Creature In The Well – Early Impressions

We had our first glance at Creature in the Well earlier this year at PAX East. The new game from Night School Studios is definitely original if nothing else.

As the game opens up it has almost a Journey feel to it down to the color scheme, but in no time at all it’s clear that this is a completely different beast. The biggest flaw the game has is present right as the game begins and that is a serious lack of direction. You have to explore with little to no information as to where you should go and what you should do. After what feels like a long time. you finally stumble upon the entrance to the underground lair the creature now inhabits.

You play as a lone engineer tasked with finishing what your kind started nearly a century ago. You set out to explore the creature’s lair as you go deeper and deeper underground in an attempt to defeat the creature and restore peace.

Creature in the Well is a lot of things but, at the core, it’s a puzzle game. You’ll rely on a pinball mechanic to hit orbs with your sword and other objects in order to solve puzzles and build up enough energy to progress to the next area. Each door takes a certain amount of energy in order to open it so you’ll need to hit the orbs off of the objects in each room in order to collect enough to move on. Early on, this is done in a pretty simplistic manner… hit the orb at the object until you suck out all the energy. As the game progresses, however, it becomes absolute madness. You’ll find yourself energizing multiple orbs and smashing them off of items all over the place in pinball fashion in order to rack up as many points as possible to open the next door.

One of the exciting things about Creature in the Well is how many branching paths there are to explore. Often, you’ll come across a door that you’re unable to open until you store more energy and you’ll have to find another way around. Many times, this leads to a fun puzzle that will land you some serious energy enabling you to open the door you were originally trying to progress through.

You’ll want to explore as much as possible in order to discover health which can be hard to come by. You’ll see on the map where health is as well as what areas you still have to complete.

With a multitude of fun puzzles and an insane pinball mechanic, Creature in the Well is a good way to kill some time and keep your brain working overtime.