Animal Well creator plans to follow the superb Metroidvania with a game that shares its world but “may not be a direct sequel”
In a year already stacking up plates of delicious indie game dishes so fast they’re toppling over and crashing onto the floor, spilling splattered food over the carpet to be hoovered up by waiting dogs/cats/raccoons/mice, Animal Well is one of the most generous helpings yet. The captivating, combat-free Metroidvania is rich with a delectable buffet of challenges, puzzles and secrets to find even once you’ve seen the credits roll. Still, players have chewed their way through its more-ish platforming and puzzle-solving much faster than its solo developer intended, it turns out. Luckily for us all, creator Billy Basso is already looking ahead to a new game set in the moody zoo-niverse - even if that’s not a complete sequel.
Earlier this week, Basso took to the Nintendo Switch subreddit for an AMA (well spotted, PC Gamer), throwing up some fun tidbits about Animal Well’s development, plans for the future and - of course - a few teases of secrets yet to be fully uncovered.
Though some mysteries remain - with Basso refusing to comment on whether one particular item can be reached without using glitches, while teasing that other supposed secrets might be mere red herrings - the developer admitted that players had torn through the puzzles much quicker than he expected: “They have been solving them way faster then [sic] I was expecting. I am very flattered people care that much.”
In the case of the time capsule - one of the game’s most elaborate and difficult puzzles, which unlocks what some suspect to be its true ‘final’ ending - players were able to crack it in the first week. Basso expressed relief that the solution was found without being reverse-engineered by datamining the game’s files, saying: “I found it extremely impressive! [...] They just solved it legitimately way faster than I ever could have imagined.”
While Animal Well is likely to keep players busy for a while still - even as some folks are now speedrunning it in under four minutes - Basso is looking ahead to
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