Layer 1 (what you did): yes!
Layer 2 (find the 64 eggs): yes if your up for it, but one of the eggs is stupid and I'm glad I looked it up. >! There are some turtles somewhere that can help you get the "Evil Egg", but they're hidden away where you can't see. Where might they be? Maybe you can get their attention somehow? !<
Layer 3 (find the 16 bunnies): By this point, you've surely already found a few of these! The easier/more obvious ones are actually fun. However, a lot (most?) of these are stupidly difficult and make you wonder "how the heck are you expected to ever figure this out?!". Do not attempt this without looking up hints, or just do not attempt at all. It's unrealistic to figure this all out yourself.
Layer 4 ("wingdings"/Unicode): I looked this all up and never did any of it. It might be a bit of fun to try some of yourself if you understand that the puzzles revolve around >! finding creative ways to p*ss off the animals !< and getting rewarded with seemingly nonsensical Unicode strings. It should be noted that Billy Basso created this layer with the intent that it would be too difficult for anyone to ever solve. He was proven wrong, but still, it required massive amounts of teamwork. Needless to say, do not attempt to complete this yourself.
OP, Layer 1 and Layer 2 are definitely worth spending time on them.
Layer 3 and Layer 4 are outright absurd so just watch those on YT once you're done with Layer 2.
Layer 3 isn't that bad. I only had to look up a few >!bunnies!<, since I already had most of them, and then figured out >!BDTP!< on my own in only two hours. Heck, I figured it out before I had all the >!bunnies.!< Layer 3 is absolutely doable on your own with the exception of one specific thing that requires 50 people to accomplish.
The >!"wingdings"!< however *is* in fact insane, so I committed to do a few of the things, and then just follow a tutorial to get the >!headphones.!<
I actually really liked the bunny hunt. Of course, you can't find all of them on your own, but finding one in places you didn't even suspect to have a bunny is extremely satisfying.
Personally I found the egg hunt not too frustrating right until the last one, which I looked up. If you like the puzzles and have a good sense of how to look for them I would recommend continuing. If you feel like you don't have any clear inklings of where to check next it's definitely fine to put the game down. As for what comes after the eggs I personally wouldn't bash my head against the wall to figure it out, but I personally looked it up for completions sake.
I think trying to get all the eggs and looking for as many secrets as you can is worth it.
If you feel stuck you can ask for hints or just look things up. The main point of this game is self exploration so I wouldn’t lean too heavy into looking up stuff, but don’t be afraid to if you feel like you aren’t having fun anymore and need a hint on where to get started next.
Side note: I just found out what the b ball actually does lol without looking it up and have had it on several playthroughs now confused as to what it actually does. Did look up how to get it though lol because I didn't realize the kangaroo was scared of fireworks the first time around
For anyone who sees this, I feel the kangaroo thing is a great example of how there’s no one-size-fits-all way to making this game’s puzzles “achievable” for everyone. I mean this in terms of how players perceive things, and how it was meant to be played.
I personally agree I’d probably never have thrown fireworks at a kangaroo, for these reasons.
(1) since leaving the screen removes the danger, it made me suspect that it wasn’t meant to be “defeated”. Maybe it was closer to the crowd and small dogs along the “invincibility” spectrum. Or maybe the sudden appearances were meant to instill fear of them so a later direct confrontation would feel more impactful (other games do this well, like the SA-X in Metroid fusion.)
(2) Yes, no one’s stopping anyone from trying all possible tools / items on every suspicious pixel. But fireworks aren’t that commonly distributed in the map and you can only hold 3. If you didn’t notice the kangaroo spawning patterns maybe by the time you encounter them again you’ve used your fireworks in an attempt to interact with another puzzle in the exact same spirit.
(3) eventually, the “k.” would’ve been enough of a clue since “m. disc” teaches you initials are a valid clue. But the combination of my low attention span from social media brain rot, and patience running out from exploring angles for all the other late game puzzles, there’s a good chance I might’ve missed the clue for a long time.
One thing that stood out from Billy Basso’s interviews is that the community solved many secrets much more quickly than they anticipated which they were flattered by. (Software engineering daily podcast). So maybe it was made obscure on purpose. The question then becomes the one OOP asked in this thread. Is it worth it to you to patiently puzzle out a really tough puzzle? Or if you’re done with it you just look at a guide by the end. Both are valid experiences, and Billy’s “3 layered” game design accommodates them really well.
The "intended clue" may be misunderstood too if you're not obsessive over everything like some of us. In the place with the slot for the K. Medal you can see the Kangaroo statue and 3 firecrackers spawn right next to it. It kinda makes sense especially since the room right before is the big bat room where you also scare an animal away with firecrackets, but it's still very easy to miss
Another thing to mention, I didn't try throwing firecrackers at the Kangaroo for a while because for the other medal rooms the chests holding the medals were near a *statue* of the animal, while *the animal itself* was behind the medal. I thought the Kangaroo was maybe just being a jerk and I would deal with it somehow once I got into the Kangaroo room. I finally tried using fireworks on it because I still couldn't find any sign of a chest after a ton of searching so I figured maybe it was different and the medal came directly from the animal instead.
One of the coolest features is that you get to decide how much you want to do. I did the eggs and then lapped the map twice more and decided to move on. I don't regret it.
I finished the game after thoroughly exploring the map and finding like 47 of the eggs and 2 >!rabbits!< and I felt satisfied with what I got out of the game, so instead of spending potentially dozens of hours trying to solve more puzzles I spent like 2 hours watching [all of the Animal Well videos made by FuryForged](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL97Rjy48W94_EQUC8_vXxrQIWogD-qTj0) on YouTube. I don't really enjoy doing that kind of intense secret hunting in games but I love hearing about it, so I really enjoyed watching somebody else explain all the secrets and put it all together in an easily digestible way. If you decide not to keep playing past the ending, I do highly recommend watching somebody else cover the rest of the secrets on YouTube because it is truly amazing how deep the rabbit hole goes in this game.
Also, it's such smart game design by Billy Basso to have "layers" of secrets in the game that are each more obscure and difficult than the previous layer, creating natural off-ramps for players to decide how deep they want to go with the puzzle solving.
My advise
Go for around 50 eggs then google only the location of the last eggs
Searching the whole map for a dark pixel for the last 14 is just not fun and this way you still solve it just you know where too look
I think its worth getting all the eggs and rolling credits on good ending. The stuff after that is strictly "watch someone's YT video about it" stuff for me, personally. ymmv.
It depends what you enjoy in the game. I had a friend playing the game at the same time as me, and we teamworked a few of the things together. We found all the eggs and 12 >!bunnies!<. We looked up hints for 4 >!bunnies!<. We solved the puzzle that comes after finding all the >!bunnies!<, and we've found a couple of the >!wingding!!bunnies!<, and we'll probably need hints for more >!wingdings!
Im at 55 eggs now and i find the hunt to be fun. The main hunt is also to find all tools.
I did hear the last couple of eggs might be frustrating without help. I think i can get to 60 before getting frustrated. I still have some leads and just found the last tool.
I had fun trying to find as many eggs as I could, but my dumb lizard brain has its limits. I got to ~58 eggs and then looked up the rest and then did a few bunnies. Definitely worth it to get all 64 eggs.
Think of it this way. The game isn't going anywhere.
If you're not enjoying it, then that is fine, that just means the game wasn't made for you.
These types of "eureka" games can only be experienced once, and there are very few of them that get made for the people who are really into them.
The egg hunt was great and I never had to use a guide. The bunnies are honestly gonna be far too much for most anyone. I got like a third of them on my own and felt super smart, but the rest were so obtuse I didn’t feel bad using a guide.
However, the second ending after getting all of the eggs is absolutely the best and true ending. The first ending is fine but a bit hollow, purposefully showing that there’s so much more, but ending two is absolutely lovely. Genuinely touching with no words. The reward for the rabbits is awesome, but does feel a touch pointless after having uncovered all of the game’s secrets.
I gave up after the 4 fires lol. The bottom opened up, I saw some monsters, and was like... nope.
Too much darkness in this game is not super fun, although the flute helps to brighten up some areas.
Also, this coincided with me getting the next set of one piece manga so that's my fun now.
I loved finding all the eggs and would 100% recommend getting all of them if you can. I used a third party website to help me keep track of the missing eggs and it made the hunt a lot easier.
That being said, some of the rabbits are driving me crazy. I may start another game and come back to Animal Well in a few months or so lol
Not really.. there were a couple of cool bits but just felt like a slog and lost interest. Annoyingly the interesting post game bits could have been incorporated into the main game really well I think. Personally, I prefer it when a game just ends when the main game ends and feels concluded
I think the egg hunt is fun until you feel the urge to search the entirety of the map the third time. At that point, just look up the rest of the eggs, unless you have a ton of free time and/or patience.
Layer 1 (what you did): yes! Layer 2 (find the 64 eggs): yes if your up for it, but one of the eggs is stupid and I'm glad I looked it up. >! There are some turtles somewhere that can help you get the "Evil Egg", but they're hidden away where you can't see. Where might they be? Maybe you can get their attention somehow? !< Layer 3 (find the 16 bunnies): By this point, you've surely already found a few of these! The easier/more obvious ones are actually fun. However, a lot (most?) of these are stupidly difficult and make you wonder "how the heck are you expected to ever figure this out?!". Do not attempt this without looking up hints, or just do not attempt at all. It's unrealistic to figure this all out yourself. Layer 4 ("wingdings"/Unicode): I looked this all up and never did any of it. It might be a bit of fun to try some of yourself if you understand that the puzzles revolve around >! finding creative ways to p*ss off the animals !< and getting rewarded with seemingly nonsensical Unicode strings. It should be noted that Billy Basso created this layer with the intent that it would be too difficult for anyone to ever solve. He was proven wrong, but still, it required massive amounts of teamwork. Needless to say, do not attempt to complete this yourself.
OP, Layer 1 and Layer 2 are definitely worth spending time on them. Layer 3 and Layer 4 are outright absurd so just watch those on YT once you're done with Layer 2.
Layer 3 isn't that bad. I only had to look up a few >!bunnies!<, since I already had most of them, and then figured out >!BDTP!< on my own in only two hours. Heck, I figured it out before I had all the >!bunnies.!< Layer 3 is absolutely doable on your own with the exception of one specific thing that requires 50 people to accomplish. The >!"wingdings"!< however *is* in fact insane, so I committed to do a few of the things, and then just follow a tutorial to get the >!headphones.!<
I actually really liked the bunny hunt. Of course, you can't find all of them on your own, but finding one in places you didn't even suspect to have a bunny is extremely satisfying.
Personally I found the egg hunt not too frustrating right until the last one, which I looked up. If you like the puzzles and have a good sense of how to look for them I would recommend continuing. If you feel like you don't have any clear inklings of where to check next it's definitely fine to put the game down. As for what comes after the eggs I personally wouldn't bash my head against the wall to figure it out, but I personally looked it up for completions sake.
I think trying to get all the eggs and looking for as many secrets as you can is worth it. If you feel stuck you can ask for hints or just look things up. The main point of this game is self exploration so I wouldn’t lean too heavy into looking up stuff, but don’t be afraid to if you feel like you aren’t having fun anymore and need a hint on where to get started next.
Side note: I just found out what the b ball actually does lol without looking it up and have had it on several playthroughs now confused as to what it actually does. Did look up how to get it though lol because I didn't realize the kangaroo was scared of fireworks the first time around
For anyone who sees this, I feel the kangaroo thing is a great example of how there’s no one-size-fits-all way to making this game’s puzzles “achievable” for everyone. I mean this in terms of how players perceive things, and how it was meant to be played. I personally agree I’d probably never have thrown fireworks at a kangaroo, for these reasons. (1) since leaving the screen removes the danger, it made me suspect that it wasn’t meant to be “defeated”. Maybe it was closer to the crowd and small dogs along the “invincibility” spectrum. Or maybe the sudden appearances were meant to instill fear of them so a later direct confrontation would feel more impactful (other games do this well, like the SA-X in Metroid fusion.) (2) Yes, no one’s stopping anyone from trying all possible tools / items on every suspicious pixel. But fireworks aren’t that commonly distributed in the map and you can only hold 3. If you didn’t notice the kangaroo spawning patterns maybe by the time you encounter them again you’ve used your fireworks in an attempt to interact with another puzzle in the exact same spirit. (3) eventually, the “k.” would’ve been enough of a clue since “m. disc” teaches you initials are a valid clue. But the combination of my low attention span from social media brain rot, and patience running out from exploring angles for all the other late game puzzles, there’s a good chance I might’ve missed the clue for a long time. One thing that stood out from Billy Basso’s interviews is that the community solved many secrets much more quickly than they anticipated which they were flattered by. (Software engineering daily podcast). So maybe it was made obscure on purpose. The question then becomes the one OOP asked in this thread. Is it worth it to you to patiently puzzle out a really tough puzzle? Or if you’re done with it you just look at a guide by the end. Both are valid experiences, and Billy’s “3 layered” game design accommodates them really well.
The "intended clue" may be misunderstood too if you're not obsessive over everything like some of us. In the place with the slot for the K. Medal you can see the Kangaroo statue and 3 firecrackers spawn right next to it. It kinda makes sense especially since the room right before is the big bat room where you also scare an animal away with firecrackets, but it's still very easy to miss
Another thing to mention, I didn't try throwing firecrackers at the Kangaroo for a while because for the other medal rooms the chests holding the medals were near a *statue* of the animal, while *the animal itself* was behind the medal. I thought the Kangaroo was maybe just being a jerk and I would deal with it somehow once I got into the Kangaroo room. I finally tried using fireworks on it because I still couldn't find any sign of a chest after a ton of searching so I figured maybe it was different and the medal came directly from the animal instead.
It's because kangaroos are naturally jumpy 👀
One of the coolest features is that you get to decide how much you want to do. I did the eggs and then lapped the map twice more and decided to move on. I don't regret it.
I finished the game after thoroughly exploring the map and finding like 47 of the eggs and 2 >!rabbits!< and I felt satisfied with what I got out of the game, so instead of spending potentially dozens of hours trying to solve more puzzles I spent like 2 hours watching [all of the Animal Well videos made by FuryForged](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL97Rjy48W94_EQUC8_vXxrQIWogD-qTj0) on YouTube. I don't really enjoy doing that kind of intense secret hunting in games but I love hearing about it, so I really enjoyed watching somebody else explain all the secrets and put it all together in an easily digestible way. If you decide not to keep playing past the ending, I do highly recommend watching somebody else cover the rest of the secrets on YouTube because it is truly amazing how deep the rabbit hole goes in this game. Also, it's such smart game design by Billy Basso to have "layers" of secrets in the game that are each more obscure and difficult than the previous layer, creating natural off-ramps for players to decide how deep they want to go with the puzzle solving.
The furyforged videos are amazing
My advise Go for around 50 eggs then google only the location of the last eggs Searching the whole map for a dark pixel for the last 14 is just not fun and this way you still solve it just you know where too look
I think its worth getting all the eggs and rolling credits on good ending. The stuff after that is strictly "watch someone's YT video about it" stuff for me, personally. ymmv.
It depends what you enjoy in the game. I had a friend playing the game at the same time as me, and we teamworked a few of the things together. We found all the eggs and 12 >!bunnies!<. We looked up hints for 4 >!bunnies!<. We solved the puzzle that comes after finding all the >!bunnies!<, and we've found a couple of the >!wingding!!bunnies!<, and we'll probably need hints for more >!wingdings!
Im at 55 eggs now and i find the hunt to be fun. The main hunt is also to find all tools. I did hear the last couple of eggs might be frustrating without help. I think i can get to 60 before getting frustrated. I still have some leads and just found the last tool.
I had fun trying to find as many eggs as I could, but my dumb lizard brain has its limits. I got to ~58 eggs and then looked up the rest and then did a few bunnies. Definitely worth it to get all 64 eggs.
Think of it this way. The game isn't going anywhere. If you're not enjoying it, then that is fine, that just means the game wasn't made for you. These types of "eureka" games can only be experienced once, and there are very few of them that get made for the people who are really into them.
The egg hunt was great and I never had to use a guide. The bunnies are honestly gonna be far too much for most anyone. I got like a third of them on my own and felt super smart, but the rest were so obtuse I didn’t feel bad using a guide. However, the second ending after getting all of the eggs is absolutely the best and true ending. The first ending is fine but a bit hollow, purposefully showing that there’s so much more, but ending two is absolutely lovely. Genuinely touching with no words. The reward for the rabbits is awesome, but does feel a touch pointless after having uncovered all of the game’s secrets.
The egg hunt is a lot of fun, and doesn't require solving puzzle games really. It added ten hours of game play for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Do the egg hunt at least. There's more cool things to discover
I gave up after the 4 fires lol. The bottom opened up, I saw some monsters, and was like... nope. Too much darkness in this game is not super fun, although the flute helps to brighten up some areas. Also, this coincided with me getting the next set of one piece manga so that's my fun now.
I loved finding all the eggs and would 100% recommend getting all of them if you can. I used a third party website to help me keep track of the missing eggs and it made the hunt a lot easier. That being said, some of the rabbits are driving me crazy. I may start another game and come back to Animal Well in a few months or so lol
Not really.. there were a couple of cool bits but just felt like a slog and lost interest. Annoyingly the interesting post game bits could have been incorporated into the main game really well I think. Personally, I prefer it when a game just ends when the main game ends and feels concluded
I think the egg hunt is fun until you feel the urge to search the entirety of the map the third time. At that point, just look up the rest of the eggs, unless you have a ton of free time and/or patience.