If there’s one word that can sum up Shared Memory’sAnimal Wellit’s “enigmatic.” As its players can attest, it’s one of those increasingly rare games that trusts in the player’s ability to problem-solve, figure things out and deal with getting lost every now and then.
Review: Animal Well
Animal Well is an absolute stunner of a metroidvania, usually charming but frequently creepy, mysterious but by no means unapproachable.
Practically nothing is explained, which, while allowing for quite a bit of freedom, also creates some extra difficulty and risks many basic things staying undiscovered for a long time. Here are some of what we’d wish we’d clued into at the beginning of Animal Well rather than near its end.
10Every Detail is Important
Keep those eyes peeled!
In most games, environmental details rarely go beyond functioning as either supplementary storytelling or marking things like cover or climbable surfaces. In Animal Well, however, those same details could be anything from a hint towards a certain item to the opening of a hidden space to even a full-blown puzzle piece.
Many of these details simply look like nothing more than functionless artwork at first glance too, leading to a lot of backtracking later on when players are trying to recall where they saw this or that. Seriously, keep notes about anything that looks even the tiniest bit different from its surroundings, because chances are good that it’ll be important later.
9Lack of Combat Doesn’t Mean There Aren’t Challenging Enemies
Borrowing a page from the survival horror handbook
Animal Well is, for the most part, a very chill puzzle and exploration game. There’s zero combat, and enemies must either be hit with traps or fled from in the beginning. This leads one to think that they won’t have to defeat something like a boss at first, but that assumption will more than likely be proven false before long.
There are actually several boss-type enemies that must be defeated if one is to clear Animal Well. There is no directly fighting them, but players do need to figure out how best to overcome each. Put simply, those platforming and puzzling skillswillbe put to the test.
8Map Markers are Essential
Customize that map!
Like any good game with an expansive map, Animal Well’s map comes with the ability to stick custom markers wherever the player may want. There are even several different designs to hint at what’s being marked (for when one eventually forgets later.) There aretonsof little secrets in Animal Well, so either start using these right away or be prepared to miss things.
Seriously, whether one thinks they’ll revisit something right away or not, it’s best to mark it. It’s only a moment of wasted time if one does, and a lot of saved time if they don’t. If it’s not interactable or even just useful, then it’s worth marking.
I failed to do this right away and found myself spending a lot of time wandering around looking for pipe entrances and certain rooms later on once I reached the endgame.
7Some Rooms are Accessible Only By Pipes
Use the secret paths most men fear to tread!
Connecting to the above, there are a number of pipe entrances located throughout Animal Well’s underground chambers. Some are mere shortcuts, while others are the only way in and out of certain chambers and sections. And, of course, none of them are easily seen from the map screen.
If one cannot seem to find the entrance to a chamber, chances are good that it’s only accessed via pipe. What’s more, the required pipe might be further away than expected, so scour the area for it, and then make sure to mark both it and its route for later.
6Coming Back Later is Standard Practice
Progress takes patience
This probably won’t come as a shock to anyone who’s played more than one Metroidvania game in their life, yet it bears mentioning because Animal Well does it somewhat differently from the rest. Instead of outright barring progress until an obvious item is acquired, it prefers to hide lots of secrets in plain sight.
Most rooms have something to find or do in them, but often that thing won’t be found or doable until after the player stumbles onto an item like the top or the yo-yo. And, they likely won’t even know to look for something until then, making many rooms much more significant than they first appeared.
5The Easter Eggs Actually Do Something
They’re not just for show
At first, it seems like all the various, literal Easter eggs found throughout Animal Well are meant only for display in the collections of completionists. That’s not entirely true, though. Collecting sixteen eggs unlocks the Pencil, and gathering 32 eggs unlocks the Top.
If one goes and gathers all 64 Easter eggs in Animal Well, then they’ll manage to take a step towards unlocking the game’s secret ending. Some of these eggs take more than a few steps to obtain, too, so one should first consider how badly they want them all before taking on the challenge.
4Creativity is Encouraged
Consider all possibilities
While not all items in Animal Well have multiple functions, most of them do. And, often, it’s the less obvious uses that wind up being the most critical to overall progress. Basically, if something seems doable, chances are that the developer has already thought of it and is counting on players to use it in that way too.
Every Item in Animal Well Ranked
Frisbees, Yo-Yo’s and Slinkys. Did I Time Travel To The 80s?
A great example of this is the Disc item. It’s sort of introduced as a distraction for dogs and a way to hit distant switches, but it’s arideableobject as well. It never loses altitude, so it can be ridden across even massive expanses (hint, hint).
3Animal Well Has Layers
Like ogres and onions
One of the interesting things about Animal Well is that many of its puzzles and secrets don’t actually have much to do with the main path. So long as the four main bosses are defeated, the game can be finished. To finish it is only to complete the first layer of the game, though.
So long as the four main bosses are defeated, the game can be finished.
The next layer has to do with the Easter eggs and the things they unlock. The next is the “true” ending, and beyond that lie even more cryptic hints at what exactly this is all about. Most of these layers can be completed solo, but the last requires a bit more.
2Some Puzzles are a Community Effort by Design
One brain simply isn’t enough sometimes
While one can get through the majority of Animal Well alone, there are, as mentioned previously, a few puzzles that have been designed with community effort in mind. In other words, Animal Well’s deepest secrets are only available to those who make the extra effort to engage with the game’s wider community of fans.
BitSummit Let’s Go: Animal Well’s Atmosphere is Irresistible
One of the most infamous of these puzzles is the Bunny Mural. Not only is the means of interacting with this puzzle extremely well-hidden, but each player only gets a single, 4x4 section of the full picture to work with. If the community hadn’t put its full might into solving this one, it (and its reward) very well could have forever been a mystery.
1The Bubble Wand Hop Technique
A true game-changer
The Bubble Wand might seem only somewhat useful upon first acquiring it, thanks to only generating a single bubble that immediately starts sinking once the player jumps onto it. In actuality, though, it could very well be thebesttraversal item in the game. It’s just a matter of technique.
By using the Bubble Wandimmediatelyafter jumping, another bubble is created just below where the player will land. This allows one, with good timing, to climb as high or go as far as they want in any direction. As long as a hummingbird isn’t present, the sky truly is the limit once this is mastered.
Getting used to Animal Well can be a little difficult at first, but playing through it can be a very rewarding experience thanks to its atmosphere and the sheer satisfaction that solving its puzzles provides.
Animal Well
9 Most Popular Memes That Came From Video Games
Among the countless memes that came from video games, these got the most recognition.
