I’m flabbergasted at how good Downwell is. It’s so unpretentious in its design—both in terms of gameplay and presentation—that I didn’t expect to be sinking more than a few minutes at a time into it. But this deceptively simple action-fest has a way of eating up hours.
Like a true classic, Downwell is easy to learn and hard to master. The basic elements are simple. You only have to use three keys to play the game. One dashes right, another dashes left, and the third makes you jump. Ah, but here’s the best part. When you hit the jump key again in midair, you activate your gunboots.
Your gunboots can be equipped with a number of different types of ammunition and attachments. You’ll find new ones periodically in the forcefield-enclosed safezones and shops that you come across during your descent. Gunboots are immensely fun to use (and it’s fun to say).
Falling doesn’t kill you in this game; other living things do. Various creatures hover, fly, hop, climb, shuffle, and slither up and down the world-tunnel; most are out to get you, but some just get in your way. The game’s vertical world is procedurally generated, so you’ll never experience exactly the same ecosystem or tunnel layout twice. That increases Downwell’s potential lifespan from forever to forever+.
Downwell achieves a perfect game-feel through its unique blend of graspability, juiciness, sense of discovery, responsiveness of controls, cohesiveness of design, consistency of style, and sheer speed. One of the year’s best, hands-down.
Downwell (for Windows) is a steal at $2.99. It’s also on iOS.
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