“You’re now ready,” duly informed Hell Well’s tutorial. Only, this wasn’t quite the case. I fumbled my way through to this point, not really understanding what kind of objectives Hell Well has in store. It also didn’t help that the UI is presented in an abstract way, favouriting ‘1-bit’ style pixel art. Fortunately, in less than ten minutes everything eventually ‘clicked’ here. That’s to say, the main objective, controls, premise, mechanics, and ways to succeed all suddenly made sense. A click so defined that it was almost audible.
This is a top-down tower defence game with shooting elements, in which you gather the blob-like souls of the dead (the setting has a heaven/hell theme) and use them to place, repair, and upgrade projectile spitting demons. You aren’t defenceless either, able to fling a single fireball – which takes a few seconds to recharge. Waves soon increase in number, forcing a mad dash to gather souls and repair defences while avoiding the biblically accurate angels swarming the screen. All of this action is rendered with basic four-tone colour schemes, presumably meant to imitate PC CGA era graphics. Bokosuka Wars is an appropriate comparison.
A problem soon surfaces. Enemies swarm around our hero quickly, but the means of upgrading and healing demons requires a couple of button presses, using LB/RB to cycle menus and A to confirm. When under pressure, this is tricky – and often I ended up repairing things instead of upgrading. New demons are also very weak against later enemies, so if you start placing them while hapazardly avoiding foes, by the time you loop back around seconds later for a vital upgrade, they’ll already be damaged. Using LB to repair and RB to upgrade when standing in front of a demon would have worked better. You can at least manage defences between waves, which is also when you’ll receive a random item. Perks can also be gained, such as faster fireballs and healing demons.
Despite the game’s simple nature (although it is noticeably more involved than Vampire Survivors) there is some tact here. It’s possible to sacrifice your own health to gain an instant soul boost; if there are surplus health pick-ups on the ground, this is a real no brainer. Bombs can be dropped too, Bomberman style, and if used proficiently they can wipe out several enemies at once.
Over time more bosses and larger maps unlock, along with new colour schemes. Try to reach and defeat every boss, and you’ll get a couple of hours of playtime – although the achievements will have unlocked long before this.
While it’s debatable as to whether Hell Well’s visual style will appeal to many, rest assured that it isn’t a gimmick – the enemies stand out against the backgrounds, making avoidance relatively painless. There isn’t much in the way of attack patterns to memorise, but you do need to balance the amount of demons on the battlefield and upgrade them appropriately. If you’re up for a challenge, the gameplay speed can be adjusted too. This may also help with blitzing the quieter early waves.
Hell Well isn’t a bad little budget buy – not at all. If you’re looking at the screenshots on this page and thinking it might be your jam, I can’t imagine it disappointing all that much. This is a simple game delivered in a more than competent manner, with just enough depth to make it engaging. Amen to that.
Panda Indie Studio’s Hell Well is out on all format on December 13th. Published by eastasiasoft.