Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Twitch
    Game on Aus
    • News
      What’s coming to PlayStation Plus in June 2023?

      What’s coming to PlayStation Plus in June 2023?

      June 1, 2023

      IT’S JUNE! — and that means two things: it is officially the rainy season & it’s time for the next…

      ANZPL Split 1 2023 Trophy

      ANZPL Split 1 2023 LAN Finals: Champions Crowned

      May 30, 2023

      This is it. The ANZPL Split 1 2023 LAN Finals. Who would win the Lower Final and make it to the Grand Final to face the Skorpions?

      Company of Heroes 3 Xbox console give-away

      Company of Heroes 3 Xbox console give-away

      May 30, 2023

      TODAY’S release of the Company of Heroes 3 Console Edition released on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, FiveStarGames…

      Assassin’s Creed: Mirage details emerge

      Assassin’s Creed: Mirage details emerge

      May 25, 2023

      AT the PlayStation Showcase this morning there was a few moments of excitement for me, one of them being the…

      PlayStation ’23 Showcase report

      PlayStation ’23 Showcase report

      May 25, 2023

      PlayStation went ahead with its PlayStation Showcase earlier this morning and kicked off the old E3-style season presentation of a…

      View All
    • Reviews
      Crucial T700 – The SSD powerhouse!

      Crucial T700 – The SSD powerhouse!

      September 6, 2023

      The Crucial T700 sets a new standard in performance when it comes to Consumer Grade SSDs, pushing speeds faster than…

      Hyper Karting and Hyper VR street signage

      Hyper Karting & Reality Hyper Amazing!

      June 7, 2023

      I recently visited Hyper Karting, a go-kart and VR centre in Sydney. As well as the go-karts, I was very keen to experience Hyper Reality.

      Company of Heroes 3 (Console Edition) – Tactical Brilliance

      Company of Heroes 3 (Console Edition) – Tactical Brilliance

      June 5, 2023

      Company of Heroes 3 marks the highly anticipated return of the critically acclaimed real-time strategy franchise to consoles. Developed by…

      Diablo 4 Review – A Dark and Thrilling Return to Glory

      Diablo 4 Review – A Dark and Thrilling Return to Glory

      May 31, 2023

      Diablo 4 is the long-awaited continuation of the iconic action role-playing game series developed by Blizzard Entertainment. I had the…

      Alienware AW510K Low-Profile RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review

      Alienware AW510K Low-Profile RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review

      May 25, 2023

      When I reviewed the Alienware AW720M Tri-Mode Wireless Gaming Mouse at the start of the year, I came away intrigued…

      View All
    • Podcasts
      Nuts & Bolts Ep 84 Hero Card

      Nuts & Bolts Ep 84: What Is The LCS Doing?

      June 3, 2023

      The World Of Tanks ANZPL LAN Finals have decided the Split 1 champions. Jim takes us through the action! Lots…

      Nuts & Bolts Ep 83 Hero Card

      Nuts & Bolts Ep 83: Let’s Get Down To Business

      May 20, 2023

      There’s lots to cover this week. Join Mercury and Jim as the World Of Thanks ANZPL heads towards their LAN…

      The Weekly Show Ep 279 Hero Card

      The Weekly Show Ep 279: Tech Issues: The Show

      May 19, 2023

      Doomcutie joins Stormie and Jim as they talk through mods, leaks and so much more! Plus our Bloody Good Game Of The Week thanks to Aussie Broadband.

      Nuts & Bolts Ep 82 Hero Card

      Nuts & Bolts Ep 82: We Missed You!

      May 13, 2023

      It’s been a couple of weeks so Jim and Mercury catch up to talk all things Dreamhack Melbourne. Plus Snoop…

      The Weekly Show Ep 278 Hero Card

      The Weekly Show Ep 278: Look Who Just Drops In

      May 12, 2023

      Doomcutie joins Stormie and Jim as they talk through mods, leaks and so much more! Plus our Bloody Good Game Of The Week thanks to Aussie Broadband.

      View All
    • Categories
      • BY PLATFORM
        • Playstation
        • Xbox
        • Nintendo
        • PC
        • Mobile
        • VR
        • Retro
      • BY GENRE
        • Action
        • Action-Adventure
        • Battle Royale
        • Fighting
        • FPS
        • Horror Games
        • RPG
        • Simulation
        • Sports
        • MMORPG
        • MOBA
        • Platformer
        • Strategy
        • Survival
        • Indie
      • GOA ESSENTIALS
        • Esports
        • Conventions
        • Tabletop
        • Hardware
        • Funny
        • Streaming
        • Win
        • Podcast
        • Video
    • More
      • About Us
      • Contact Us
    Game on Aus
    Home » Creature in the Well Review
    Creature in the Well Review
    GAMING REVIEWS

    Creature in the Well Review

    Chris InglisBy Chris InglisFebruary 9, 2020
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

    Creature in the Well’s pinball-style gameplay gelled so well with the dungeon crawling nature of the game, and this was supported with a good balance of story to keep you pushing forward.

    Creature in the Well is an isometric pinball-inspired dungeon crawler developed and published by Flight School Studio. It released on Steam, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch on September 6, 2019 and I came across this game while browsing through the Xbox Game Pass catalogue. A deadly sandstorm is threatening the city of Mirage. As the last remaining BOT-C unit, you must venture deep into the cavernous depths of a desert mountain to restore power to an ancient facility, haunted by a desperate Creature.

    As a BOT-C unit, you start in the middle of the desert with wind and sand blowing. Your only guidance to move forward is a piece of pipe sticking out of the sand. Picking up the pipe, you realise you can swing this as a weapon. Looking ahead you see the edges of tall sand dunes which funnel you on a linear path, and you see posts sticking out of the sand. Following these posts leads you up a sandy mountain to a cave entrance. With the sand blowing across the screen cutting down your vision, I was initially put off by the art style. However, once I stepped into the cave and saw the hand-drawn art of the platforms, bridges and obstacles, I was hooked.

    Creature in the Well Review

    Once inside, you hear what sounds like a mechanical groan and then see a large skeletal hand reaching up. Two eyes flicker open and the monster speaks, “Oh? A lone engineer returns to the machine in my mountain after all this time.” The beast asks, “where were you when the rest of your kin were trying to save this town? If you are here to finish what you started, you should turn back. I will be watching.” You’re able to run along a metallic bridge to a door that automatically opens.

    Creature in the Well Review

    In the next room, you see a floating white orb and are prompted to use ‘Y’ to strike the orb. You swing your pipe and hit the orb, ricocheting off the barrier in front of you. As the orb hits the barrier, a white energy bar starts to fill and you gain power points. Ahead of you is a door which requires 200 power to open but you don’t have enough power. You run along the hallway to another room with more energy barriers. There are multiple energy orbs available to hit. With multiple orbs now ricocheting off the barriers, your power units are climbing and soon all the barriers are dropped. Playing Creature in the Well really does feel like you’re playing pinball inside a grander adventure game.

    I had enough power now to open the door and came across a sword that prompted me to hold ‘X’ to charge, then press ‘Y’ to strike. I aimed at the larger barrier which filled with energy and dropped straight away. This then caused a circular piece to raise which drew all the remaining energy orbs to it. The orbs were spun around this circular object with increasing speed, all the while building up masses of power. I needed 5000 power to open the next door and this room alone had given me that. You’ll find that most rooms will provide you with enough power to progress further, however you are never short of power because you can go back and repeat rooms if you wish. I’ve never played a game like Creature in the Well before and it was very intriguing. The music also adds an inquisitive atmosphere to the game.

    Creature in the Well Review

    As you progress through this first cave area, the rooms get more complex and the puzzles get more challenging as they throw newer game mechanics at you. Sometimes you’ll have items that glow red and when a ball strikes these, they will send a flaming ball back at you. This is where you learn how to dash by pressing ‘A’. If you do not deflect this red orb, you will be hit lose some health. Other barriers will light up a segment of the ground in orange and if you do not move, it will blast you for bigger damage. Eventually you’ll drop down a shaft into a cavernous room with a large platform which leads to a huge round door. There are smaller platforms branching off this, as well as some inactive switches. Running back along the platform, you meet Roger T. Frog, a talking cleaner frog who is surprised to see you, a BOT-C engineer he thought were long gone. No one has been able to open the large sealed door but he says, “You’re an engineer, you’ll figure it out!”

    Creature in the Well Review

    Across from Roger is a pool of white substance. Running into this replenishes BOT-C’s health. If BOT-C loses all its health, which happened a lot as I progressed through the dungeon levels, the monster’s big skeletal hand picks you up and drops you back outside the mountain. You pick yourself up and must run back into the mountain to complete that dungeon, albeit with 1 health point. After replenishing your health in the white pool, you can run back through rooms you’ve already completed and quickly catch up to your progress. You can also do those rooms again to collect more power but it’s optional. Healing pools are spread throughout each of the 8 dungeon levels which did come in handy.

    I liked the fact that the rooms don’t reset so that you can quickly run back to where you were. This was particularly useful for when I died in a boss fight at the end of each dungeon level. These boss fights also got increasingly more intense and took me several goes each time as it threw new mechanics at me. The skeletal monster also shoots slow-moving projections at you which you need to deal with, in addition to the rest of the puzzle. After numerous deaths, it always felt good to finally defeat them and reactivate part of the ancient machine and reading the lore behind that particular part of the machine and that section of the mountain.

    Creature in the Well Review

    Throughout the 8 themed dungeon levels in Creature in the Well, you will come across secret passages that will reward you with different cosmetic capes, weapons and upgrade cores that BOT-C can use. You can tell where some of these secret passages are by looking at the electrical conduits on the floor. Ordinarily the conduits just connect between the obstacles, but occasionally you will see one snake off to one of the walls. I found this usually meant a secret passageway, providing you had the patience to overcome the puzzles.

    Creature in the Well Review

    Often you had to power up one object which would spawn additional objects, each with a countdown timer. You had to be accurate to hit and power them in time. Towards the later levels, they got too frustrating for me to complete, but if you have patience, you’ll work out the best method to beat the puzzle. If you do prevail, you’ll be rewarded with new weapons such as a baseball bat and a pan that reminded me of panning people to death in PUBG. Some of these weapons are gimmicky, but that suits the pinball-style of gameplay. You can also find core upgrades which can be used to upgrade BOT-C’s power when taken back to a large crocodile name Danielle, Mirage’s blacksmith. The upgrades were very useful and I often had to swap my weapons based on the difficulty of the boss fights.

    Creature in the Well Review

    This game surprised me in a great way. Creature in the Well’s pinball-style gameplay gelled so well with the dungeon crawling nature of the game, and this was supported with a good balance of story to keep you pushing forward. Patience is required if you’re looking to 100% every dungeon level, but you’ll be rewarded with new weapons and upgrade cores. I’m glad I came across this game, and that’s the beauty of services like Xbox Game Pass that give you an opportunity to try games you may ordinarily overlook.

    Creature in the Well is rated PG and available to play on Steam, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One. The game is part of the Xbox Game Pass catalogue and uses Xbox PlayAnywhere so you can resume your game when switching from PC to Xbox.

    #gameonAUS


    Written by: @ChrisJInglis

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
    Previous ArticleBeats of Fury Early Access Preview
    Next Article Music Racer Review

    Related Posts

    Crucial T700 – The SSD powerhouse!
    GAMING REVIEWS September 6, 2023

    Crucial T700 – The SSD powerhouse!

    The Crucial T700 sets a new standard in performance when it comes to Consumer Grade SSDs, pushing speeds faster than…

    Hyper Karting and Hyper VR street signage
    GAMING REVIEWS June 7, 2023

    Hyper Karting & Reality Hyper Amazing!

    I recently visited Hyper Karting, a go-kart and VR centre in Sydney. As well as the go-karts, I was very keen to experience Hyper Reality.

    Subscribe

    Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

    Ads

    Categories
    • ACTION
    • ACTION-ADVENTURE
    • APPLE
    • BATTLE ROYALE
    • CLOUD GAMING
    • CONVENTIONS
    • DLC
    • ESPORTS
    • Events
    • FEATURE
    • FIGHTING
    • FPS
    • FUNNY
    • GAMING HARDWARE
    • GAMING NEWS
    • GAMING REVIEWS
    • GIFT GUIDE
    • GOA
    • GOA PODCAST
    • HORROR GAMES
    • INDIE GAMING
    • Industry
    • MMORPG
    • MOBA
    • MOBILE
    • NINTENDO
    • Open-World
    • OPINION
    • PC
    • PLATFORMER
    • PLAYSTATION
    • Press Release
    • PREVIEW
    • RACING
    • RETRO
    • RPG
    • SIMULATION
    • SPORTS
    • STRATEGY
    • STREAMING
    • SUBSCRIPTION GAMES SERVICE UPDATES
    • SURVIVAL
    • TABLETOP GAMING
    • TECH
    • VIDEO
    • VR
    • XBOX
    Related Article
    Crucial T700 – The SSD powerhouse!
    GAMING REVIEWS

    Crucial T700 – The SSD powerhouse!

    September 6, 2023Zak BearmanBy Zak Bearman

    The Crucial T700 sets a new standard in performance when it comes to Consumer Grade SSDs, pushing speeds faster than many other NVME PCI-E…

    Crucial Memory and DDR5: Unleashing Epic Experiences!
    GAMING HARDWARE

    Crucial Memory and DDR5: Unleashing Epic Experiences!

    July 13, 2023Zak BearmanBy Zak Bearman

    Our friends at Crucial offered us an opportunity to review some of their Pro series memory! Me being the avid gamer and hardware savant…

    Hyper Karting and Hyper VR street signage
    GAMING REVIEWS

    Hyper Karting & Reality Hyper Amazing!

    June 7, 2023Darren 'Str8JaktJim' MacneallBy Darren 'Str8JaktJim' Macneall

    I recently visited Hyper Karting, a go-kart and VR centre in Sydney. As well as the go-karts, I was very keen to experience Hyper Reality.

    Game on Australia Logo

    Game On Aus is an Australian games publication working across written, video and podcast, and supported by an ever-growing community of content creators and fans!

    Copyright GameOnAus 2023. Privacy Policy. Website by Digital Hitmen

    CONTENT
    • News
    • Gaming Reviews
    • Podcast
    • Tech
    • Indie
    ABOUT GOA
    • About Us
    • Contact

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.