Creature in the Well

Creature in the Well is visually fascinating and manages to bring together hack and slash with dungeon crawling and a pinball twist. It sounds like a strange mix, but it works brilliantly.

Creature In The Well is a hectic joy to play, and the unlikely genre fusion works astonishingly well. Maybe someone should try that ice cream burger after all. [Issue#183, p.79]

Creature in the Well is an entertaining experience, full of great puzzles with high replay values, and even though its story, visuals and sound design are very simple, they actually make it more complete.

Although it can be annoying at times, Creature in the Well is a highly enjoyable game that plays, looks, and sounds fantastic.

If you like crawler games, hack'n'slash games or pinball games you should try it out. This game won't change your life, but it will fill you with many hours of fun.

Quite fascinating mix of dungeon action and pinball-ish brawling.

With Creature in the Well on Xbox One, what could have been a novel and gimmicky take on pinball action is instead one of 2019’s best looking, best feeling indie games.

It is fascinating how the gameplay intensifies in response to players interactions with the environment. Just a few moving balls and once dead and abandoned room changes into a deadly arena. Though it shines at the beginning, with time the game loses some of its initial charm. [12/2019, p.59]

The entire pinball premise for the gameplay is excellently done, feels great and with it having a learning curve makes it all the more fun to figure out and master.

While more variety and polish would be appreciated, that doesn’t stop Creature in the Well from being enjoyable throughout. It feels great to grab a bullet out of the air, charge it up, and slam it back in the other direction, and getting a ball to ricochet through a narrow gap is always satisfying. Gorgeous visuals certainly help, but it’s the gameplay’s intrinsic rhythm and the sense that there’s always room to improve that serves as a solid hook through to the end.

Creature in the Well inovates in many ways, and has a great atmosphere. But the game is damn tough and will discourage many players.

Creature in the Well is a unique game the likes of which I have never experienced before. Sure, it steals ideas from here and there, but glues them together in a new way. And while the game is fun for a while and has an interesting world, it cannot escape its repetitive nature and its decision to make every death a chore to walk back from. It is worth playing to at least step in to the world for a little while, but how much mileage you get will be dependent on how long you can tolerate the games frustrations.

Creature in the Well has more staying power than the pinball machines that inspired it, and that’s even before you consider its distinctive visual style and entertaining story. It won’t turn you into a pinball wizard, but it will provide you with several hours of unique entertainment.