I think Animal Well is an example of a subgenre that fundamentally does not work in games: the overly esoteric puzzler largely cracked through community-effort. These games have existed before, though they're never been overly populous, but Animal Well is a particularly egregious example of the trend.
Other games of this ilk, Fez and Void Stranger come to mind, are conceivably solvable by oneself with a lot of trial and error. Often that's what these games come down to: a "How would I know to do that?" level of ridiculous solution. This blow is softened when the effort is outsourced to a community who can work together to try everything in a fraction of the time it would take one person. How much you feel like you'd enjoy being a part of this discovery process will vary, but something is undeniable here: It only happens once. If you miss the boat on the community puzzle solving then all that exists are the solutions published across countless websites. The way these games are intended to be played has a very rapid expiration date given how the internet works, but at least these other titles can conceivably be solo'd.
Animal Well does not share that trait. There is a very in-your-face puzzle that can only be solved by networking with at least 50 other people to compare notes about the unique item in your current save. The game explicitly leans into the idea that the secrets will be solved as team; the game explicitly asks you to turn to the internet to get through it.
I bought this game a few days after release and this puzzle had already been solved. There was nothing for me to do. And hey, once I am already forced to just look up a pre-existing solution, why not do it for other puzzles? They may also require outside assistance.
It's such a baffling design decision. Animal Well will spend the vast majority of its existence as an old game. The "gameplay" portion of this puzzle is already finished and will never exist again. It dings the experience solely to facilitate the short-lived fun of a few dozen people in some Discord. Incredibly short-sighted.
And this is why I think all of the games in this niche subgenre just do not work. They all share the same issue: the nature of setting their game in a physical environment is at odds with the effort required to work through esoteric puzzles. The cost of combing through areas for hidden compartments or niche interactions with forgotten items is much higher when travel time, platforming, and being put in danger are necessitated.
The motivation to try tapping the interact button three times on every bush sprite vanishes when I have to go through the spike platform zone.
There "game" portion of the computer game becomes busy work in the way of trial and error brute force puzzle solving. Better conveyance would solve this, but of course then the puzzles themselves wouldn't be needlessly secretive. To some, it's so much more interesting to have a secret series of collectables that require setting up your printer than it is to save 12 hours time by indicating their existence. To others, it's laborious.
Without focusing on these more involved puzzles, Animal Well is simply lacking. The platforming isn't fun despite some extra, hidden techniques hidden in the game's inventory. The aesthetic is both uninspired and severely misguided; artificial scanlines are not only ugly but at-odds with the need to pore over the finer details of the map. The base game content in what has been called the first two "layers" is too short to justify the purchase.
Buy Animal Well if you enjoy looking up solutions online to feel clever about the work others have already done. Buy Animal Well if you enjoy parking your RV at a campground rather than pitching a tent in anything resembling wilderness.
Other games of this ilk, Fez and Void Stranger come to mind, are conceivably solvable by oneself with a lot of trial and error. Often that's what these games come down to: a "How would I know to do that?" level of ridiculous solution. This blow is softened when the effort is outsourced to a community who can work together to try everything in a fraction of the time it would take one person. How much you feel like you'd enjoy being a part of this discovery process will vary, but something is undeniable here: It only happens once. If you miss the boat on the community puzzle solving then all that exists are the solutions published across countless websites. The way these games are intended to be played has a very rapid expiration date given how the internet works, but at least these other titles can conceivably be solo'd.
Animal Well does not share that trait. There is a very in-your-face puzzle that can only be solved by networking with at least 50 other people to compare notes about the unique item in your current save. The game explicitly leans into the idea that the secrets will be solved as team; the game explicitly asks you to turn to the internet to get through it.
I bought this game a few days after release and this puzzle had already been solved. There was nothing for me to do. And hey, once I am already forced to just look up a pre-existing solution, why not do it for other puzzles? They may also require outside assistance.
It's such a baffling design decision. Animal Well will spend the vast majority of its existence as an old game. The "gameplay" portion of this puzzle is already finished and will never exist again. It dings the experience solely to facilitate the short-lived fun of a few dozen people in some Discord. Incredibly short-sighted.
And this is why I think all of the games in this niche subgenre just do not work. They all share the same issue: the nature of setting their game in a physical environment is at odds with the effort required to work through esoteric puzzles. The cost of combing through areas for hidden compartments or niche interactions with forgotten items is much higher when travel time, platforming, and being put in danger are necessitated.
The motivation to try tapping the interact button three times on every bush sprite vanishes when I have to go through the spike platform zone.
There "game" portion of the computer game becomes busy work in the way of trial and error brute force puzzle solving. Better conveyance would solve this, but of course then the puzzles themselves wouldn't be needlessly secretive. To some, it's so much more interesting to have a secret series of collectables that require setting up your printer than it is to save 12 hours time by indicating their existence. To others, it's laborious.
Without focusing on these more involved puzzles, Animal Well is simply lacking. The platforming isn't fun despite some extra, hidden techniques hidden in the game's inventory. The aesthetic is both uninspired and severely misguided; artificial scanlines are not only ugly but at-odds with the need to pore over the finer details of the map. The base game content in what has been called the first two "layers" is too short to justify the purchase.
Buy Animal Well if you enjoy looking up solutions online to feel clever about the work others have already done. Buy Animal Well if you enjoy parking your RV at a campground rather than pitching a tent in anything resembling wilderness.