Animal Well review

At first Animal Well presents itself as a quiet, ruminative metroidvania. A simple time-worn videogame blob wanders a psychedelic subterranean labyrinth towards some obscure purpose, solving puzzles with a growing collection of tools. My cherished blob is neither armed nor dangerous, because while animals populate this murky realm—cats, dogs, crows, kangaroos, worms, stingrays—few are hungry for blobs. Most are content just to sit and watch, often in proximity to the many bizarre statues built in their honour. Built by who or by what? I've got no idea. I'm so far down the food chain most creatures don't even consider me food.

What is it? A free-roaming puzzle game with a bottomless well of secrets.
Expect to pay: TBC
Developer: Billy Basso
Publisher: Bigmode
Reviewed on: RTX 3060 (laptop), Ryzen 5 5600H, 16GB RAM
Multiplayer? No
Steam Deck: Verified
Link: Official site

But in the rare cases animals do take issue with my presence the noise is terrifying. Shrieks pierce through the reverberant gloom with an exaggeration matched only by the oversized animals themselves, whose limbs don't perambulate so much as they ooze across the screen. The whole world seems to wobble when shit hits the fan; loud drones breach the quiet. These encounters aren't usually difficult per se, but they are unutterably stressful, cutting through the tomblike tranquillity with abrupt violence. There are never two animal species on screen at once, because all have staked their territory.

Animal Well is one of the most atmospheric metroidvanias I've played, and there's a lot of strong competition. The subtle ambient synth score lends a tense ambiguity to its crypt-like passages, and the sound design cloaks everything in an uneasy subaquatic quiet. The air is full of distant sounds of mysterious provenance. Is that a meowing kitten? Is that a shrieking human child? The art style is a gentle mix of muted neon pixels with cavernous blacks, scanlined to dreamy effect. Rare is the room without some unique