As the AAA gaming industry continues to devolve our favorite pastime into a deluge of microtransactions, gambling minigames, and shoddy mobile spinoffs – something made increasingly evident with each Fifa, Madden, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Call of Duty release – many gamers have taken refuge in the indie scene. A haven for nostalgic '90s gamers and those who instantly wishlist every new Steam release bearing the “rogue-lite” tag, indie gaming can certainly feel like a breath of fresh air at times. Yet, once 🉐you've seen one 16-bit-esque action platformer, you've seen ‘em all. Even in a gaming sphere so often touted for its creativity, it isn’t hard to find yourself in an indie gaming rut after a while.
Don’t misunderstand, some of my favorite games of all time are the stereotypical indies– Darkest Dungeon, The Binding of Isaac, and Bastion, to name a few. Yet that shouldn’t excuse the genre’s overcrowded state. With waves of new releases making it harder than ever for worthwhile experiences to stand out, I’ve grown so totally weary of budget tit📖les in recent months that plodding through ret🅘ro-aesthetic sidescrollers or deliberately minimalist Unity Engine platformers has become nothing more than a chore. I don’t want to say that gaming has lost its luster or that I’ve somehow “grown out” of the medium, but it’s a gripe to which, I’d imagine, plenty of others can attest.
Enter Creature In The Well, an indie puzzler recently released on the PlayStation Network after debuting on PC, Xbox One, and Switch in September of 2019. Developed by Flight School Studio, a little-known outfit with only a few experimental VR titles in their repertoire, Creature In The Well is decep🦋tive in that it d𝔍efies the boundaries of its genre and subverts preconceived notions about what budget gaming can be.
Aping that ever-so-pervasive minimalist style seen in everything from Thomas Was Alone to Journey and Absolute Drift, Creature In The Well starts things out on an unassuming note. After brief snippets of a vague narrative (another indie staple) are delivered to the player, things kick off with a small robot caught in a sandstorm in a desert. From there, players will pick up a melee weapon, explore a small town, and come upon the titular creatur🧜e in the well, a mysterious antagonist hellbent on preventing the player from restoring an ancient machine that somehow holds the power to control the weather.
After ten or so minutes of play, I fully expected this to be another run-of-the-mill platformer replete with rudimentary combat and an obnoxious load of collectibles. What I got, however, helped to bust me out of the indie rut in which I had been trapped for quite some time. Creature in the Well is unlike anything I’ve ever played in that it stays true to its puzzle gaming roots, but much of the core gameplay is inspired by, of all things, Arkanoid, Pong, and even pinball. The main goal is to restore power to the machine by jo꧑urneying through a selection of dungeons, which entails charging up and swatting electric balls at various pillars, outlets, and terminals to rack up enough energy to open doors, discover secret areas, and eventually face off against the stage’s boss.
That’s right, there’s a combat system hidden in this pinball-esque puzzle game. It mostly consists of smacking energy balls at specific targets while dashin🐭g out of the line of enemy fire. It initially feels a bit too simplistic, but later levels ramp up the tension a🌸nd come to be fairly punishing.
It’s difficult to convey exactly how the game plays without playing it yourself, but suffice it to say that Creature In The Well, while borrowing heavily from many pre-established indie tropes, does quite a bit to differentiate itself from anything else currently on the market. It does wear its influences on its🍒 sleeve, and the implementation of certain ideas may feel a little haphazard. But on the whole, this title served as a pleasant surprise that rekindled my interest in a st🦩agnant indie gaming space.