ANIMAL WELL on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Explore a dense, interconnected labyrinth, and unravel its many secrets. Collect items to manipulate your environment in surprising and meaningful ways. Encounter beautiful and unsettling creatures, as you attempt to survive what lurks in the dark. There is more than what you see.
ANIMAL WELL is a metroidvania, exploration and puzzle game
developed by Billy Basso
and published by Bigmode.
Released on May 09th 2024 is available only on Windows
in 11 languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian, Ukrainian and Korean.
It has received 20,790 reviews of which 19,956 were positive and 834 were negative resulting in an impressive rating of 9.4 out of 10. 😍
The game is currently priced at 24.50€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified ANIMAL WELL into these genres:
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10
- Processor: 1 GHz
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: Integrated
- DirectX: Version 12
- Storage: 35 MB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
The Balatro clown told me to try this out. Super fun so far, a great metroidvania to scratch the itch. The more puzzle based aspect instead of combat oriented is refreshing. Visuals are both creepy and fun at the same time. A really neat game.
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Animal Well is a strange game. On a technical level, it's excellent. The spritework is charming, the music is atmospheric, and the controls are tight and responsive. As a near-solo project, it’s very impressive, and it definitely makes me interested in the dev’s future work. The game's mechanics, though simple, are profound in combination, and their discovery and application in the game's world are genuinely enjoyable-- but even with all those positives I'm not sure I can truly say I like it. While streaming it to one of my friends, they commented that it feels more like a ‘toy’ than a game, per-se-- and upon reflection I can’t help but think it a cogent enough criticism to warrant mentioning here. Like the many tools which make up the inventory system, such as a spinning top, Frisbee, Yo-yo and bubble wand Animal Well seems to view play as a reward in itself. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but because the game has no real narrative to tie it together and gives minimal instruction at the best of times, the gameplay is all it has going for it. If it doesn’t grab you immediately, the laissez-faire approach to its design can make it wear out its welcome, even considering its short length. Contrary to most Metroidvanias, a lot of upgrades (even those offering massive quality-of-life improvements) are entirely optional because you don’t need them to progress most of the time. There’s no incentive to hunt them down beyond the general desire to explore the map, and you still might miss them if your observation, note taking, and lateral-thinking skills aren’t up to snuff. Likewise, some tools are woefully underdeveloped and are used only a few times; of the 12 main' items, I would say that the bouncy rubber ball and UV lamp stand out as examples where a tighter focus and fewer items would've served the experience better. True to its name, Animal Well has a lot of depth, but I would argue it verges on being too much. The player’s enjoyment can only last as long as their patience for puzzling through the game’s deliberate attempts to be obtuse does-- and there are secrets in spades, with varying degrees of reward. Towards the end of “Layer 2” (collecting all the eggs and getting the True Ending), scouring the world can start to feel like a bit of a slog, even with all the items and traversal methods unlocked-- nor would anyone operating in good faith fault you for getting frustrated and looking things up. Animal Well feels like it was built with speedrunners, dataminers, and obsessive secret hunters in mind (sometimes at the expense of normal players), so it should be no surprise to anyone that that’s who it’s most attractive to. There is a palpable and almost perverse glee on display in the inclusion of puzzles that are basically impossible to solve through legitimate means, or that maybe one-in-a-thousand people will even perceive, a-la Forbidden Siren. Hello, barcode-in-the-grass . I personally don’t find this level of engagement to be fun or rewarding, but I do respect the hustle (on both the developer’s and community’s part) even if it’s not for me. At a price-point of $25 (at time of writing), the game doesn’t really give that much bang-for-your-buck. It’s not hard to see ~100% of it in 15-20 hours, or to beat it even quicker if you just want to see the end, or have trouble picking up on the subtler mechanics. Furthermore, I don’t think there is much replay value because most of the fun is in the initial discovery, rather than the moment-to-moment gameplay. Still, for all my grousing, I don’t dislike Animal Well, and I enjoyed my time with it enough to both 100% it and write a review. It ultimately has a lot of heart, and I can’t fault it for being what it is. There is a strong creative vision behind it, and I’d much rather games like this be made than the endless litany of subpar nostalgia-bait remakes or corporate slop that the games industry loves churning out for a quick buck Hello Silent Hill 2 Remake . Consider picking it up on sale, if you can.
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there's plenty to say about this beautiful game but i want to hone in on one aspect of it that most impressed me. as i played animal well i was pretty confused at the tools i was being given. when i first started to explore i thought to myself: wow, the movement is slow and my jump sucks. but, maybe the first item will help? i then got to the first item. it was a frisbee. like, the toy. i was flabbergasted, but i quickly realised it could be used to hit switches from range. it was cool, i guess, but i was still disappointed with it. it felt like a tool designed for a singular purpose, so to me it seemed to stifle my creative thinking. and then i accidentally landed on the frisbee and watched in awe as my character rode it across the screen. animal well is a rare example of a game where discovering an intended feature made me feel like i had just found a cheat code, or an unintended bug. this game is full of that. I got a second item, and realised it too had equally 'game breaking' potential. similar revelations just kept happening. i'm sure by the conclusion of the game a majority of players would discover most if not all of these, but nonetheless they still felt like such niche techniques, almost like something you'd see in a speedrun. i felt awesome for discovering cool 'movement techs' that were in fact not only intended by the developers but absolutely necessary to complete some rooms. knowing these interactions were planned did not ruin it for me. instead i felt inclined to master what I had discovered, so i could overcome new challenges. it is a thrilling feeling. you should play animal well.
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This game started so simplistic that initially I thought "is this really it"? I couldn't understand the hype at first, because Animal Well - at first glance - looks OK, but not groundbreaking. I breezed through the first few bossfights, thinking that this is not going to be in-depth enough of to really feel satisfying. But boy was I wrong! I suddenly started finding additional use cases for my powerups, up to point of thinking "Wow, was this really intended?!". Before I knew it I was constantly making joyful noises. Each new discovery opened up new areas with even more secrets and items to discover, which in turn peels even more layers off the known map. Hints to secrets are sometimes head-slappingly obvious, but often so well hidden (often related accross the entire map) that you can't help but feel amazed by the seemingly simplistic, yet ingenious level design. This game forces you to take notes (with a built-in pen and stamp), and I also strongly recommend taking some screenshots. These tools are necessary! There is no handholding, but instead you are required to think, learn and execute upon it. The given tools are no power fantasy like in your usual Metroidvania, but smart extensions of known platformer concepts. And through the entire session it was an absolute joy to see the game and engine running absolutely bug-free with minimal install size. The sound design is great and atmospheric. The seemingly simple graphics really work wonders in motion with cool lighting, smoke and neon effects. This constant feeling of amazement is what carried me past an initial doubt into a "I'm going to 100% this game" mindset. Animal Well appreciates your gaming intelligence and curiousity without being too stressful or iterative on known concepts, and that alone is a feat by itself. This game is a milestone and a masterpiece in the genre.
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Animal Well is a masterclass in game development. In an era where developers often prioritize expanding their games simply because memory is cheap, Animal Well stands out. Even if Metroidvania or puzzle games aren't typically your genre, you should still consider purchasing this game. By supporting the incredibly talented Billy Basso and the innovative team at Bigmode, you're contributing to a refreshing wave of creativity in the video game industry. It's creativity, not blockbuster franchises like Call of Duty, that make video games timeless. This is my review. Buy Animal Well. Support Billy Basso and Bigmode to ensure that extraordinary games like this continue to be made.
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Frequently Asked Questions
ANIMAL WELL is currently priced at 24.50€ on Steam.
ANIMAL WELL is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 24.50€ on Steam.
ANIMAL WELL received 19,956 positive votes out of a total of 20,790 achieving an impressive rating of 9.37.
😍
ANIMAL WELL was developed by Billy Basso and published by Bigmode.
ANIMAL WELL is playable and fully supported on Windows.
ANIMAL WELL is not playable on MacOS.
ANIMAL WELL is not playable on Linux.
ANIMAL WELL is a single-player game.
ANIMAL WELL does not currently offer any DLC.
ANIMAL WELL does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
ANIMAL WELL does not support Steam Remote Play.
ANIMAL WELL is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for ANIMAL WELL.
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Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 04 June 2025 03:16 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 06 June 2025 10:47 |
| Steam price | 14 June 2025 12:50 |
| Steam reviews | 14 June 2025 06:02 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about ANIMAL WELL, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about ANIMAL WELL
- SteamCharts - Analysis of ANIMAL WELL concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck ANIMAL WELL compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
88
Developer
Billy Basso
Publisher
Bigmode
Release
09 May 2024
Platforms