Great art design, sound design, and performance. All under 40 mbs which is impressive! Outside of that it’s your typical Metroidvania - I don’t get the massive hype around it. Mechanics are clearly borrowed from much older titles like Bubble Bobble and Star Tropics (yo-yo weapon). It’s a great homage to second and third gen titles similar to Fez and Braid but that’s about it. Overhyped. Wait for a sale.

Clever puzzles and a unique style set Animal Well apart from the many 2D Metroidvanias out there. There’s no combat — it’s all about avoiding overpowered opponents and figuring out how to get past obstacles via logic puzzles and timed challenges. The upside: you’ll feel awesome for getting past a tricky puzzle or figuring out a buried mystery. The downside: you’ll also get lost a bunch and have to backtrack and waste time trying to figure out where on the — blurry — map the next loose end awaits. The final battle is a bit of a letdown and doesn’t quite use all that you’ve learned to give you that final payoff that would’ve made Animal Well truly special. But what’s there is super-fun and clever. Great game!

Everything in this is top notch. The map is incredibly well thought out, and the hidden dual purpose design of the items you collect and how its usage when coming across puzzles is more of a knowledge check rather than a "I need this specific item to progress". The boss fights being less fighting and more of strategically avoiding them with the new item you got is great. The controls feel tight and responsive which makes platforming feel great and its nice how forgiving it is since you don't get much of a penalty if you fall in water. The visuals and lighting are ominously alluring and is a nice wrapping for the mysterious vibe the game is going for. Especially so with the damn near endless post-game secret puzzles that needs community involvement to help solve. Although there is a lack of music throughout the game, the immersive ambiant soundscape of the well makes up for it, especially so with the haptic feedback from the DualSense. I really loved this game and look forward to whatever BIGMODE publishes in the future.

Animal Well has A+ exploration and very solid puzzles. It’s short with fun post-game exploration. I wish that there was a little more explanation of the tools but ultimately this was a fun time. Quite amazing that it came from one developer!

A marvel of game design but occasionally frustrating, and rolling credits was plenty for me.

If you like puzzles, play Animal Well. That's all you need to know, and you should strive to go in knowing as little as possible!

Dunkey has entered the video game development world, and he's hit the ground running!! A great take on the metroidvania style, which is brought to life by a mysterious beautiful world with some clever puzzles to boot. Although some old fashioned mechanics like manual saving (a personal pet peeve) and a very sudden, dare I say anticlimactic ending stops this game from soaring too high, I still highly recommend to any lovers of the genre, or just someone who wants to try something new

It's absolutely beautiful, a ton of fun, super engaging, has sick audio, and really satisfying discoveries. Nothing groundbreaking, but really, really damn good. Getting around the world got kind of frustrating towards the end, but that's all.

This game really deserves all the praise it gets I personally don't really play Metroid-vanias - it's just not my genre. I did love Hollow Knight tho so I wanted to give another praised game of this genre a try - and I absolutely loved it. It's so beautiful, yet at the same time has a creepy/haunting atmosphere, and you can just never get enough. The puzzles are creative, and the feeling of genius you get when you finally figured out how to use your tools to get past an obstacle you where stuck on for a bit Is great. Thinking that all this was done by one single developer is crazy! Highly recommend, and so far my Indie-Game of the Year!

This game is just an incredible experience. There were few instances of frustration. However, I usually could just come back to it later with a fresh mind and new tools, making it just that much easier. I love the crypticness of the game and am looking forward to uncovering more of its secrets.

Awesome Game. Review Coming Soon.

nothing, do as much as you can without looking anything up. If you get stuck, go explore other areas for awhile and you'll almost always find something new.

Holy shit. One of the goats.

Great level design and puzzles. Can be frustrating at times.

This game is the new reason I wake up in the morning. Thank you bigmode.