Description

Explore a dense interconnected labyrinth, and unravel its many secrets. Collect items to manipulate your environment in surprising and meaningful ways. Encounter creatures both beautiful and unsettling, and try to survive what lurks in the dark. In Animal Well there is more than what you see.

History

Animal Well is solo-developed by Billy Basso, and began development as a nights and weekends passion project in 2017. The initial inspiration was to see if it were possible to take mechanics from survival horror games and transplant them into a different genre. There was also a desire to create a game that is not dependent on updates or a network connection, but is instead pre-loaded with secrets that may take years to uncover -- giving you a reason to return to it after it's been sitting on your shelf. This can also be viewed as a reaction to the increasing trend of modern games becoming more ephemeral and disposable. This is Billy Basso's first independent release.

In 2021, Dan Adelman was brought on to the project to lend his business and marketing expertise. Additionally, with his wealth of knowledge about games, he has been an invaluable source of feedback throughout development.

In late 2022, Billy and Dan were excited to begin working with Indie game publisher Bigmode, formed by Youtuber couple videogamedunkey and Leahbee. Animal Well is planned to be Bigmode's first published game.

The game's engine is being developed alongside it and is made entirely from scratch. This has allowed complete control over everything in the shipped binary, and has also provided an opportunity to explore styles and rendering techniques for pixel art that have not been tried before.

Features

• Dense, surreal, puzzle box world, with attention paid to every detail
• Encounter creatures and sights both beautiful and unsettling -- assess what is safe and dangerous
• Reimagines what pixel art can look like when taking advantage of modern hardware
• The main game is just the beginning. People will be discovering hidden puzzles for years