Time has been unkind to one of my favorite childhood past times. Growing up in the ’90s, you couldn’t walk into any retail operation, movie theater, or restaurant without seeing at least one pinball machine. At a time when every arcade game incorporated punishing mechanics to push you into dumping quarter after quarter into the machine, pinball machines offered a skill-based experience that was a fair challenge and could go on as long as your skill allowed. Despite the occasional release from Zen Studios and the like, the digital transfers never really captured the same experience, typically resulting in a cheap novelty that is good for a few minutes before you move onto the next big thing. The newly released Creature in the Well takes a swing at bringing something fun and unique to the table.

Advertised as a mash-up of the beat-‘em-up genre and pinball, the game follows the last remaining BOT-C, a series of robots tasked with saving the town of Mirage from a never-ending sandstorm. Obviously, they failed and your sole purpose is to reactivate the tower housed in the town and put an end to the sandy deathtrap that has decimated the world. This would be an easy task if a gigantic monstrosity, the “creature” that lives in the depths of the tower, didn’t intervene at every possible step, taunting you along the way almost like it was possessed by a slightly less snarky GLaDOS. This guy and the other lovably weird cast of characters really drew me in and was one of the biggest factors in helping me push my way through the game, even when every cell in my body hated how bad I was at playing.

The first issue I have isn’t really the game’s fault, but the marketing involved. This isn’t as much of a brawler as it’s a pinball based puzzle game in which you use one of two variations of attacks to smack around some balls of electricity at targets. These give you electricity that you can use to restore power to the doors as you work your way through eight floors, each culminating with a boss fight. These battles are a high point, often tasking you with working your way through a series of rapid-fire puzzles flawlessly, back to back. While it’s an interesting experience I don’t regret spending time with, comparing this to Streets of Rage or any of the classic brawlers is akin to calling Portal a FPS and quite honestly, let me a down more than it rightfully should since I was hoping for more action and fewer puzzles.

The puzzles involved are not overly frustrating as far as determining what it is you need to do to finish the current room, but rather managing to nail the timing on some of the more difficult challenges. My first bout with frustration came pretty early into the game where I had around thirty targets to hit in a specific sequence, with each target popping up in a fairly easy to remember pattern, with the kicker being you have exactly 1.5 seconds from hitting one to moving on to the next; failure requires you to start the puzzle over from scratch. I felt like I was in Hell, and was stuck in a never-ending game of Simon where someone super glued razor blades on each button. This remained a weird standard and would come out of nowhere in difficulty spikes that would make The Bearer of the Curse tip his hat. This didn’t make me hate the game as much as I hated myself for failing so damn hard though.

Much like the Mega Man series, you can tackle the levels in any order you see fit, and regardless of whether the floor is the first, middle, or last, the difficulty is literally all over the place. Most rooms won’t penalize you too much in the event you’re struggling, aside from the occasional threats, jokes, or generally mean things the creature spouts at you. If you perish at the hands of one of the various traps thrown at you, the real punishment begins – you are scooped up by the massive beast, dropped at the opening hub area, and are forced to backtrack. You are not doing anything meaningful or repeating previously completing rooms, just walking along with nothing going on but your own dark, hateful thoughts. Death in Creature in the Well is truly the equivalent of a virtual “walk of shame” after a mediocre one nightstand.

Once I got over the fact that I wasn’t going to be using BOT-C’s attacks to destroy creatures, robots, or any of the normal foes I was expecting, I fell pretty hard for the visuals. The stark contrasts between the black exteriors and the colorful assets really made the title pop off the screen resulting in one of the most beautiful games I’ve seen in a while that wasn’t aiming for photo-realism. The same can be said for the controls that handle flawlessly and are extremely accessible, which makes each mistake even more painful because you really can’t fault the game’s mechanics, just your own lack of skill.

Creature in the Well probably isn’t a game you’ll be talking about in 20 years or so, reminiscing on all your fond memories of batting around some balls of light, but it’s good enough to keep you busy for an afternoon. If you’re a fan of puzzles but want something that rolls at a faster pace, this one will be up your alley.

8 out of 10

Pros

• Excellent Visuals
• Interesting Cast of Characters
• Immaculate Controls
• Stimulating Puzzles…

Cons

• …Spiking in Difficulty Regularly
• Walk of Shame Following Your Death

Creature in the Well was developed and published by Flight School Studio. It is available on NS, PC, and X1. The game was provided to us for review on X1. If you’d like to see more of Creature in the Well, check out the game’s official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

Check out OpenCritic for a better idea of how our review stacks against others.