“Never show the monster,” horror film-makers, game-makers and other creepozoids have chanted, over the decades. The Well Is Not Empty wastes no time showing us the monster – one of the monsters, at least – and doesn’t seem especially the worse for it. I mean, it’s the worse, but in a good way.
Look, you can see the monster right there, hunkered up like a frightened puppy in the corner of the room. A scrawny little fellow with broken xylophone teeth and eyes that genuinely do make me think of the view from the bottom of a well. The monster is no threat, as long as you stay out of grabbing distance – and as long as the lights are on. The problem, as you’ve already guessed, is that the lights are unreliable. A lot of the ceiling bulbs in the open areas are set to a timer. Best make sure you’re back behind the sturdy radiance of those construction lamps before the ticking runs out.
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In The Well Is Not Empty, created by tweakEra with a demo on Steam as of writing, you’re a villager sent to investigate why the water has run out. It turns out there’s all kinds of shit down that well. Canteens. Offices. Expiring machines. Corpses clutching bloody letters. Some kind of huge prison complex, not entirely vacated. Balance beams over chasms. All of it brought to life in dingy, gangly, PSX-ified 3D.
Reassuringly, you’re soon able to get your hands on a very large spoon. You can use this to dig through clumps of loose earth, accessing hidden rooms. You can also strike hard objects with it to create a flash of sparks, illuminating the path ahead.
It’s funny how choice of implement functions to characterise the player, isn’t it? Going by what I’ve played so far, the spoon is just a novelty shovel, but when I’m holding it I don’t feel like a shoveller. I feel like I’m ravenously ladling earth into my mouth, chugging it down like huge, heady portions of Muscovado sugar. Mmm. Right now, the spoon doesn’t appear to have much combat potential, but I can imagine using it to… excavate substances other than soil.
The Well Is Not Empty is out now. If you like it, you will probably also enjoy Shovel Game.