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Animal Well

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  • Director Displacement: Many players only know about and were interested in the game because Dunkey's name is attached to it as its publisher, and thus speak as if it is his creation and not Billy Basso's, much to the annoyance of those that know better.
  • Goddamned Boss: The first Seahorse encounter has you press various buttons on the ceiling. To reach said buttons, you need to jump on bubbles created by the Seahorse. However, not only is the room filled with Spikes of Doom, but the direction the Seahorse faces while blowing bubbles is semi-randomised, meaning that it's very common for him to face in the opposite direction of the button. In addition, whenever he starts blowing bubbles, the Seahorse spits out a stream of water that can easily push you off the platforms and into the lake below, or worse, said spikes. Even after pressing all of the buttons, you're still not done with the fight, as the door that said buttons unlock is very high up and is inside of a spiked wall. Fortunately, the second and final encounter with him is much easier, as it amounts to a fairly simple puzzle in which you redirect the Seahorse's water squirts into bowls.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • "It's like Halo 2 meets Halo 3."explanation
    • Dunkey living up to his promise explanation
    • The first well-type game explanation
  • Nightmare Fuel: Has plenty of it, mainly due to the premise of "tiny nigh-defenseless creature needs to survive in a world with everything trying to kill it" causing a ton of Paranoia Fuel, but several moments in the game stand out.
    • One area contains a statue of a very threatening-looking wolf. Remove the Disk from its mouth, and an apparition with the face of the statue starts chasing you relentlessly, all the while making disturbing moaning sounds. Fortunately, you can put a Mock Disk inside the statue's mouth upon stealing the real deal, but in order to get one of the flames, you have to put said Mock Disk into a different shrine, while the Ghost chases you on the way there There are ways to circumvent dealing with the Ghost depending on what items you gather throughout the game, but the vast majority of players will need to deal with it at least once, and likely twice.
    • The kangaroo. On several screens within the map, and at completely random intervals, it hops onto the screen. Afterwards, the gigantic-sized creature starts chasing you while moaning loudly, and can easily kill you if you're unprepared. Fortunately, it drops a useful item when you throw a firecracker at it, but the game never tells you that. There are only a handful of rooms it can appear in, and it's never guaranteed to show up immediately, but when it does, it makes a big impact. Alternatively, you can calm the kangaroo by leaving the screen, re-entering it and play the flute while the kangaroo is not being agressive. Playing the flute will calm the kangaroo (a heart will briefly appear next to it) and it will ignore you.
    • The Final Boss, The Manticore, is made of this. Upon initially entering its boss arena in the endgame, the whole room goes silent. Then you hear a moan, heralding the entrance of a giant black and blue Nightmare Faced monstrosity to the sound of blaring klaxon synths. It then starts chasing you while firing Eye Beams that ricochet off walls, all while you're scrambling to press all of the yellow buttons in the room for the door out of the arena to open. Even after you manage to do so, the Manticore still chases you outside the arena in a short platforming sequence, before you finally banish it by shooting fireworks at it.
  • That One Boss:
    • The Ghost chase to get one of the flames requires you to go all the way across the map to put the Mock Disk back in the shrine, all while being chased by a persistent ghost. There's little room for error, saving is disabled, and if you die you have to start from the beginning. There is only one way to distract the ghost- firecrackers, which are limited in number and don't keep the Ghost away for long. (One way to make the encounter easier is making your way to the fast travel room and then waiting for the Ghost to find you there before bailing out, as it cannot teleport to your position; if you do this fast enough, you'll never even see the Ghost again after luring it to the bottom left corner of the map.)
    • The Chameleon has a not very well telegraphed one-hit kill attack that is also used to hurt it. If you are in the air when the tongue is launched, it will stop midair, making you lose that chance to hurt it. The fight has long downtimes and while it is possible to stagger the enemies/projectiles, it may also mess with the timing of when they are available, as they spend half the time upside down and out of reach.

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