There’s a difference between a secret and a piece of information that just isn’t known.  The latter may or may not be exciting to discover, like finding that potato chip that fell off the table five months ago hidden underneath a shelf, but a secret is a very different thing entirely.  Finding a secret brings an emotional payoff, whether that be delight, surprise, or even fear, but whatever it is there’s some kind of impact.  Animal Well is a platform-adventure game announced today and it’s all about secrets, as a cute little blob-critter is lost in a strange and not-quite-right lo-res pixel-art world.

A blob isn’t particularly powerful but it is smart, especially with you behind the controls, and it will need all the brainpower it can get to figure out a way through the interconnected caverns.  The blob can run, jump, and use items, and that last skill is what will help it unravel the densely-packed secrets in the catacombs.  While there isn’t a lot of detail in the announcement trailer, which is more concerned with tone than mechanics, one of the .gifs posted on Twitter shows the blob trying to get past a dog.  The first time the dog picks up the blob and shakes it about, but the second time the blob tosses a frisbee to distract the dog so it’s free to explore the screen.  Animal Well is aiming to have a small but very dense world, and per today’s PlayStation blog post its secrets come in four varieties.  First are the regular ones necessary to complete the game, and the next layer are the usual more-hidden secrets that earn a nice 100% completion rating.  The third layer is designed to be challenging, with the expectation that players on the internet will need to collaborate with each other to figure it all out, and finally the last set of secrets are completely obscure to the point there’s no guarantee they’ll all be discovered.  Animal Well promises to be a weird yet cozily intricate adventure with a lot to dig for, and if it lives up to plans the search could go on for years.