A Charming and Polished Metroidvania That All Fans of the Genre Should Play

When you think about the most noteworthy developers in the Metroidvania scene, Kyle Thompson may not be the first name that comes to mind. The genre’s founding fathers, Nintendo and Konami, will no doubt be on the tip of most people’s tongues. For others, creators of modern classics like Team Cherry and Moon Studios may hold just as much weight these days, if not more. But if you consider yourself a fan of the genre and Thompson isn’t somewhere on your list, well, you should consider doing a little homework.

His name may not have the same cultural cachet as those genre giants, but between 2020 and 2024, Thompson released Sheepo, Islets, and Crypt Custodian: three excellent Metroidvania titles in four years, all (at the time of writing) holding an Overwhelmingly Positive rating on Steam. He has quietly become something of a legend among those in the know and developed a loyal fan base eagerly awaiting his next title, Well Dweller.

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Fans of Thompson’s games will feel right at home in Well Dweller. It’s comfortingly familiar.

Affectionately dubbed “Kyle-vanias” by some of his audience, his games all share a number of common elements beyond the genre’s familiar mechanical trappings: charming hand-drawn art, cute anthropomorphic characters, a humorous and whimsical tone, rock-solid gameplay, and a soundtrack composed by Thompson’s brother, Eric. Well Dweller continues these trends and represents the most mechanically refined version yet of the developer’s signature style, if perhaps also the most familiar feeling.

Once upon a time…

Well Dweller returns to a 2D side-scrolling plane (after Crypt Custodian’s top-down perspective), presenting the charming art style synonymous with Thompson’s games with a horror-tinged dark fairy tale twist, where cutesy characters (birds are the subject this time around) and a playful tone contrast with grotesque enemy designs and unsettling imagery.

The animation calls to mind golden-age 20th-century cartoons, as well as contemporary animated classics like Over the Garden Wall, and yes, modern Metroidvanias like Hollow Knight and Ori and the Blind Forest. The visuals are underpinned by an ambient lo-fi synth soundtrack, perfectly complementing the game’s chill but melancholic vibes.

The story is the stuff of classic fairy tales: an evil queen wants a new gown made of bird feathers and has decreed that all birds in the kingdom be hunted down to satisfy her grisly taste in fashion. You play as Glimmer, a member of the last remaining colony of birds in the kingdom, hidden away at the bottom of a well where they make their home. Early in the game, Glimmer’s family is stolen by a bird hunter. Glimmer, rather matter-of-factly, sets off to find allies, rescue their missing family, and put an end to the wicked queen’s evil scheme.

It’s a simple tale told with the plainspoken language of a children’s picture book, but elevated by witty, characterful writing with a lovely, down-to-earth style. It’s unpretentious and charming in a way that video games rarely are, and laugh-out-loud funny in a way that games almost never pull off.

The tone oscillates between dark and light, from deeply unserious to sincere and touching. Classic fairy tale whimsy is the order of the day, but themes of fighting to protect loved ones from an oppressive regime, finding safety in community, and the strength to fight back feel more contemporary. The ruling class of humans, depicted as monstrous creatures committing unspeakable acts in service of vulgar opulence, makes for recognizably detestable villains.

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The game has a childlike yet dark, disturbing tone.

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But in-game dialogue is light-hearted and easygoing.

In A Land Far, Far Away…

In play, Well Dweller ticks all the Metroidvania boxes and provides a slick, polished experience that goes down smoothly. In traditional fashion, exploration is gated by collecting traversal abilities that let you scale walls, float over gaps, and reach previously inaccessible areas. The first ability, Slingshot, is an early highlight that is cleverly utilized throughout; pinging your weapon into walls to create an impromptu spring that flings you skyward, before recalling in a flash like a remote boomerang.

The sprawling map is a delight to explore, and while early areas perhaps don’t do quite enough to set themselves apart from each other, the layouts are consistently well designed and fun to navigate. Each has a unique visual palette and theme, and later areas layer in interesting traversal challenges, while breakable walls, hidden paths, and craftily placed collectibles reward curiosity.

As the skillset expands, traversing the world increasingly requires combining your abilities in novel ways. Almost every screen has a nifty platforming challenge, a simple but satisfying puzzle to solve, or a tricky environmental hazard to overcome, making the act of moving through the world fun and engaging. It’s all fairly safe, and perhaps a little overfamiliar, but there’s no denying the craftsmanship on display. There are smart touches everywhere, and I lost count of the number of times I found myself impressed by moments of clever design. Four games deep, Thompson is an undeniable master of his craft.

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Bosses are a sight to behold, often leaning into Well Dweller’s darker side.

Combat is very stripped back but no less enjoyable. There are no combo strings to execute, no multi-hit attack patterns to learn, and no parry timings to master (no block or parry full-stop, for that matter). You have a weapon (a humble matchstick) with which to whack stuff with deliciously weighty feedback, and a zippy slide move with generous i-frames that grants a slick defensive option. A throwable firebomb provides a ranged attack that can, delightfully, be batted like a baseball into the path of incoming enemies with a swing of your weapon.

Fair Game

Well Dweller is a straightforward, uncomplicated game to play, but it’s not without challenge. There’s no contact damage with enemies, but the wide-ranging roster of creepy-crawly-looking things sling globs of goo, balls of flame, and other nasty projectiles to test your positioning skills, and larger enemies splash damage around with AOE damage like it’s going out of fashion.

Success requires careful maneuvering between attacks and bullet-hell-lite projectile patterns to find pockets of safety, while smacking enemies with your matchstick, lobbing firebombs, or popping healing vials with a neat little active reload-style quick-time-event.

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Well Dweller just wants you to have a good time and will frequently make you laugh: a rare treat in games.

It plays a very fair game, with finely-tuned controls that never let you down, and well-telegraphed attacks. Its grotesque roster of screen-filling bosses provides unique challenges with bespoke mechanics. Some are straight-up brawls, while others throw in platforming sections or chase sequences to spice things up. They’re uniformly excellent and showcase the wonderful animation work at its best, and the space-management-focused gameplay at its most hectic and demanding.

Death will plonk you back at the last checkpoint but doesn’t penalize you further. It won’t rob you of currency, and there are no boss runs. There’s little of the soulslike DNA that has been creeping into the genre in recent years. The game will put you in your place now and again during its more challenging moments, but isn’t interested in punishing you. Above all else, Well Dweller simply wants to entertain.

All’s Well That Ends Well

And for the most part, it does exactly that. If you enjoy Metroidvanias, you are almost guaranteed to have a good time with Well Dweller. There’s tremendous charm in its modest and unfussy design. It has no pretensions beyond being a fun video game to play, and is a very easy game to like as a result. Well Dweller wants you to have a good time, and unless you’re sick of this style of game, you almost certainly will.

But if there’s one major criticism to be leveled at Well Dweller, it’s that, unlike Thompson’s previous games, it doesn’t have a unique bone in its body. There’s no equivalent to Sheepo’s pacifism, Islets’ map reconstruction mechanic, or Crypt Custodian’s isometric perspective to set it apart. There’s almost nothing fresh or new in Well Dweller, and as enjoyable as it is to play, I can’t deny I found myself longing for more originality, or a novel central hook. Despite all of its constituent parts being of universally high quality, there is simply a ceiling to how great a game this formulaic can be, and Well Dweller bumps its head against it for its entire runtime.

That said, Well Dweller isn’t striving for anything other than being a rock-solid version of a well-established formula. To that end, it achieves its goal as well as anything I’ve played this year. And far better than most.

It offers exactly the kind of experience that bigger games made by gigantic teams with astronomical budgets strive to create, and routinely fail to provide: a familiar but highly polished, mostly frictionless experience that makes you feel good while playing. One that doesn’t punish or frustrate, but does so without insulting your intelligence, removing agency, or excessive handholding. Triple-A studios take note.

A Fairy Tale Ending

It’s very hard to make a game that everyone universally agrees is good. Doing it three times in a row is pretty remarkable. But four? Well, that would be downright astonishing. The critical and consumer consensus has yet to form around Well Dweller, but it’s hard to imagine many disliking a game so undeniably charming. It’s an unashamedly good time from start to finish, and I’ve no doubt it’ll leave most players smiling and satisfied once its feel-good ending rolls around.

Next time you’re in the market for a breezy no-fuss single-player experience to entertain you for fifteen hours or so, sling the Thompson brothers a few notes and pick up Well Dweller. The Metroidvania genre, and the wider industry, is a better place with them in it, and I, for one, will be disappointed if we’re not all back here again in another couple of years playing the latest Kyle-vania. Keep ‘em coming, Thompson.