RPS Advent Calendar 2024, December 14

Squeezing through the upcoming calendar window into a murky glade of flowers and coral, spy a curious figure on a ledge in the shadows. Although it looks like a squirrel, Fear is a video game of some description with white eyes. what is he doing Ah, oops, you’re shocked. Better to follow him off-screen.

is it. Animal pit!

Edwin: Before the launch of Animal Well, creator Billy Basso told me he wanted his fun, insightful, and mysterious 2D platformer to capture the mysteries that have kept people scratching their heads for decades. It even built the technology to maximize compatibility with later generations of PCs. In post-launch coverage, the game has already been gutted, its guts washed out by incredibly needle-fingered wiki contributors. I suspect there may be a few mysteries that Basso keeps silent about. It doesn’t matter, because to me, Animal Well will always be bottomless.

This is simply because the animal pit is driven by symbols – dial phones, bunnies, fire mates, sausage dogs, rolling rat heads, alert crows – and symbols are open. Not that it’s completely abstract. The sprawling coastal setting has something approaching “ecology” and a hint of mythology from the past, perhaps even a biographical flourish in the choice of props. But it is not a “made world”. It is the result of a dream (sometimes a fantasy) of logic and free association. It’s one of those old-school video game tales, like Zelda Zelda before it succumbed to the weight of its followers, and the episodic story is something of canon.

It’s also a brilliant Metrodvania, because the basic movement controls are very simple and beautifully implemented, and in part it avoids many common Metrodvania features. There are no unlock trees, no general abilities like aerial dashes or extendable combos – no combat, really. Instead, get fun toys like a Frisbee, Slinky, or bubble wand.

Like most toys, these have countless uses, and it’s up to you to define them by paying attention and playing with the concept – is a yo-yo just a yo-yo? The other animals are both obstacles and allies, in this regard, helping you to pick up potential enemies or allies or their unreadable behavior. They feel more like loosely animated archetypes than straightforward descriptions of existence, populating the world in an all-important but mechanical and deadly way. They are forever funny and powerful strangers.

One of the great discoveries of Animal Pit is that reaching the credits isn’t out of the game. If you keep exploring and exploring, there are things, strategies, and environmental trends that threaten to break the rules and change the game. For all that, Animal Whale remains beautiful and easy to understand. I’m really excited to see how future generations of players will respond to it. It might not hold a decade’s worth of secrets, but it’s definitely worth going back in 10 years.

Brandy: I didn’t go far in the animal pit. I was disappointed by the difficult platforming, but until then I appreciated the quiet sense of exploration and discovery that could be evoked by such a simple graphic style. Also, my cat kept chasing little animal pictures around the screen and that made me love the game even more.

Graham: On the other hand, I didn’t go with the animal pit. I didn’t find the moment-to-moment platforming and puzzles interesting enough to go through the habit of sending them to a distant checkpoint after you’ve succeeded. I’d love to see it, mind, so it sits in a bucket on the side forever The world of rain I’d like to investigate it as an alien ecosystem but I’m impatient.

Head Back to the advent calendar To open another door!