[Second Wind] [The Making of Animal Well] [#feel #game_design #postmortem #worth_watching]⁣ Second Wind's first documentary about exactly the game that deserves it the most - Billy Basso's masterfully crafted Animal Well. The game, in case you haven't checked it out yet, is one of the best things to happen to indie handcrafted scene since Toby Fox'es Undertail or Daniel Mullins' Inscryption. Which is to say - it's fucking great. It's a metroidvania brimming with secrets, secrets within secrets & mechanics within mechanics, all deceitfully simple in its premise, yet complex once you get down to uncovering its mysteries and searching for the end. It's also a rare one completely not focused on combat - straight up conflicts with enemies are few and far between, it's not the point here. Instead, the point is exploring this world, meeting the animals within it, solving its puzzles & just experiencing its vibe. Billy was building it for eight long years - a good reminder of the cost often hidden behind the greatness. At some point in the dev cycle when he started showcasing the game at conferences he also lucked out into meeting a popular youtuber, videogamedunkey, who just happened to be searching for some hidden gems he could start onboarding to his new game publishing company, BIGMODE. That turned out well for all involved - BIGMODE couldn't ask for a better debut title while Animal Well got the chance it so richly deserved - a chance to get noticed. Don't miss out. In this weird post-truth success-often-irrelevant gamedev landscape we find ourselves in - it's a rare success story worthy of if not emulating, then definitely - learning from. > Yeah, it's easy to say I'm changing languages to be posting more, but let's try to actually post more. Also do check out our Connectivity game, it is heavily inspired by Animal Well, among other things (far from enough secrets in there yet tho; that's also gonna be a long twisted road to walk).