This is a really good first attempt at a commercial video game for sure, but ultimately I don't love it quite as much as I'd like.

The idea of an oblique and subtly creepy metroidvania game really appeals to me, and I do think the game has some very memorable moments and imagery in it (I love the fuckass Kangaroo even though he made me shit my pants in fear every time he showed up), but ultimately it fails to really come together as a compelling whole. The world doesn't feel quite as alive as I think it intends to, and it mostly just ends up feeling like a vessel for cool little things to go 'oh thats neat!' at or for big ARG puzzles that I frankly do not care about beyond seeing the solutions on my twitter feed before going 'oh thats neat!'. It just feels empty, and once the 'vibe' wears off you aren't left with much to dig in to.

Same goes for the general puzzle solving, the items are all very cool and the puzzles are generally fun to work out but very few really stick with me the same way something like the puzzles in Portal do. Plus there is a LOT of backtracking through sections of the map that are objectively just dead air after you've finished with the puzzle they contain.

After completing what is generally referred to as 'layer one' of the game, I think I've had my fill. I basically know what I'm supposed to do to complete 'layer two' of the game (it isn't hard to work out considering how many obvious loose ends the game leaves you with) but I can't say I give a shit about doing any of it. And as I said before, I don't really give a shit about big community ARG puzzles beyond watching from the sidelines. So for now, Animal Well just kinda sits as a neat start for both its main developer and its publisher. I'm excited to see what both of them do next, and that's not nothing!