BETWEEN 2023 and 2024 we had more fantastic, award-winning games than anyone could play.
For all the big-budget AAA games we’ve been bombarded with, it’s the smaller indies that have been catching our attention.
Animal Well is the first game published by BigMode, the new independent publisher created by YouTuber Jason Gastrow, better known as videogamedunkey.
Dunkey’s involvement got a lot of attention, but it was the game itself that won all the praise.
Metroidvania is a common genre for indie games, with recent titles like Ultros and Tales of Kenzera: Zau.
But even major publishers have embraced the genre, as with this year’s Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown.
This means that new metroidvanias will have to mix up the formula and offer something new to players.
Perfecting this is what has made Animal Well so popular. It takes you to the deep end and asks you to explore.
You start at the central hub of the world and can travel in any direction from there.
Whichever path you take, you’ll encounter a series of well-designed puzzles that will slowly introduce new concepts that will help you understand the world better.
Even if you’re a fan of metroidvanias, you won’t know what to expect here, as Animal Well takes the player’s assumptions and twists them.
Something that would seem natural, or even vital, in your ordinary metroidvania could easily lead to your death here.
Nothing is explained clearly to you and instead it is presented in a way that you have to figure out which way to go for yourself.
Each new item you obtain reveals its usefulness through the puzzles you solve, teaching you how to use it in the next section.
This can lead to frustrating moments where you have to figure out how the mechanics interact independently, but these aren’t common.
It’s only five or six hours long, depending on how good you are at the puzzles, but this allows everything to fit together without overstaying its welcome.
Animal Well presents unique ideas for a genre that can lack innovation, and the world design pushes you to explore a little further.
It’s this newness that makes you feel smart when solving the puzzles, unlike everyone else.
Animal Well is now available for Nintendo Switch, PS5 and Steam.
If you want to read more about recent game releases, check out our Sand Land review.
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This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
