Developing Well Dweller, a Dreamy Hand-Drawn Metroidvania about a Cute Bird

Introduction

My name is Kyle Thompson, and I make Metroidvanias alongside my brother, Eric. I make all the art, code, design, etc., and he makes all the music. I started making games as a kid by tinkering around with GameMaker and Flash, but I stopped making games as a teenager. Then, 7 years ago, I had an itch to try making a game again, and I started making my first game, Sheepo. I reached out to my brother to make the music for it, and we've been working together ever since. After Sheepo, I made Islets, then Crypt Custodian, and our newest game, Well Dweller, will be out on September 22!

Getting Started with Well Dweller

I liked the idea of having a theme that leaned on a large pre-existing collection of work. I had been replaying Blasphemous, and I liked the way it was able to incorporate existing references to build a new world. I thought fairy tales would be fun to pull references from, and there are so many directions you could go with it. I read a graphic novel called "Beautiful Darkness," which tells a story of a girl who died in the forest, and all the fictional characters in her mind escaped and lived out a Lord of the Flies scenario. I thought it was very interesting, and I liked how it had such a clash between the cute, goofy storylines and the disturbing background of the world they were living in. Classic fairy tales share that same contrast, so I used that book as a reference point as well.

Building the World of Well Dweller

The game is inspired heavily by classic fairy tales, so it's a mix of cute/playful and dark/morbid. In the game, a wicked queen has taken the throne and has ordered all villagers to collect birds in order to rip out their feathers to construct a royal gown. You are part of the last living family of birds. After sneaking out one night for food, a hunter finds you, follows you home, and snatches your family. And so you venture out around the decaying kingdom to rescue them.

I wanted the art to look like fairy tale illustrations, so it's meant to look a bit painterly. It was also an easy choice, since it's the only way I know how to draw. Especially before I started making games, I was more of a chronic doodler than a trained artist, so I only have a very specific style that I feel confident drawing in. I tried drawing different characters before settling on Glimmer. At first, I considered making the main character a rabbit, but I thought a bird would allow for more interesting movement in the game.

To create the game, I used GameMaker. It's the same program I started using as a kid back in 2004, so it's very familiar to me. For animation, I use Spine, and I draw all the art in Photoshop.

Game Mechanics

It's a Metroidvania, so the game is very focused on exploration, platforming, and combat. Throughout the game, you travel through a huge decaying kingdom searching for your family, fight terrifying beasts, and gain new abilities. Living in the kingdom's underbelly is a charming cast of characters you meet and befriend along the way. The game's world is deepened with illustrated woodcut storybook pages that you can seek out and collect. They all connect with the stories and characters throughout the game.

Creative Challenges

I think gameplay design is always the hardest part of development since it can be so finicky and you have to make so many different mechanics harmonize. But it just takes lots of playtesting and tons of rounds of revisions to get everything right. Halfway through the development timeline, I had the game playable nearly to the end, and then the rest of the development time was spent smoothing it out and improving it.

This often involves some pretty massive changes. For example, I completely re-did some of the main mechanics in Well Dweller very late into development. Your main weapon in the game is a matchstick, and I initially had a mechanic where the matchstick would go out whenever you took damage, requiring you to relight it very quickly to avoid taking additional damage. It turned out to be a bit of a lopsided mechanic, so I completely changed it. Making big changes late in development is always particularly stressful, but it was definitely worth it.

Lessons from the Previous Releases

I learn so much with each game release, and I try to make each game better than the last. When making Well Dweller, I focused on a couple of areas based on the feedback I received on Crypt Custodians. The first one deals with the abilities you gain throughout the game. I think Crypt Custodian had some cool abilities, but many of them were not particularly useful outside of ability gates, and I regretted that. So in Well Dweller, every ability is very useful throughout, and completely changes the way you move.

Secondly, I think the world in Well Dweller feels more lived in. I sometimes have the urge to treat areas and biomes in my games as being too separate from each other, but I think in Well Dweller the world makes more sense. All the characters have a purpose and a connecting backstory, and I think the story in general is a lot more well-rounded.

Getting Ready for Release

I'm just really excited to hear what people think and to see the game from a fresh perspective myself. When developing a game, you get a bit too used to it, and it becomes really hard to try and view it from a first-time player's perspective. I'm just really excited to finally have the game out there.

Well Dweller will be out on PC (Steam and GOG) and all major consoles (Nintendo Switch 1 and 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox X|S, Xbox One, as well as Xbox Game Pass). Please add it to your wishlist and check it out on release day, September 22!

Kyle Thompson, Game Developer

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine