Creature In The Well Free On the Epic

Well, this is awkwardly light, isn’t it? Monday, Aaron covered Square Enix’s latest digital showcase. Tuesday, Taylor spoke of the PlayStation stores that may be closing soon. Wednesday, I went on to speak of the rumored deals that Discord is currently fielding, some of which reach $10Bn. Thursday, I continued as Watch Dogs: Legion is currently available as a free trial, and David spoke of Valve changing the name of the Steam Games Festival. We were a bit light on the news this week, but heavy on editorials and review, check those out!

Since we’re here to talk about free games, I think it is a good time to remind those that might be interested. PlayStation’s #PlayAtHome program has been updated, but you can still get Ratchet and Clank for a few more days too. If you haven’t picked it up on the Epic Games Store or elsewhere, you need to pick up Enter The Gungeon at the very least during this time. All games available presently are free to keep, including those PSVR titles too. A fantastic little program that I might be talking more about in a minute.

Onto this week’s free game on the Epic Games Store, Creature in the Well. Now, here is the thing, for the last week I’ve gotten myself, as the cartoonish wrestlers in the heads of the internet wrestling community say, worked into a shoot (brother, bother!). I’ve been thinking about all the things available with the Play At Home program that Sony are running, and I’ve thought for the last few days, “Why isn’t Epic doing anything… Epic!” I worked myself into my own hype and starting prejudging Creature in the Well as just another quick indie thing I’m not going to be too bothered about.

I was wrong, I was so wrong and stupid. Creature in the Well is not only a quick indie thing I’d be able to say my opinion on, but it is one that I am thinking about stopping myself from writing about so I can go back and play a bit more. It is the type of thing I’ve got a feeling any time it comes up in my life, I’m going to be proselytizing about as I do with Enter the Gungeon, Watch Dogs 2 and Legion, FTL, Spec Ops: The Line, and a few others. It is simply that satisfying, and in design sometimes humorous. I find it not only charming but downright enjoyable to mindlessly fondle some balls.

No, I am not being crass. Creature in the Well is a game that seamlessly merges that multiball Pinball satisfaction with the tense battles and puzzles of dungeon-crawlers. From the little time I’ve had to play to play, it balances boss battles and puzzles nicely with every throw of the balls. They beautifully bounce not only off of bumpers you score points from, but wall just for long enough you can keep going back and collecting more balls. Ok, maybe I’ve inadvertently made it needlessly coarse with the number of times I’ve said that.

See, I think the reason I’ve taken such a shine straight away with as little play as I have been able to grab is simple. Spider-Man 2 for the PS2 and Sonic the Hedgehog, are two games based on the very basic concept of making something just feel right. Oddly enough both are about momentum, the charge that is directly proportional to force applied to an object, or Newton’s second law. Creature in the Well used another part of physics (basic mechanics) that is simple and used every day, trajectory. To dumb it down: Predicting the future in such a way as to know where something will land once your given momentum runs out.

Believe it or not (you’ll believe it), I was thrown out of a high school physics class for saying “that’s what she said,” as I walked in the door. I took one step in and it was “Out!” 40-minutes I stood out there under the skylight, bored to death. It was actually alright, nothing in those classes really made physics fun, as it should be. We weren’t setting anything on fire, weren’t mixing chemicals (yes, I know that’s chemistry), we weren’t doing anything fun, it was rather dull theoretical physics that was explained in the driest way possible.

Anyway, back to the point, you are basing everything within Creature in the Well on a trajectory. Think about all those times you’ve either caught or thrown a ball to someone, that is you working out the trajectory of something you (or something/someone) have given momentum to and are trying to catch. Here you are trying to work out where something is going to bounce, possibly several things at the same time. Every one of which gives off wonderful charming sounds and the clonk or clink off of surfaces.

Also, I must say, as you walk up to the hole in the mountain, I love the number of pipes obnoxiously strewn all over the place. That is a developer saying, “Look, I get it, you are stupid, have a pipe! No, really, have a pipe, take the pipe. You’ll need the pipe. Sweet-god man, take the pipe or you will be hit in the head with one of these!” I honestly adore little bits in games like that, as it shows the developer both has contempt for you and trusts you enough to do the right thing. I picked up the first pipe, like a good human.

All this week, you can pick up Creature in the Well for free on the Epic Games Store, until the 1st of April. From there on, you’ll be able to pick up another indie game that I hope I won’t be prejudging as quickly, Tales of the Neon Sea. It looks to be a retro-style pixel-based adventure ’em up, where you’ll be detective-ing your way around a very colorful neon-drenched city that is very much inspired by Rapture from Bioshock, going by the key art. It shall be interesting, I’ve been wrong on this before, but this might be the week we get a surprise double-bill.