The Ludicrous Depths of Animal Well
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- Опубликовано: 19 июн 2024
- Btw, you can't break the glass.
Minimal spoilers until the very end. My crazy experience with the layers of Animal Well as well as some of my theories on the lore.
This video is protected by Fair Use, under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976.
I do not claim ownership, all rights and credits belong to their rightful owners.
0:00 Intro
3:27 Layer 1: The Flame Hunt
4:24 Layer 2: The Egg Hunt
5:38 Layer 3: The Bunny Hunt
7:13 Lay_r *&^%$
9:28 (SPOILERS) Lore Theories
Sites Used:
www.gamesradar.com/games/plat...
www.gamefile.news/p/animal-we...
www.ign.com/articles/animal-w...
www.rockpapershotgun.com/more...
www.gamesradar.com/games/plat...
Stanton, Kristen 2022
www.uniguide.com/lynx-meaning...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx_(m...)
Miate, Liana 2022
www.worldhistory.org/Manticore/
www.greeklegendsandmyths.com/...
Melina, Remy 2016
www.livescience.com/33261-ele...
Yunqi, Li 2019
news.cgtn.com/news/2019-09-13...
Strauss, Bob 2019
www.thoughtco.com/killroy-was...
#animalwell #billybasso #bigmode #dunkey #videoessay #dankym 
Игры
I forgot they're MEGA bytes.
To be fair, they aren't as mega as they used to be
I thought you said it wrong ironically...
@@vivavaldez87 Nah, this one was a genuine mistake, I’ll own up to that.
you want a game you will never stop playing?
Start modded Celeste.. the community is so big now.. last month 60- so maps released lololol.. but there's big collab maps like The Strawberry Jam Collab , over 200 maps in that map pack.. took 2 years or more to make over 300 ppl worked on it.. it's maybe the best thing you will ever play in video games ngl... i put over 1000 hours in modded Celeste in the last year and now i'm making my own maps and my own music for my maps too and you know what... theres not really any toxicity in the fanbase.. ppl seem to all get along and cheer each other on.
@@Maplefoxx-vl2ew All reasons to play Celeste again is a good reason, though I haven’t even finished B side and C side stuff yet.
That moment of falling down the well is so good i was like "oh so thats why its called that."
In animal well, we play as a tamagotchi pet that went to the afterlife
Now that’s a theory.
@@dankym A food theory
I thought we where a parasite that has a lifecycle requiring that you be consumed by massive rabbits?
@@ronanhartman8942 ...
I'd also highly recommend people try to finish the egg hunt on their own. I was at a frustration point where I was finding secret bunnies instead of eggs at several points, but the eggs really aren't unfair in the way the bunnies are. I simply missed an obvious tunnel for my 64th egg. The eggs are totally doable solo. The bunnies realistically are not. Still a fantastic puzzle game.
44 i think for me. couple spoilers. but only cause im dumb and forgot to mark them.. i remember the locations. just ive explored almost most of the main map. got first ending. know where some are but frustrating frame perfect me spending 30 mins on the same thing. then i get bored cause i cant do it n yeah. forget to map it cause, fuck this, tele spell. oops. shit
I got to around 55 eggs before I stopped doing them solo.
My main issue being that if you haven't been diligently marking the map, or even if you have if you messed up in that, you all of a sudden need to bactrack most of the rooms semi-randomly to try and figure out where the eggs are.
The ones involving the top specialy are kind of an issue with how similar the breakable ground to normal ground is making in very likely you didn't mark it before you got the top and now have to retread the map.
This is then made even worse if you haven't obtained some of the fast travel options which makes navigation a real pain and ended up being the main reason I lost my motivation to do them solo. Which is one big downside of the game when I compare it to similar feeling games like Void Stranger or Tunic both of which still had an issue with backtracking but were much easier to forgive in that aspect as it less frequently felt like I needed to just re-explore the whole map for clues.
I got the UV light towards the end of the game and my reaction to it sums up my opinion well. At first its a neat tool that will help recontextualize a lot of prior rooms but after a few seconds I realize that practically this means I have to explore the whole map yet again.
McEgg
I got sick of looking for hidden places to use power ups.
@@theresnothinghere1745 This was my experience. Everything up to "nearly all of the eggs found" is really good, but after that the design of the game falls apart and ends up tedious and boring unless you just go and look up everything.
those are *Megabytes* 😂 a millibyte would be a thousandth of a byte, which is impossible
Oh lol, my bad.
lol imagine a millibit. “1/1000th true”
probabilistically / amortized, the amount of information you learn from the outcome of a _very_ biased coin
This turned me to dust
@@codegeek98 cant believe we have an information theory bro discussing entropy measured in bytes to make sense of a verbal typo... in an animal well video. Glad to see ya here.
I enjoyed the flame hunt and 95% of the egg hunt, but as a completionist, the bunny hunt just left a sour taste in my mouth because I was forced to use a guide.
It was either a guide or spending 20 more hours scouring the map to look for even more cryptic secrets (I already have 20h in the game) and I didn’t feel like that was a good use of my time.
Yeah I feel that. After the 2nd layer the puzzles are unreasonable, but I appreciate how crazy and unhinged they can be.
If you solved all the bunny puzzles in 20 hours, you'd deserve a nobel prize or something. It might take me 200 hours or more, and a class in coding
I have never played a game in recent history that has encouraged me to want to find the secrets on my own so much. Granted I’m not as much as a deep diver, so I’ll be happy to use a guide for the bunnies, but every discovery that I made on my own felt sooutrageous and I loved it.
I can't help but remember where the eggs are at everytime I watch an Animal Well video. Then when you get past layer 3, I can't help but feel sad that I couldn't figure it out. But at least it was a widespread community that was able to figure it out. Great video.
Yeah, I wouldn't blame you. They are admittedly "unreasonable" after layer 2.
@@dankym What annoys me is that at least half of the bunnies are perfectly reasonable for one person to find, but a couple of them are truly bonkers and one is literally impossible alone.
I had collected 8 bunnies all by myself before I even got the wheel or bouncy ball. It’s weird that both of those items are only used in a few areas in order to access puzzles that are easier than the puzzles to get the item in the first place.
@@panampace Yea, the wheel kinda annoyed me since there were two places that needed it and I forgot where they were.
13:48 "Luke being Darth Vader's father" is a crazy backwards twist of words (unless there's an even crazier star wars theory here I'm missing)
Elephant head located above the room where you can first meet the chinchillas and the porcupines. Its background art on the wall
Great video! This feeling of communal togetherness and absolutely wild speculations was exactly the feeling I felt when Fez first came out, which is a huge inspiration for this game.
It's almost nostalgic to me and feels like a massive love-letter to Fez; love what billy has put together!
hello bvssic good luck on life
Yeah it's cool to see a community build up instantly. I never got to play Fez and the only other game I could think of that does this is probably the Fromsoft Games. There's a better feeling though when it's with an indie.
Animal Well totally reminds me of Fez because of the puzzles especially the ones that break the fourth wall like having to scan a QR code on the wall of a house. Brilliant game design.
@@dankym it's not the same style game, but the ARG aspect and the unending mysteries and the "one man studio" vibe is definitely the same as Inscryption; it even has the same kind of "not scary but eerie AF vibe" and the feeling you get when you get past the first layer.....sheesh....highly recommend if you like Animal Well
@@FronzelNeekburm Oh I love Inscryption. I didn't get into the ARG stuff only because the game itself is so fun to play.
Animal Well is very much like Tunic in that regard, with the insane secrets. You have the standard surface level apprecation. But then they have crazy deep secrets! I love both games!
we're entering the era of Fez-inspired devs. Tunic and Animal Well take heavy inspiration from FEZ and I just can't wait to see what else is in store for us in the future of sneaky puzzle games
That intro was brilliant and insightful
One of the best 2 and a half minutes of a RUclips video
Thanks for not just padding, but adding genuine thought
I believe another layer has been found after the one you mentioned. I saw something on youtube, i wont spoil it but it involves a ring and out of bounds stuff. Im not sure how much it adds, but i dont think everything has been found yet, but i could be wrong
I just saw that. I'm not sure where it leads either, but it is cool.
Basso left some easter eggs in for dataminers, to the point they could almost constitute a “layer 5” of puzzles.
- Some comments in source code directed at dataminers, like an encryption key “good luck with this one” and “dataminers win again”
- Using the c ring to collect inaccessible secrets locks you out of certain postgame content and can corrupt your save file
- Trying to externally edit your save file spawns a manticore
any idea where i can find this specific video?
@@CreeperCat0407 Major spoilers, but look up animal well cheaters ring.
It's strange that you thought the game ended at the manticore because it was constantly advertised as a game with immense depth. Stating that the game has 3 layers of depth: main story > achievements > beyond. There was even a lot of coverage about the dev saying it could take years to find all the secrets.
I've been waiting for this video! One thing you didn't mention that I think 100% makes since is that Animal Well takes place in the the gravity well of a black hole or warp in space time. It would explain the shape of the map and make the title itself a riddle which would be very fitting.
Gravity well, I like that.
There is an elephant visible in the game!
I knew this game was good, (Overwhelmingly Positive isnt easy to get after all), but the vines swaying in response to the game window being dragged around is something I've never seen in a game and that's saying something. ❤
Dude I’m looking at your back catalog and damn, those are definitely going on the queue. Easy sub
Happy to accompany your lunch, laundry, or whatever.
Me being a piece of poop was a way bigger realization than finding out that Anakin was actually Luke's son, not the other way around
just noticed the three dots on the lynx's head and also three dots (eyes) on the big bunny. who's out here trying to uncover layer 5 pls write this down they have to be connected
I know the discord is very active. There is something particular about the dots on the lynx.
This channel will be a-big someday, and I'm soooo here for it!
Thanks, I'll keep on making vids even if I don't.
SPOILER FOR THE FLAMES ENDING
Well there is a secret after beating the first layer where you can find a tomigachi buried. The animal well leans HEAVILY on ghosts and specters and the whole ethereal type bizz. Perhaps the well is not exactly a well but a crypt turned into an aquifer. And the tomagachi being buried is our character
Extremely fun game - like you and others have said, i was disappointed i couldnt solve layers 3 and 4, but i also know i just never could have. I did get all 6(5) eggs on my own, but part of the fun was learning how creative the puzzles are. But like ... I dont have a printer, oh well.
Yea, first time in years since I’ve stepped into a library… and it was to print a puzzle for a game.
brilliant narration. i'll check out your channel when i have time.
There is an elephant on top of the well at the end of the game but i doubt that the link to mice and manticores has any relevance. Also the picture of the player riding a manticore to a bunny house isn’t a reference to bunny island but the giant bunny that eats you
I see, maybe the bunny in the mural is actually drawn to scale lol.
Excellent video, deserves way more views
Thank you, would help to share the vid if you want.
Just to note, you don't strictly need a guide for the bunnies besides the mural. My partner was able to find 14 completely on her own before looking up a guide (all besides printer and mural). I'd also recommend having someone who can just give you subtle hints when you get stuck, it makes exploring much more fun.
Huge props to her for getting Floor is Lava and Bulb bunnies. Both of those require peak cleverness.
"I'd also recommend having someone who can just give you subtle hints when you get stuck, it makes exploring much more fun."
I think this was in the end one of the biggest issues with the game for me. I had a friend to talk to so we had the opportunity to pass hints to one another, but even then the gameplay just consisted of days aimlessly walking through the map over and over hoping to find something you have overlooked, and often it was stuff that didn't even feel rewarding to find, it was just something you didn't happen to notice. Oh, there was a hole in the wall here this whole time, oh, you can use your top on this specific patch of land, that kind of stuff. It is fun when you are finding things on your own consistently, but once you hit the point where there are only a couple left and you have no idea where to look, it just ends up being a test of your patience with no real reward to it.
We got all the eggs, 9 bunnies and 2 of the unicode messages while playing completely blind. Getting there was pretty fun, but it also included like 3 days of running around the map and looking for the last egg that we missed somewhere. And while finding a lot of the later items is really exciting in how unique they feel, I can't help it but feel like I wish there was much more to them. By the time I got the black light it was completely useless except for some of the bunnies that require it. The bouncy ball only really gets used in like.... 3 places in the game, and so does the wheel. The flute shows a lot of promise initially with the teleport code, but then it is mostly just used to input codes for some of the bunnies without really capitalising on the warp potential of it in any way, except for some shortcuts. Maybe all this is enough and if there was more the game would just be bloated, but I personally didn't find layer 3 that exciting, and I don't know how to treat layer 2 since we had most of that done before finishing layer 1 and then it is just about finding the couple eggs you're missing.
Anyway, to get back to the initial point, I think it would've helped a lot if there was some sort of a hint system that at least pointed you in the vague direction of what you might be missing. I really liked what Tunic did with the fairies and the manual, it saved you hours if not days of pointlessly wandering about, and it didn't really "ruin" any of the secrets since where they were located wasn't even that important to solving them. I feel like Animal Well would've benefited greatly from having something similar, and if I were to be greedy also some sort of conclusion that makes the components of the game come together a bit better. But arguably that is kind of there at the end of layer 3, regardless of how I feel about getting to that point.
All except for 5 eggs was exactly the same for me before I turned to a guide. The last few for me were from areas you needed the bouncy ball for and I didn't want to look for all the areas with the walls they could break by rescouring the entire map.
Yep pretty much the same, them blocks.
@@dankym I remember going past those blocks and not even thinking about how they looked out of place. Little did I know how deep the well would go.
The ending LMAO
I found all the eggs by myself, just needed a guide to recall them all on my second playthrough where I got everything much faster, I found about like 4 of the bunnies by myself and scoped out where there were bunny hints on the map so I knew where a few more were, but MAN the floor is lava bunny was insane to learn about
11:48 "I'm not aware of any elephants in the game" you forgot about that one elephant head statue? In the room underneath the caribou room with the telephone.
Really? I’ll have to check if I can do anything with that.
Also on top of the well. Outside of your house use the uv light
You know, I'm actually glad I spoiled myself that some puzzles require outside help. I would've tried in annoyance for weeks to figure it out.
It took me 16 hours to beat the story and now I’m like where the hell do I go from here for the remainder of the things to find. I don’t even have all the items yet
Dude, I always feel so confused when people say they beat it in 5-8 hours... I'm with you. And I'm glad I took my time.
If I didn’t use a guide for this I would’ve lost my mind. There’s horror in that alone.
Made it to 10 bunnies got stuck, looked up what to do and thought no I am good. Loved it and if I force myself I maybe left bitter over it.
There is most definitely elephants in the game. Just no NPC elephants like the Kangaroo and such. There's also a giraffe, and I believe a couple other animals seen but non-interactive within the game.
Good video, please make more!❤
Luke is darth vaders father...and son? Now that's a crazy spoiler
Those first 7 words made me feel adrenaline
“Initially” is the key word
If you've never seen the game Lingo, I highly recommend it if you liked the depth of animal well. I don't want to spoil anything but it rearranges your brain in the best way
Never heard of it but to looks cool, reminds me of Antichamber and Manifold Garden.
This is a great video. I was surprised when i saw its low view count after watching this. The quality of your commentary/video editing gave me the impression you have been doing this while. I say this despite hearing you call megabytes millibytes 😂.
Hey, can't be good at everything. Not even English.
Got any fun theories or experiences with Animal Well? Just be sure to note spoilers.
I’ll see you in the well
[Minor spoilers] My personal theory is that there's an Easter Day secret hidden somewhere. The whole game you're literally collecting eggs and bunnies. There's already a precedent for changing the game's calendar with Groundhog Day. There's a few missing bunnies on the "moon" that we haven't found. What if one of them is the literal Easter Bunny? I wouldn't be surprised.
@@RyanDMcDonnell I like the idea of the easter bunny, it makes sense. But so far, no other dates work and easter changes every year, so that would be hard to implement.
There is a room shaped like an elephant face, no clue if it is relevant to anything you said
@@CarnivoreApple I'll look out for that then.
People who like this should definitely play Environment Station Alpha. Similar vibe with a crazy post game that'll make you schizophrenic
Seen a few recommend, so I’ll keep that in mind.
True! And the secrets on that one feel more achievable solo.
2:26 I kept rewatching this moment in shock
All credit to @TerminX13 on Twitter for this insane discovery.
spoiler
you dont need a printer for the origami bunny, it is solvable ingame (kinda) too
Dude, there is an Elephant Statue in the game 11:46 it's in the background of the green area
It's an elephant head facing the camera
great video!! thanks mate
I was looming everywhere for somebody who actually physically made the origami rabbit. I did too, but one of my last folds looks wrong so my rabbit is a bit janky. Surprised nobody has made a youtube tutorial for it yet.
Great intro!
Not ray traced, screen space+shaders
as someone who is still playing this game i try to avoid videos about it but im glad i clicked on this one
Hope I kept things vague enough.
I’ve been trying to find footage of the Minotaur taking you to the moon, but can’t seem to find any. Do you know where I could find some?
Sorry, most of the footage I used were my own. Feel free to take a snippet of mine if it helps.
@@dankym I don’t have the game……
Yeah, I’m one of those people.
@@user-gn8ds6oo2w Well I made also made a video about how I’m so guilty of that.
Ah yes so this is how you make a beginning RUclips start
i havent heard of this game before and it sounds like rainworld on the surface but the vid assured me
Yea, I've seen many on here compare the game to Rainworld.
34mb is just insane for a modern game, wow. Last time I was so impressed was with valheim being like 1gb
Didn't know Valheim was 1GB either, that's crazy. I'm already impressed with Nintendo games like Zelda being 16GB.
1 like just for the end
2:25 is that just a fun visual or an actual solution to a puzzle?
As of now, just a fun visual. Other versions of the game can’t do that.
Great vid
There is an elephant figure or mural in one of the areas in the background
Thanks for the tip, though I don't know if I'll actually find anything.
I feel like a lot of people should really play Fez - this game was inspired by it and it has secrets that still haven’t been solved to this day!
I’ll definitely look into it, seen many others recommend as well.
Mega Bytes are called Millibytes now? Ok.
Yeah my bad.
If the video wasn’t so enjoyable that would have been my favorite part.
good video!
Thanks for the comment!
You should also do an outer wilds video it would make us content starved OW fans very happy
I’d love to, but I don’t know what I would add. Perhaps another playthrough, I can come up with something interesting, but no promises.
Thanks for the video! If you want more intense puzzliness in a more traditional Metroidvania, check out Environemental Station Alpha by Hempuli :D
Raytraced reflections... ok.
Hopefully Billy adds DLSS 3.5 support, the AA and the ray-reconstruction on the reflections look kinda pixelated.
bro hasnt got the sarcasm update yet
@@blockayyy I am just a little bro, what do I know about sarcasm...
I enjoyed the video ❤
I enjoy your comment
quality over quantity every time. He could have diluted the main game by a factor of 4 and made it a more inferior 20 hour base game. But as it is it's an experience I'll remember for the rest of my life.
Theres no way all the secrets have been found
If halo 2 and 3 were a 10/10 animal well was the best 6/10 I’ve ever played. The game is great!
At 6:38 where is this room???
It’s the top left of the map, and that’s all I’ll say.
@@dankym okey ty❤️ I'm 25 hours in one playthrough, I have 59 eggs and 3 bunnies? I'm going insane
@@springdeerling7866 Yep, it’ll do that to ya.
hey how spoiler heavy is this. video, I still might want to go into the game blind and come back here later
Go in actually blind. Don’t watch a single thing regarding the game. You will truly rob yourself
I definitely recommend to go in as blind as possible as well, but I kept things vague and out of context for most of the video. I get into full spoilers in the lore discussion at the end.
chinese mythology reference lets gooooo
What are you doing here with this sub 1K views video made with a quality of 10 million views video?
Lol thanks for the compliment, I try my best regardless. Would help bump up a few views by sharing the vid.
I'm sorry, but millibytes is criminal and deserves to be punished
wtf is a millibyte
Bunnies are too frustrating and layer 4 is impossible without participating in the arg. no matter how good the first two parts are, not enjoying or even completing half the game tanks its rating.
What do you do if you don't have a printer
Take bar code pic of some specific grass in game
Haha 🤣
i feel like it's too hard to figure out some stuff in this game..i'm trying my hardest but omg.. i coudlnt' even figure out how to warp using the flute
i'm good at puzzle games too, i've beaten limbo and inside both on my own with no help. those were pretty tricky. Animal well may need a few more hints i dunno. it's a good game tho ngl. it is what it is.. like i quit rainworld cuz the same reasons i'd literally need to be backseated to go back to rainworld.. i will try to finish animal well tho
Jesus this could be the most Reddit game ever made
I assumed so as well, but ironically, I haven’t seen much from the Reddit. Much of the discussion and discoveries have been from Discord. So the most Discord game ever made I guess.
Nah
My immediate thought upon beating the game is that you're a couch potato.
A nice little video essay but you didn't need the Halo references. Whilst I know the origin, they're out of place with the tone.
I cant put money down on such low value.
Be replayable, have tons of content.