Once upon a time, the humble platform game ruled all. Kids grew up playing Crash Bandicoot, jumping over Nitro crates, tossing back wumpa fruit, and face planting onto big, toothy boars. But then the landscape shifted. Solo experiences were overshadowed by online multiplayer games and life became a series of Call of Duty or Halo matches. After that, battle royales like Fortnite, PUBG, and Apex Legends dominated our screens. None of these games captured the energy and imagination that platformers like Alex Kidd delivered in the ‘90s. But with the success of games like Animal Well, originality, and a certain type of weirdness, are finally coming back to life.
I fondly remember sitting in front of a CRT, playing Alex Kidd in Miracle World with my sister. I can recall the thrill of reaching Mt. Kave. It was only level 7 of 17 but, given save points didn’t exist and games were more difficult back then, it felt like a gigantic achievement. Imagine our faces when I accidentally walked into a scorpion and got killed.
We had an argument and rage quit, but a day later, we returned to Miracle World; we loved Alex Kidd and its quirky elements like the rock, paper, scissors minigame. As time marched on, it seemed like games with the affection and the personality of Alex Kidd became rarer. But Animal Well feels like a reminiscence and the beginning of a renaissance simultaneously.
Online multiplayer games will always be a major part of our culture – look at Helldivers 2, or Marvel Rivals. But the success of these apparent stalwarts has been hit and miss lately. Take Concord. It took eight years to develop and allegedly cost $200 million, and Sony shut it down inside two weeks because it couldn’t scrape 1,000 players at launch. Then there’s XDefiant, which also bit the dust in a similar fashion, and Sharkmob’s Vampire: The Masquerade-themed battle royale Bloodhunt before that. It feels like the overarching story of the past few years: people aren’t playing online hero shooters as much anymore.
Platform games on the other hand are enjoying a resurgence thanks to breakout hits like Celeste, Hollow Knight, and Pizza Tower. Animal Well got two Game Awards nominations and sits at an impressive 91 on Metacritic. Maybe it’s just nostalgia. A lot of people who grew up playing these types of games want to take a little tour through the feelings and experiences of their childhood. But that seems like a shallow explanation. These games are great. They’re also accessible.
Game development tools like Unity and Godot have made it easier for developers to bring their visions to life. The rise of indie platformers has certainly been fueled this trend. There’s no real need to ‘play it safe’ and stick to convention: anyone can make anything they want, and make it accessible to anyone on the planet.
One person, Billy Basso, created Animal Well. At the same time, it has more mechanical complexity and aesthetic flair than a lot of games that are made by dozens, maybe hundreds, of people. It’s a survival horror, the first-ever ‘open well’ type game according to Bigmode owner Jason ‘Dunkey’ Gastrow. In his announcement video, Dunkey describes Animal Well as the “lasagna of videogames,” and he’s not wrong. Often, it evokes puzzle games like Portal. But when a giant ostrich poked its head beneath the soil where I was trying to hide, it felt like I was being pursued in the style of a great survival horror – like I was up against a big feathery version of Nemesis.
Then there’s layer two of the game – the sheer wealth of optional material, like egg collectibles and the various, scattered items that allow you access to new areas. This works in tandem with the third level: those secret puzzles that are supposed to take years to solve (even though the community cracked them in a month). There are cool, ever-changing mechanics, like birds who vanish in the light and whales who transport you when you use the bubble wand. The core platforming isn’t easy to grasp, but when you do, there’s that sense of achievement akin to getting to Mt. Kave in Alex Kidd. While a swift headshot in Valorant or CoD may evoke a momentary sense of exhilaration, your achievements in Animal Well feel much more substantial.
The platforming genre is an ever-changing, evolving sphere because creators can experiment and have fun. Games like Animal Well break the mold entirely. With the Hollow Knight Silksong release date (hopefully) on the horizon, I expect that we’ll see platformers go from strength to strength.