ANIMAL WELL
There are no weapons in ANIMAL WELL. A yellow blob climbs out of a flower into an underground maze of animals far bigger than itself and makes its way with toys. The slinky, frisbee and bubble wand each have several uses, and not all of them are obvious. The game explains neither a story nor a goal.
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Billy Basso made it alone over seven years and even wrote his own engine. He banned weapons and cutscenes on purpose, so the world itself would explain everything. He derived puzzles from how mechanics interact and built about three times as many rooms as made it into the game.
The first credits are not the end. Three more layers of puzzles follow, and one needs partial solutions from at least fifty players put together. Basso expected some secrets to hold out for years, but thousands of players working together cracked them in the first month.
Reviewers praised the layered secrets and the pixel art. If you are after hard platforming, note that one reviewer found it lacking in difficulty and another struggled with the map. Players leave 95% positive out of 23,045 reviews; critics give it 90 on Metacritic. By our Recommended Score it is #80 of 4,736 games.
Liked it? Try FEZ, whose secrets hidden in plain sight inspired Basso, and Axiom Verge, a metroidvania also made by one person.
System requirements
Minimum 1 GB RAM · 35 MB✓Steam Deck VerifiedMin & recommended
| Minimum | Recommended | |
|---|---|---|
| OS | Windows 10 | — |
| Processor | 1 GHz | — |
| Memory | 1 GB | — |
| Graphics | Integrated | GeForce GTX 1060 or equivalent |
| DirectX | 12 | — |
| Storage | 35 MB | — |
From the game’s Steam store page.
