Animal Well

Find a friend or two, and make a blood oath to solve as much of Animal Well as possible among only yourselves, without getting help online. The true magic of this game is sharing discoveries and theories with friends; having a faceless internet person tell you the mystery of the eggs without working it out on your own is to deny yourself a feeling of satisfaction that few games can offer. It harks back to the early days of Zelda, when the oldest among us tried to figure out what the hell “Dodongo dislikes smoke” meant. Consider it a trial, a badge of honor that you can wear when you’re 30 hours in and you’re smashing your head against this random mural of a rabbit. When that happens, know that you are truly one of us.

I have no idea what Berger would make of Animal Well, or of representations of animals in videogames at large, but Basso's game feels like a gentle, cyberpunky rebuttal of his conclusions. It takes the idea that animal images have excluded animals as its premise, and explores how our technologies of knowledge-making and representation may have become animalistic in response. Above all, the game's confusing, hybrid creatureliness comes across in how these animals sound. Sometimes they cry out like beasts that are turning into software, with moans and yaps and howls and hisses that appear to have been relentlessly resampled and distorted. And sometimes, they cry out like software that has grown bestial and unruly for being left too long underground. [RPS Bestest Bests]