Well Dweller Review – Birds ARE Real!

Crikey, it must have taken Kyle quite a few days to create Well Dweller; it’s beautiful. A little bonus: it’s jolly good fun, in a mildly masochistic way, of course. Though not teeth-grindingly difficult, it is a sibling of the Metroidvania gene pool, so expect some challenges.

Speaking of siblings, you play the largest of a flock of birds. Are they crows? Could we assume murder? Birds are, in fact, real, but they’ve been exiled to extinction due to some spoilt brat who is now queen, and your character, Glimmer, dwells in a well with their fam.

Following a delightful fairytale that’s wonderfully illustrated like one of those fancy limited print books that cost an arm and a wing, we kickstart our adventure in the pursuit of some food for everyone as mother is sick, and your siblings are…well, useless. Cue the ‘A makes you jump’.

After completing your errands, stealing food from a hunter’s table, the latter secretly follows you home and steals your family and home from the well (bird feathers are an exotic item only fit for a queen), and Glimmer just manages to escape in a mock Super Meat Boy chase sequence. Your mission: find the princess, then rescue your family and give the hunter a what for.

The Metroidvania Grind (and the Slide)

Well Dweller is a Metroidvania, so what you need to do is navigate a series of scenes, all connected to a mega map. Early beginnings feature some out-of-reach places that can only be achieved through progression, so the first sections can be a little linear. Intuitive, but there isn’t much exploration at first.

Glimmer can jump and slide – the latter giving an invincibility window and therefore absolutely key to gameplay when sliding through spikes, or more importantly, evading the boss attacks. Well Dweller expertly introduces new mechanics as you plod along, so even when you’ve learned the key skills, there are new ways to use the environment, or discover hidden routes.

Combat is basic but very satisfying. Armed with a match, whose flame represents your vitality, Glimmer can wipe the floor with basic enemies with ease, and through trinkets purchasable from vendors, can increase its damage, plus an array of other boosts like emitting flames when hit. Glimmer can also throw a Molotov that gains extra distance to the target you immediately swing at after activating it.

But birds have health gauges, and Well Dweller doesn’t treat the player to invulnerability – you need to restore it. The best way is through tent checkpoints where you save your game, buy goodies like trinkets and map hints, but the practical way is during your adventure by activating an oil lamp that hangs from your health bar, a feather. Clever.

The Fiddly Bit: Health & Boss Fights

But here’s where the magic falters with Well Dweller. To replenish health, you press L, then have to time it so a needle hits a marker. Pull it off, and you get some health back and an attack boost. Fluff it up, and that boss will send you back to your tent. I didn’t like this one bit, as it was too fiddly in a boss battle that hits like a truck.

In the wild I winged it (good one, eh?) and could scrape through enough to the next checkpoint, but the bosses were tough, and it wasn’t really alleviated with more oil or better health consumption – it was the timing for me. Then again, I’ve never been a fan of Joy-Cons. Oh, and my glasses were steamed up, the dog ate my homework, and I’m on my period.

A Masterclass in Indie Art

It was a good thing that I loved the boss variations in the game. Sure, I was getting beaten to a pulp, but the artwork and character designs were brilliant! The same applies to the presentation of the game – all of it. The characters, the backgrounds, and the soundtrack too – it dipped in and out at all the right places.

I wouldn’t say that I was a huge fan of Glimmer’s fights with gravity, given that it’s a bird. The jumping was weak to begin with, and the first boss encounters can feel a little early with a limited skill set/molotov.

However, the new skills acquired eventually exceed that, and by the time you’re using the environment to scale walls or bounce gracefully over deteriorating platforms, it feels so much more natural and enjoyable.

As I said, Kyle Thompson – who did Sheepo, also from Top Hat Studios (Silly Polly Beast), must have been working on Well Dweller for a solid couple of days, or however long it takes to make a game. A lot of bigger studios can learn a lot from this one in terms of gameplay mechanics, character and level design and storytelling. But you aren’t interested in making a game – you just want to play it, right? I say play it. It’s well good, mate.