A metroidvania/puzzle game with multiple layers of increasingly challenging puzzles, which make it extremely fun to beat but not to try and fully complete. The first layer is a blast through and through, and the second layer is maybe an 80/20 split of fun and tedious puzzles; but the third layer goes overboard with puzzles that either demand huge time sinks or leaps in logic, are designed to be impossible to solve on your own, or were never even designed to be solvable at all. Achievement hunters need to only beat Layer 2 to get every achievement, and how far you go beyond that point depends on your patience and willingness to consult a guide if you get stuck (which you will be required to do eventually).

NOTE: Controls cannot be rebound natively on either controller or keyboard. Also, if you're like me and find that the scanlines effect is giving you a headache, you can thankfully turn that off in the graphics settings.

ANIMAL WELL is an exploration-oriented puzzle game involving a mysterious well that's inexplicably filled with all manner of animals, plant life, and supernatural phenomena. There's not really a story to it, or at least I couldn't find much of one—you're a little blob-thing looking for four big MacGuffins that let you reach the end of the game, and that's about it. The puzzles are the central focus, and anything that feels like it's tapping into some deeper lore is typically just a cryptic clue for solving another puzzle.

Much of the gameplay is centered around puzzle-platforming across the well's labyrinth of rooms, which follows the metroidvania structure of a non-linear map layout, save points every few rooms instead of on-demand save states, and the use of unlockable items to open new areas and shortcuts. The map is huge and the number of paths you can take at any given moment can be overwhelming, but it does a decent job of steering you in the direction of what's most important before nudging you to explore the rest once you're more comfortable with your surroundings. Almost every room has some kind of puzzle in it (whether you realize it or not), and the "Eureka!" moment of both finding and solving them is something that doesn't get old. Sometimes the game's cleverness isn't from what it has, but what it purposefully lacks—for example, you're never told how each item you unlock actually works and instead have to use the puzzles in adjacent rooms to experiment with its potential uses. Moreover, there's no way for you to directly attack anything, so any threats you encounter will need to be bypassed or neutralized through non-direct means. It basically turned combat into yet another puzzle, and it's a really cool approach to a metroidvania staple.

As for the negatives in this core gameplay loop, there thankfully aren't that many. As with any game relying on save points, there are bound to be a few times where you'll die and have to retread more ground than you'd like; but it's rare that this becomes anything more than a mild annoyance. A similar caliber of annoyance comes from the inventory management, because you'll need to quick-swap between items very frequently but can only have one active at a time. Whether you're cycling through the hotbar or pausing the game to manually select them, it's going to wreck your flow at times and the confusion might even contribute to a death or two. Also, you can't rebind the controls natively on any control scheme, so players with accessibility requirements will need to rely on third-party tools to do so. Aside from these, though, the whole experience up to this point is really, really fun.

It took me about 8 hours to find all those MacGuffins and "beat" the game, but here's the catch: everything I've described up to this point is just the first layer—there's still a lot more ground to cover.

See, developer Billy Basso said that ANIMAL WELL was designed in three layers, each one with puzzles increasingly more difficult than the last. I'd say Layer 1 is your traditional "base game" content, while Layer 2 is your traditional post-game or "completionist" content, which in this case is about finding 64 collectible eggs scattered around the map. You'll need a keen eye and a thorough understanding of the game's mechanics to find the full set, because these can be very well-hidden—almost too well at times. A lot of them require you to revisit earlier locations using late-game items to reveal new secrets, meaning you basically have to explore the entire map again with a fine-toothed comb for anything slightly out of the ordinary; and with such a big map, this is a more laborious task than it sounds. I'd say there's an 80/20 split between Layer 2 puzzles that felt rewarding to solve and those that were just a pain in the neck; so even though finding them on your own is by no means impossible, don't feel bad about consulting a guide if the the hunt for the last few starts to wear on your patience. As a side note, beating Layer 2 is as far as you need to go to earn all the Steam achievements, so this makes for a good stopping point if that's your usual criteria for game completion—and honestly, even if it isn't, I might still recommend that you stop here.


I'll be blunt and say that Layer 3 is where I think the puzzles just stop being fun. This layer centers around a new collectible that you might not even realize is a collectible at first; and aside from a couple that are (comparatively) straightforward, the puzzles to find the bulk of them are a mix of tedious and unintuitive to solve. Some involve more pixel-by-pixel scrubbing of the map, others delve into ARG-like solutions like multiple save files and physical print-outs, one even requires community effort making it so that you can't actually solve this layer alone, and the actual number of needed collectibles is obfuscated by a red herring (the map implies 20, but there are only 16) that can send you on a wild goose chase unless you look up the real number. This escalates even further with a set of puzzles that players have dubbed the unofficial "fourth layer", which have such esoteric requirements that I'd be amazed if anyone could find them all without data mining. Sure, maybe some of my frustration can just be chalked up to a skill issue, but it sucks playing a game praised for its complex puzzles only to discover that there are some that are unsolvable on your own and some the developer "did not really design to be solvable" (actual quote from an in-game recording) in the first place.

I finished Layer 1 and had nothing but praise for the time I'd spent, but by the time I'd reached the end of the final layer, I was torn on the whole thing. On one hand, my issues with the game stem from only the hardest and technically most optional of the game's puzzles; but on the other hand, why play a puzzle game if you're not going to try and solve all the puzzles? I guess it just depends on whether or not you're the type that needs to see absolutely everything a game has to offer, and whether or not you're the type that's willing to accept that you can't do that here without outside help. I'm still giving ANIMAL WELL a tentative recommendation because those first two layers make for a fun, content-rich game all on their own; but know that playing beyond that point may not be worth the effort you try to put into it.

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[h3][b][u]Short Answer:[/u][/b][/h3] A metroidvania/puzzle game with multiple layers of increasingly challenging puzzles, which make it extremely fun to beat but not to try and fully complete. The first layer is a blast through and through, and the second layer is maybe an 80/20 split of fun and tedious puzzles; but the third layer goes overboard with puzzles that either demand huge time sinks or leaps in logic, are designed to be impossible to solve on your own, or were never even designed to be solvable at all. Achievement hunters need to only beat Layer 2 to get every achievement, and how far you go beyond that point depends on your patience and willingness to consult a guide if you get stuck (which you will be required to do eventually). [b][u]NOTE[/u]: Controls cannot be rebound natively on either controller or keyboard.[/b] Also, if you're like me and find that the scanlines effect is giving you a headache, you can thankfully turn that off in the graphics settings. [h3][b][u]Long Answer:[/u][/b][/h3] [i]ANIMAL WELL[/i] is an exploration-oriented puzzle game involving a mysterious well that's inexplicably filled with all manner of animals, plant life, and supernatural phenomena. There's not really a story to it, or at least I couldn't find much of one—you're a little blob-thing looking for four big MacGuffins that let you reach the end of the game, and that's about it. The puzzles are the central focus, and anything that feels like it's tapping into some deeper lore is typically just a cryptic clue for solving another puzzle. Much of the gameplay is centered around puzzle-platforming across the well's labyrinth of rooms, which follows the metroidvania structure of a non-linear map layout, save points every few rooms instead of on-demand save states, and the use of unlockable items to open new areas and shortcuts. The map is huge and the number of paths you can take at any given moment can be overwhelming, but it does a decent job of steering you in the direction of what's most important before nudging you to explore the rest once you're more comfortable with your surroundings. [b]Almost every room has some kind of puzzle in it (whether you realize it or not), and the "Eureka!" moment of both finding and solving them is something that doesn't get old.[/b] Sometimes the game's cleverness isn't from what it has, but what it purposefully lacks—for example, you're never told how each item you unlock actually works and instead have to use the puzzles in adjacent rooms to experiment with its potential uses. Moreover, there's no way for you to directly attack anything, so any threats you encounter will need to be bypassed or neutralized through non-direct means. [b]It basically turned combat into yet another puzzle, and it's a really cool approach to a metroidvania staple[/b]. As for the negatives in this core gameplay loop, there thankfully aren't that many. As with any game relying on save points, there are bound to be a few times where you'll die and have to retread more ground than you'd like; but it's rare that this becomes anything more than a mild annoyance. A similar caliber of annoyance comes from the inventory management, because you'll need to quick-swap between items very frequently but can only have one active at a time. Whether you're cycling through the hotbar or pausing the game to manually select them, it's going to wreck your flow at times and the confusion might even contribute to a death or two. Also, [b]you can't rebind the controls natively on any control scheme, so players with accessibility requirements will need to rely on third-party tools to do so[/b]. Aside from these, though, the whole experience up to this point is really, really fun. It took me about 8 hours to find all those MacGuffins and "beat" the game, but here's the catch: everything I've described up to this point is just the first layer—there's still a lot more ground to cover. See, developer Billy Basso said that [i]ANIMAL WELL[/i] was designed in three layers, each one with puzzles increasingly more difficult than the last. I'd say Layer 1 is your traditional "base game" content, while Layer 2 is your traditional post-game or "completionist" content, which in this case is about finding 64 collectible eggs scattered around the map. You'll need a keen eye and a thorough understanding of the game's mechanics to find the full set, because these can be very well-hidden—almost too well at times. A lot of them require you to revisit earlier locations using late-game items to reveal new secrets, meaning you basically have to explore the entire map again with a fine-toothed comb for anything slightly out of the ordinary; and with such a big map, this is a more laborious task than it sounds. [b]I'd say there's an 80/20 split between Layer 2 puzzles that felt rewarding to solve and those that were just a pain in the neck[/b]; so even though finding them on your own is by no means impossible, don't feel bad about consulting a guide if the the hunt for the last few starts to wear on your patience. As a side note, [b]beating Layer 2 is as far as you need to go to earn all the Steam achievements[/b], so this makes for a good stopping point if that's your usual criteria for game completion—and honestly, even if it isn't, I might still recommend that you stop here. [h3][b][u]Spoiler warning from here on out.[/u][/b][/h3] I'll be blunt and say that [b]Layer 3 is where I think the puzzles just stop being fun[/b]. This layer centers around a new collectible that you might not even realize is a collectible at first; and aside from a couple that are (comparatively) straightforward, the puzzles to find the bulk of them are a mix of tedious and unintuitive to solve. Some involve more pixel-by-pixel scrubbing of the map, others delve into ARG-like solutions like multiple save files and physical print-outs, one even requires community effort making it so that you can't actually solve this layer alone, and the actual number of needed collectibles is obfuscated by a red herring ([spoiler]the map implies 20, but there are only 16[/spoiler]) that can send you on a wild goose chase unless you look up the real number. This escalates even further with a set of puzzles that players have dubbed the unofficial "fourth layer", which have such esoteric requirements that I'd be amazed if anyone could find them all without data mining. Sure, maybe some of my frustration can just be chalked up to a skill issue, but [b]it sucks playing a game praised for its complex puzzles only to discover that there are some that are unsolvable on your own and some the developer "did not really design to be solvable" (actual quote from an in-game recording) in the first place[/b]. I finished Layer 1 and had nothing but praise for the time I'd spent, but by the time I'd reached the end of the final layer, I was torn on the whole thing. On one hand, my issues with the game stem from only the hardest and technically most optional of the game's puzzles; but on the other hand, why play a puzzle game if you're not going to try and solve all the puzzles? I guess it just depends on whether or not you're the type that needs to see absolutely everything a game has to offer, and whether or not you're the type that's willing to accept that you can't do that here without outside help. [b][u]I'm still giving [i]ANIMAL WELL[/i] a tentative recommendation because those first two layers make for a fun, content-rich game all on their own; but know that playing beyond that point may not be worth the effort you try to put into it.[/u][/b] [quote]For more game reviews, check out my [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/42524563/]Curator page[/url]![/quote]