the "true ending" at which point you're forced into a guide.

If you are a completionist: this game is not for you

Masterpiece . i beat the main story but there is so much left. the well goes deeper.