Downwell (video Game)
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''Downwell'' is a video game that is a combination of a vertically scrolling shooter and platform game with elements of a roguelike. It was developed by Ojiro Fumoto and published by
Devolver Digital Devolver Digital, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Austin, Texas, specializing in the publishing of indie games. The company was founded in June 2009 by Nigel Lowrie, Harry Miller, Graeme Struthers, Rick Stults, and Mike Wilso ...
for
iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
and
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in October 2015, for
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in January 2016, and for
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and
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in May 2016. A
Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...
version was released in January 2019. British studio Red Phantom Games developed the Switch and PlayStation ports. ''Downwell'' uses a
palette Palette may refer to: * Cosmetic palette, an archaeological form * Palette, another name for a color scheme * Palette (painting), a wooden board used for mixing colors for a painting ** Palette knife, an implement for painting * Palette (company), ...
of four colors, which default to black background and white outlines, with red as a highlight for gems, enemies and other important items, and blue for water environment features. The exact colors can be changed through unlockable in-game palettes. The art style and underground level design have been compared to '' Spelunky'' and ''
Cave Story ''Cave Story'', originally released as is a 2004 Metroidvania platform-adventure game for Microsoft Windows. It was developed over five years by Japanese independent developer Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya in his free time. ''Cave Story'' features 2D ...
''.


Gameplay

In ''Downwell'', players control a "curious man" named Welltaro, who is at the local park one night when he decides to explore the depths of the well nearby. Knowing that monsters are waiting for him inside, he straps on his gunboots and starts his trip downwards, killing his enemies to proceed and collect treasure. The game has three basic controls: left and right movement, and the ability to jump while on a solid surface. When mid-air, pressing and holding the jump button fires from Welltaro's gunboots. The well is procedurally generated, and the player is often confronted with a large number of different types of enemies, most of which can either be shot with the gunboots or stomped by jumping on them; others, however, are resistant to being stomped and can thus only be killed with bullets. While normal enemies only feature a red glare alongside the white outlines, these particular enemies are completely highlighted in red, with a more filled sprite body. The gunboots are automatically reloaded when Welltaro hits a surface, regardless of whether or not it is solid. During the descent, players will find "timevoids", which, upon entering, stop everything outside them, as well as the music. These timevoids may lead to caves, which provide the player with a large amount of gems, or with an alternate weapon, which influences speed, delay, ammo usage, ammo count and the shoot pattern of the gunboots, as well as providing either health or a max ammo upgrade. In other cases, the timevoids lead to a shop, where Welltaro is welcomed by a Jizō, who is taking the place of a
shopkeeper A shopkeeper is a retail merchant or tradesman; one who owns or operates a small store or shop. Generally, shop employees are not shopkeepers, but are often incorrectly referred to as such. At larger companies, a shopkeeper is usually referred t ...
, offering the player three different items in exchange for gems. The well is built up from multiple stages, each of them having three levels and featuring different sets of environmental designs and enemies. At the end of each level, the player is given the choice between three Welltaro upgrades, which persist throughout the play session and support the player, in addition to ammo upgrades or shop purchases. Additionally, alternating with color palettes unlocks, the player unlocks different movement styles, which influence Welltaro's position and movement animation while on solid ground, as well as some of the well's procedural attributes, like frequency and type of timevoids.


Development

''Downwell'' development began around March 2014. At that time, Fumoto had graduated in opera singing at the Tokyo University of the Arts, but felt like that was not the way he wanted to go in life. So, at the end of February 2014, Fumoto canceled his studies and went on to make multiple "game-a-week" projects, after he read about that idea in
Rami Ismail Rami Ismail (born 30 October 1988) is a Dutch independent video game developer and spokesperson within the video game industry on the topics of diversity and reaching out to game developers from developing countries. He co-founded the studio Vlam ...
's article on
Gamasutra ''Game Developer'', known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021, is a website founded in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine '' Gam ...
. ''Downwell'' was Fumoto's thirteenth project, in which he instantly saw a high potential and decided to continue its development. Much of the game was influenced with Fumoto's obsession with '' Spelunky'', and the initial idea for the game came from him wondering what a mobile phone game with similar gameplay would be like. In early development the gameplay was that of a standard platform game, however once Fumoto came up with the Gunshoe mechanic he rebuilt the game around it. During early development, the game was titled ''Fall'' or ''Well'', however, during an indie meet-up in Tokyo, Japan, Fumoto figured that he needed an actual name for his game, and therefore came up with ''Downwell'', and stuck with it. While the game was not very popular at the time, Fumoto started posting animated
GIF The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...
images of ''Downwell'' gameplay in early development stages on his Japanese
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account, which came to the attention of
Cara Ellison Cara Ellison (born 28 September 1985) is a Scottish video game writer and critic. Journalism Ellison made regular contributions to publications PC Gamer, Unwinnable and Rock Paper Shotgun beginning in 2012. She has also written gaming related a ...
from
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, as the game was largely different from Japan's usual indie gaming market. On the same day of the article being published, indie publisher
Devolver Digital Devolver Digital, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Austin, Texas, specializing in the publishing of indie games. The company was founded in June 2009 by Nigel Lowrie, Harry Miller, Graeme Struthers, Rick Stults, and Mike Wilso ...
hooked up with Fumoto through a comment on one of his GIF images, which showed the player shooting monsters and crates together with the "drone" upgrade, which repeats the actions the player takes. This comment and the following dialog then led to Devolver Digital becoming ''Downwell'' publisher. With constant support from Devolver Digital and Fumoto's continuous posting of GIF images led to the opening of the game's official website and the announcement for the late 2015 release on
iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
and
Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
. The game was shown at gaming conventions, one of which was the Independent Games Festival 2015, which was held from 2 March 2015 to 6 March 2015, at which ''Downwell'' got to the finalists of the "Student Showcase Award". Another important convention was Japan's largest indie games festival, BitSummit 2015, which was held from 11 July 2015 to 12 July 2015, and at which ''Downwell'' was nominated for the Vermillion Gate Award by the Grand Jury and scored second behind
La-Mulana 2 ''La-Mulana'' (stylized as ''La•Mʊlana'') is a platform-adventure video game, designed to imitate the look and feel of MSX games. Released on June 27, 2006, in Japan for Microsoft Windows, the game was only available in Japanese, but an Englis ...
. The game was finally announced for a release on 15 October 2015 and was released for iOS and Microsoft Windows, while Moppin continued working on the Android version. On 12 November 2015, ''Downwell'' was nominated for "Best Mobile/Handheld Game" for The Game Awards 2015, which took place on 3 December 2015. On 11 December 2015, publisher Devolver Digital teased ''Downwell'' for future release on
PlayStation Vita The PlayStation Vita (PS Vita, or Vita) is a handheld video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 17, 2011, and in North America, Europe, and other international territo ...
by sharing a picture showing the game running on a PlayStation Vita device with
tate mode Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
enabled. On 26 January 2016, it was announced that ''Downwell'' would be released the following day, respectively, 27 January 2016. On 9 February 2016, an official video by Sony Computer Entertainment revealed that the game would be released for
PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 in ...
and PlayStation Vita sometime in 2016. Fumoto announced in January 2018 that he had started working for
Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...
, saying "I'll do my best". It is believed that his success with ''Downwell'' was a large factor in his hiring. Fumoto previously stated that " was super fun developing games as indie" and that he "
ould not Ould is an English surname and an Arabic name ( ar, ولد). In some Arabic dialects, particularly Hassaniya Arabic, ولد‎ (the patronymic, meaning "son of") is transliterated as Ould. Most Mauritanians have patronymic surnames. Notable pe ...
wait to see what it's like to develop games as part of a bigger team." In September 2018, during that month's
Nintendo Direct Nintendo Direct is a series of online presentation or live shows produced by Nintendo, where information regarding the company's upcoming content or franchises is presented, such as information about games and consoles. The presentations began i ...
show, it was announced that Red Phantom Games was developing a port of ''Downwell'' for the
Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...
. At the beginning of 2019, Fumoto announced he had quit his job at Nintendo and returned to indie development.


Reception

Upon release, ''Downwell'' received critical acclaim. On
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, the game currently holds a score of 81/100 for Microsoft Windows, 91/100 for iOS, 80/100 for PlayStation 4, and 85/100 for PlayStation Vita. Steven Hansen from
Destructoid ''Destructoid'' is a website that was founded as a video game-focused blog in March 2006 by Yanier Gonzalez, a Cuban-American cartoonist and author. Enthusiast Gaming acquired the website in 2017, and sold it to Gamurs Group in 2022. History ' ...
praised the game's design concept and giving it a perfect 10/10 by saying that " ese are the kind of things you learn as you delve deeper and deeper into Downwell's four worlds (three levels each) and they are presented intelligently." Another positive review was written by Nadia Oxford from Gamezebo, who gave the game a 5 out of 5 stars ranking and praising ''Downwell'' overall play-style and design, stating that "Downwell is easily one of the best action games to hit mobile this year. It’s intense, it’s unique, and every game you play goes towards unlocking something new." Peter Bathge from German PC gaming magazine '' PC Games'', however, gave the game a 70% score, criticizing that "
he game He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
feels somehow weird on the PC. This does not only come from the not always perfect, fixed and predefined controls, but the whole game principle is obviously cut to the mobile market needs."


Awards


References


External links

* {{Authority control 2015 video games Android (operating system) games Devolver Digital games GameMaker Studio games Indie games IOS games Nintendo Switch games Platform games PlayStation 4 games PlayStation Network games PlayStation Vita games Retro-style video games Roguelike video games Single-player video games Vertically scrolling shooters Video games developed in Japan Video games using procedural generation Windows games