The Creature in the Well from developer Flight School Studio is an indie game that is an ode to pinball. But it looks nothing like the silver ball. Rather, it’s a hack-‘n’-slash game where you make your way into a dungeon that looks oddly familiar. Your job is to unlock the power of an ancient facility and then face an ominous, all-seeing creature in the depths of a desert mountain.
The single-player title is coming out this summer on the Nintendo Switch and Steam on the PC.
The artwork looks pretty, almost Journey-like in its top-down presentation. You make your way inside the facility in order to save the city of Mirage from a deadly sandstorm. I got a good look at the game at a preview event, and it will be on display at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the big game trade show in Los Angeles this week.
You play a character with a sword. To unlock levels, you have to play pinball, but not with flippers. You use your sword to bat a ball back and forth, bouncing it off the walls.
You have to get from one room to the next, solving puzzles that involve pinball flippers, bumpers, and other barriers. But while you are doing so, you are constantly under attack. You have to charge up energy orbs and bounce them around to wake up the dormant machinery and open the security doors. All the while, the unseen creature keeps making life difficult for you.
The game has more than 20 unique items and eight dungeons. You can customize your playstyle with upgradeable weapons and clothing, which change how you play the game. Eventually, you come face-to-face with the creature, and then the real play starts.