Creature in the Well

Review by Gaming Masterpieces - The greatest games of all time on Steam.
Ah, it is always the same! I spend far too much money for hyped new releases, and then I play an older indie game I never noticed before buying it cheap in a bundle. Creature in the Well is such a game. I am now at around 10 hours and 75% completion, and still want to continue to play.
I still don't (completely) understand the story or what I actually do, but it is fun to clear room after room, discover secrets, communicate with the creature, and get more and more parts of the ages old machine working again. The machine is built into a mountain and consists of hundreds of rooms (not randomized), and you have to restore power to each room without getting electrocuted. You use a golf club (or something similar) to shoot energy orbs at various machine parts and they begin to work again. Completed rooms stay completed, even when the creature throws you out of the mountain... again.
Is this game a masterpiece? Well, I am addicted to it. It is a really athmospheric indie action game with a distinctive visual style.

A Poem This Game Deserves
There is a creature in the well.
A tunnel to the mountain and it lurks
for as far as I can tell
me, doesn't give smirks.
The village so desperate
at the foot of the mountain
is cloaked into sand, has an empty fountain.
Does hope, but the machine lost its merit
A lost bounded orb transfer device
reanimates into life and runs with large
steps to the machine, does strike and charge.
Meets Roger Frog, he who has advice.
Together as a team they work on the thing
to make it function and eventually banish
the creature for the clouds to vanish,
the people to cheer and the kids to sing.
I always wonder what devs can do
when they happen to cross genres to
make something great and uniquely new
even when it's only for hours, a few
Pinball, Brickout wrapped into Hyper Light Drifter
are combined into one, forming a twister
of arcade gameplay, music and art.
I love what I saw, it touched my heart! <3

A truly gorgeous game. Though a bit simple and short, but worth a try.

An Arkanoid crawler? Yep! Great, except for a couple of "huh?" moments - remember to recharge your health in the silver pool when you die! There's something behind every black door! Difficulty scales up nicely, most of the weapons are actually useful, and the creature is excellent. Don't pay attention to my time played, it didn't shut down properly one day and was still running the next day. I think it took me eight hours, including a bunch of attempts at a couple of boss levels.

This game left me with one thing, and that was wanting more.
The story was sparse, and the environmental story telling was nil, but the colors and design of the world were still nice, and while the gameplay itself was often detached from it in more specifically ordered rooms, that is where the enjoyment comes in. Carefully pinging a ball between a number of targets while keeping yourself out of a ring or field of death, or from being slapped by a hundred homing shots coming for you, felt great to accomplish. And the tools given to you, in order to maximize your effectiveness, all feel great and helpful.
My only regret is genuinely there were not more rooms, harder more challenging spaces to really test your mettle beyond two more secretive areas.

Panels;
Oozing with a mossy green, in the silhouette of an old machine, with mysterious songs ringing through hollow halls, and of beady eyes watching you from afar.
Then succumb - as does every engineer, into the never-ending trail of gears… of this well-oiled, unpreserved machine, the perfect provocation for a beast to kill.
But at its core, the beast remains, far too proud and of unearthly fame, and as the town Mirage has soon found out, this a storm that may never come to pass.
And so it goes, for the Creature in the Well, this the story of its ageless schemes and of our righteous revenge…
Now that the poem’s out of the way;
There is a certain enchantment that games like this possess and it is the primary reason why I’m so drawn to them. It’s as if the developers consciously (or unconsciously) try to create an “experience” from a rough outline and a few novel ideas and the results can be as dramatic as disappointing. I understand how people can be put off by certain aspects that negative reviews focus on, but if the mystique and the artsiness of such passion projects calls to you, then wait no longer. I can’t quite put me finger on it, but conversing with the creature while playing a new-age pong while getting caught in this never-ending fever dream of a sandstorm that draws you in with its music and its machinations makes my fingers type endlessly with this game as inspiration.
Fantastic art, music and ambience. Gameplay is reminiscent of tennis/pong, if the balls caught fire from time to time. Not for everyone, but hey, I enjoyed it. Experimental gaming is where it’s at.

*DISCLAIMER* They never tell you to go outside to upgrade your bot. When I finally found it, I went up to level 7 in one go. That’s how many levels I had completed being level 1! Imagine the struggle at times. I suppose I did it to myself, although I do not recall ever being told about upgrading the bot. Although it was quite magical when I realized the doors of the town were opening to me…. it was a little too late. Beware and don’t be discouraged! THAT BEING SAID, the sense of progression was IMMENSE as rooms that were too painful to complete were done in 2 seconds and I felt top of the world.
At the end, it seems the game can be a little bit too vague and unforgiving for its own sake. I still believe it is good value for your money, so long as you can bear with the difficulty and the aim.
And if you’re still interested but unsure? Then buy on sale.

Simple gameplay, some skill required, fun, colorful and beautiful setting.