TL;DR:
Animal Well is his game of the year, with runner ups being Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers, Arco, Nova Drift, Ballionaire, and Mouthwashing.
TL;DR:
Animal Well is his game of the year, with runner ups being Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers, Arco, Nova Drift, Ballionaire, and Mouthwashing.
Animal Well is also my game of the year.
No other game was more interesting and exciting when you found something new. Or solved a puzzle.
While on the surface it’s a simple Metroid style game, once you start noticing things it becomes so intriguing. I have a document on my iPad full of handwritten notes and maps. It felt so novel to return to a feeling of the late 80s where paper maps and notes were king.
While there were a lot of great games last year, I put so much more brainpower into Animal Well, and it felt so good to do so.
I heard one video essayist identify it as a “metroidbrainia” - a game where progression is gated not simply by items/keys, but by knowledge of systems, many of them hidden.