Are you a fan of hack-and-slash games? How about pinball games? Yeah, they don’t really go together, however, developer Flight School Studio has managed to figure that out in their latest title, Creature in the Well.
Oddly enough Creature in the Well is one of those games that shouldn’t really work out because of how genre-bending it is, but this game beautifully flows. Ultimately it is a hack and slash game where you are attacking incoming projectiles and sending them back to enemies or bricks to destroy them, similar to Break Out. The game is simple in theory, however it quickly becomes a bullet-hell type game where you are dodging lasers and area of effect conditions in order to progress.
In order to proceed through the levels, you need to build up your points by in theory playing pinball and attacking some of the bouncers within the game. Getting enough credits lets you buy the opening to the next level. The trick here? This is the same currency used to upgrade your character.
So this lets you wonder, do you want to become stronger before progressing, or just keep going and risk not having many abilities unlocked?
The artwork in this game is absolutely beautiful. When speaking to one of the developers, Adam, he said that the art was somewhat inspired by Mike Mignola, the comic artist behind the Hellboy series. After playing the game for a while, and observing the way the color black is being used, you start to get a feel of what he meant by that and it is really awesome to piece that together. Throughout the game, there are hidden levels which let you unlock new weapons that change the way you interact with the projectiles. These hidden rooms are all unlocked by solving puzzles easily missed through the artwork in the game. The floor starts to light up and once you figure out the correct spots that need to be hit the wall opens up to reveal your prize.
Release date: Q3 2019
Platforms: PC, Switch
Developer: Flight School Studio
