Animal Well is a puzzle platformer with seemingly infinite depth. The main game will take anywhere between five and 15 hours to complete, but once the credits roll another more cryptic and mysterious game begins. The game doesn’t really explain why there are eggs, but you’ll quickly gather that when you find them—always in chests—they join a display overseen by a peacock in a room you’ll encounter early on. The amount of notches in each door corresponds to the amount of eggs you’ll need for them to open. It’s worth scouring as far and wide as possible for eggs as you go. Animal Well is a lot more open-ended compared to your average metroidvania. It’s really good at making you feel like a genius sometimes, but actually, you’re just playing the game as intended: by being curious and experimenting. The items in Animal Well have other practical uses beyond their obvious ones. If you’re stuck, try every item and never stop looking for hidden passages. You may play the first half-dozen hours of Animal Well thinking you’re not particularly interested in its post-game secrets, but I reckon there’s a 95% chance you’ll change your mind. For that reason alone, it’s worth screenshotting every cryptic-seeming clue you encounter and using the map stamps consistently. There are dark rooms in Animal Well that can be lit with a one-time use candle item. Don’t hoard these, even if you think you’re fine to navigate a room without lighting it up. The map’s lack of a key is notable, so here’s what the different color pixels mean. Animal Well looks like the perfect podcast game, but sound prompts are important, so playing with sound is recommended. Use the C (or Y on a gamepad) key to choose from your inventory, which also pauses the game. Looking at the map does not pause the game. Keep prodding, keep experimenting, and huge new opportunities will present themselves.