Well Dweller Review – Fair, Fun and Deliciously Dark

Well Dweller Review

Platformers and I, we don’t always get along. I don’t know what the matter is. I see those spike traps and moving objects that I need to bounce around, to and from, and my hands and brain disconnect. It’s rare that a metroidvania or platformer comes along that’s both fun, imaginative, and fair. Meaning, there’s a little wiggle room, or maybe some sliders I can adjust if I get stuck in a loop. Hallelujah, Well Dweller checks all the boxes, and with style.

Feather Weight

Everyone knows that fairy tales are usually miles from sweet and innocent. They’re usually cautionary tales aimed at impressionable children. Don’t go in the woods, climb the beanstalk or let the wolf in the front door. Well Dweller is about an evil orphan Queen who grew up deeply cruel, killing her foster mother to seize the throne. Driven by malignant narcissism, she’s ordered the mass slaughter of the kingdom’s birds so she can pluck them to weave a magnificent royal gown.

You play as Glimmer (of hope, right?), the oldest sibling in a family of birds. These last living birds live in a cozy skull house at the bottom of an isolated well. When Glimmer steals some food, he’s followed home by a hunter, who kidnaps the family to bring to the Queen.

Well Dweller takes place in a darkly gothic yet appealing world of interconnected overgrown woods, dripping sewers, dank bogs, and crumbling ruins. The game’s art style shines. It’s both ominous and charming in equal measure. Many of the bosses are beautifully grotesque, and effortlessly and ironically happy music slyly ignores the dark goings-on.

Finding the Way

Well Dweller dines on classic metroidvania principles. At-first inaccessible areas, hidden passages and intricate connections make it fun to explore and re-explore. Like the best in the genre, Well Dweller gives up its secrets and techniques slowly. At first, Glimmer has very few options. He can jump and slide. Pretty soon, he gets the ability to use his matchstick weapon as a movable platform. Suddenly, a new world of puzzle solutions and environmental accessibility opens up.

One of the things I really enjoyed about Well Dweller is the pace at which it introduces new mechanics, like a grappling hook-like ability, being able to hit a burning pot into enemies, or catch air currents. It kept things consistently interesting. In a good metroidvania, at some point you suddenly realize just how many tools and techniques you have. And, like any good game, Well Dweller gives you a tool and then plenty of opportunity to practice with it.

As noted, bosses can be genuinely unsettling to look at but they’re almost always a delightful challenge. Well Dweller has some general difficulty options, which you can further refine with damage sliders and a tweak to the healing minigame. However, the game also has a slotted trinket system. There are lots of trinkets to collect, and collectively they can really change the difficulty, too.

Slip and Slide

I have a few complaints about Well Dweller’s mechanics, but they’re pretty minor. First, platforms can be very slippery and combined with the momentum of jumping, it’s too easy to slide off and ruin an otherwise well-timed landing. There are some chase sequences that are equally a welcome change of pace and maybe go on too long. There are a couple of map options, but now and then I wanted a little more direction.

But back to the positives, I enjoyed the time trials, and the fact you can make them a little more forgiving if needed. I also thought the balance between story and action was exactly right, with lovely little story page collectables to find along the way.

Well Dweller’s mechanics are finely tuned and should be accessible to a wide range of skill levels. With a dark — yet hopeful — fairy tale narrative and excellent level design, Well Dweller might not reinvent Metroidvanias, but it confidently plays the genre’s greatest hits, adding its own engaging spin. It’s so good that even this platformer-challenged gamer had a great time.

***PS5 code provided by the publisher for review***