Latest news with #AnimalWell
Engadget
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Engadget
Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School is an open-world puzzle game spanning the whole campus
If you've ever dreamed of being a student at a school built entirely out of escape rooms and silly puns, Coin Crew has the game just for you. Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School is heading to PC, and it's available now to wishlist on Steam and the Epic Games Store. It's the sequel to Escape Academy , which is one of our absolute favorite puzzle games in recent years, particularly when played as a couch co-op experience. Escape Academy 2 expands the campus into an open world, allowing players to explore and uncover secrets between classes, ramping up the student role-playing vibe. Coin Crew also drew inspiration from games like Animal Well and The Legend of Zelda series, which incorporate riddles and mysteries into the standard exploration gameplay loop, creating a free-roaming puzzle flow. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here and view the "Content and social-media partners" setting to do so. The original Escape Academy attracted more than 4 million players, and the sequel appears to be even bigger and radder. There's no release date for now, but Coin Crew is looking for playtesters through its Discord channel. The Escape Academy series is published by iam8bit, and the sequel was revealed during the Day of the Devs showcase tied to Summer Game Fest 2025.
The Verge
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
May 8, 2025 at 8:14 AM EDT
Andrew Webster Go deep down the Animal Well. One of 2024's best — and most cryptic — games, is getting a big ol' design book courtesy Lost in Cult. It's not releasing until next summer, but the publisher promises that the tome will be 'a deep dive into the intricate world of Animal Well.' Pre-orders open later today.
WIRED
19-03-2025
- Entertainment
- WIRED
The Creator of the Smash Indie Game ‘Animal Well' Is Already Working on His Next Project
Mar 19, 2025 7:00 AM Billy Basso talks about the seven years he spent developing his hit game, and what he's up to next. Billy Basso, creator of Animal Well , at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco on March 17, 2025. Photograph: Darrell Jackson Billy Basso was glued to his computer. It was launch day for the Chicago developer's debut solo game, a surreal Metroidvania called Animal Well , and he couldn't stop reading reviews online and watching people play the game. He'd pulled off the impossible: breaking through a turbulent industry to create a hit game that would grow to be a critical and commercial success. He just didn't realize how big of one it would be quite yet. Most successful video games are made by teams of people that vary in size from a half dozen to somewhere in the hundreds. Basso had made Animal Well entirely on his own, start to finish. Music, art, story—it was all his, dictated by the singular goal to finish the game. He thought it would take six months. It took seven years. 'My entire life has completely changed since the game has come out,' Basso, 36, says. This year, Animal Well is up for five awards at the Game Developers Choice Awards, including prizes for Best Design, Best Audio, and Best Debut. The awards are being handed out this week at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, where Basso is also a featured speaker. At a talk on Monday detailing the nitty gritty of how he made the game, from coding to describing the game's lighting, Basso held court in front of a rapt audience packed to the brim. Attendees laughed and 'ooh'd' his presentation. While describing some of his more homebrew methods of development, one developer in the audience whispered 'this guy is the GOAT.' After his talk, a circle of fans surrounded Basso to offer praise and ask questions. Basso had arrived. It just took some time to get there. Basso meets with his fellow developers after his talk on Monday afternoon. Photograph: Darrell Jackson Basso wasn't a new developer when he started Animal Well . He'd worked at large companies before, including a stint at NetherRealm working on mobile versions of Mortal Kombat . He was working at a medical startup that created mobile games for doctors—'as weird and niche as you might expect'—and tinkered with his own projects at night. He'd spent a decade of his career with 'the desire to make something that I would actually be a fan of.' For four years, Basso worked on a primitive version of Animal Well in his free time, supporting himself with his day job. 'It was very clearly a self-indulgent side project for myself,' he told me in an interview. But as the game grew more sophisticated, and Basso invested more time into it, he started to think of it differently. 'It gradually started to seem more like something I could actually release, that I could maybe make a living off of,' he says. Basso gathered his confidence and plotted an exit from his day job. His family didn't quite understand his ambitions. 'My dad didn't want me to quit my job to work on it,' Basso says. 'They were worried that I should keep a full-time job.' Animal Well fans peppered Basso with questions. Photograph: Darrell Jackson They also listened attentively. Photograph: Darrell Jackson Then, in 2021, a turning point: Basso got in touch with Dan Adelman, an industry vet known on the business development side, for help. 'I was kind of an introverted person that doesn't feel very comfortable posting things online and marketing the game,' Basso says. Adelman is well known for running Nintendo of America's indie program and championing small developers. 'Luckily enough, he was into the project,' Basso says. 'He wanted to start working together and then, from that point forward, I felt like I just became a much luckier person.' Basso and Adelman began applying to events like Day of the Devs, an indie showcase, to let people see the game. Their efforts paid off, with Bigmode—the publisher run by YouTuber videogamedunkey—signing Animal Well . 'A little less than a year after working with Dan, I had saved up enough money and had a road map to finishing the game,' Basso says. He quit his job to focus on Animal Well full-time. 'It ended up still being about three years until it was done,' he says. Over the many years of Animal Well 's development, friends urged him to release what he had when interest seemed to be high. 'I knew where the quality bar was for myself and what people expect out of a game,' Basso says. He didn't like the idea of 'cashing out' on what he felt wasn't a complete project, despite the long years that had gone into it. 'It was hard to explain how much work actually goes into releasing a polished game,' Basso says. 'You can't just kind of put pencils down at any point and click the release button on Steam.' How his game debuted mattered. If people like it, 'they'll trust you in the future to buy one of another game.' During his GDC talk, Basso walked through the years of development that went into Animal Well . Photograph: Darrell Jackson His bet had paid off. With Animal Well 's success, Basso says he's now able to 'make whatever arbitrary thing I want and not really have to worry about whether it will sell well or not.' All that matters, he says, is 'I find it fun.' In the game industry of 2025—where funding has been scarce, even studios with popular projects close down, and devs are being laid off en masse—that kind of freedom is a rarity. 'There's so much pressure to chase trends and put AI in your game,' Basso says. 'Or, if you're trying to raise money, you kind of have to pander to a different crowd of investors that are totally out of touch.' Basso is already working on his next project in earnest—a 2D sidescroller that will share some elements of Animal Well —though he's only about six months into it. He says that while it won't be a direct sequel, 'I think it's something people who enjoyed Animal Well will also enjoy. It will have its own identity.' It's too early to share much else about the game, to Basso's relief. 'I'm back in the good, pure phase where I just get to make something on my own, without sharing it with anybody. I guess I'll relish that for the next few years.' Still, Basso says he finds it flattering when people ask about his next game, which he says will likely be even more ambitious. ' Animal Well took seven years,' he says. 'I don't think this next project will take nearly as long. Hopefully.'
