“Never show the monster,” horror filmmakers, video game creators and other creepozoids have chanted over the decades. The Well Is Not Empty wastes no time in showing us the monster – one of the monsters, at least – and doesn’t seem particularly worse off for it. I mean, it’s worse, but in a good way.
Look, you can see the monster right there, crouching like a scared puppy in the corner of the room. A skinny little guy with broken xylophone teeth and eyes that TO DO reminds me of the view from the bottom of a well. The monster poses no threat, as long as you stay out of range – and as long as the lights are on. The problem, as you have already guessed, is that the lights are unreliable. Many ceiling light bulbs in open spaces are set on a timer. Better make sure you’re back behind the sturdy glow of those construction site lights before the ticking stops.
In The Well Is Not Empty, created by tweakEra with a demo on Steam at the time of writingYou are a villager sent to investigate why the water is running out. Turns out there’s all kinds of crap in that well. Canteens. Offices. Expired machines. Corpses clutching bloody letters. A sort of huge prison complex, not fully liberated. Balance beams over chasms. All of this comes to life in dull, gangly, PSX-ified 3D.
Reassuringly, you will soon be able to get your hands on a very large spoon. You can use it to dig up clods of loose earth and access hidden rooms. You can also hit hard objects with it to create a flash of sparks, illuminating the path ahead.
It’s funny how the choice of instrument functions characterizes the player, isn’t it? From what I’ve played so far, the spoon is just a fancy shovel, but when I hold it, I don’t feel like a shoveler. I feel like I’m voraciously pouring dirt into my mouth, gulping it down like huge, intoxicating portions of muscovado sugar. Mmmm. So far, the spoon doesn’t seem to have much combat potential, but I can imagine using it to… extract substances other than dirt.
The Well Is Not Empty is available now. If you like it, you will probably also enjoy Shovel Game.
