'Animal Well' Demonstrates What Gaming Stands to Lose Amid Indie Studio Closures

It took Billy Basso seven years to make Animal Well, the dense, dark Metroidvania game that crashed onto Steam's top-seller chart earlier this month amid a flurry of player hype. The game is a labyrinth exercise where players wander a world inhabited by sometimes friendly, sometimes not-friendly creatures as a small, very able blob. It's emblematic of what's possible with indie games--a breed that could be on the brink of extinction. Animal Well is light on instruction. Part of the game is figuring out how to play. It all but requires players to interact in Discord or Reddit communities when their puzzle-solving dead-ends.