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A sandstorm rages
through the desert
as a small robot
navigates its way
towards a looming
mountain. Deep
within the caverns
lies a colossal creature, dwelling in
the darkness before its next victim
enters its lair. As the robot ventures
through the mouth of the mountain,
an ear-piercing metallic scream
echoes from the depths. The creature
is awake, and knows you have arrived.
In Flight School Studio’s Creature In
The Well, you play as the last BOT-C
unit, a robot that has been given the
task of restoring power to a machine
in hopes of stopping the never-
ending sandstorm that ravages the
world. The facility you seek lies deep
underground, and to get to it you need
to clear dungeons and survive tricky
encounters with the immense boney
beast who is trying to stop you.
Creature In The Well is like no other
dungeon-crawler I have played. Its
electrifying pinball mechanics do
separate it from others, but its true
strength lies in creating a world
shrouded in a mist of mysticism.
The mountain, the machine and the
monster are all threads of a larger
tapestry that I want to unravel
to the point where even if
the creature kills me time
and time again, I always
go back. I need to know
who the creature is,
what the facility does
and how to energise the
mechanical heart of a
mysterious mountain.
To repair the machine
and find out what happened to
the civilisation that was previously
there, you have to restore power to
eight sections of the machine which
are hidden at the end of the eight
dungeons that can be accessed
through the mountain’s home area
called the Temple. Each dungeon is
constructed from a number of pinball
puzzle rooms. The chambers test your
reflexes, puzzle-solving abilities and
skills that require the player to storeup energy and then unleash it in a
blast of electricity.Controlling chaos
At first, the bouncing balls seem
chaotic, bouncing off bumpers,
ricocheting off the walls, triggering
lasers and activating painful
electrical shockwaves – it’s
an electrifying chaotic
frenzy. But with the right
weapons and upgrades,
you can begin to
harness that energy and
control the messy chaos.
Having the skills to catch,
charge and hit the balls
quickly and precisely feels
very monk-like, and you even wear
a tattered cloak to complete the look.
There’s no time for meditation
though, as you need to keep your
wits about you. As you explore the
mechanical catacombs, the creature
stalks you from the depths, its
eyes bright, and glowing. With each
dungeon completed, you begin to
learn more about the machine’s
purpose and the engineers that
created it. Control panels in the facilitycontain stored information concerning
the engineers who were building the
machine. But as you discover the
secrets of this mountain, the god
of this mechanical world becomes
angrier, and at the end of each trial is
a boss battle scenario where it pulls
you into the darkness and you must
defend yourself from its attacks.
It’s the creature’s confrontations
that make my yearning for the game’s
secrets stronger. It’s a David and
Goliath situation and I believe I can
win. I have yet to discover all the
answers that surround the lore of the
mountain so, until then, I will keep
returning to the depths. The pull of its
alluring mysteries is too strong. Qextra
“As you explore the catacombs, the
creature stalks you from the depths,
its eyes bright, and glowing”
Creature In The Well has fused mysticism with technology
to create a story of a robot’s dangerous pilgrimage RACHEL WATTS
PUBLISHER FLIGHT SCHOOL STUDIO / DEVELOPER FLIGHT SCHOOL STUDIO / FORMAT XBOX ONE / RELEASE DATE SEPTEMBER 2019WHAT IS IT?
A pinball-inspired
dungeon-crawler where
a robot must overcome
a colossal creature’s
trials to restore an
ancient machine.More Xbox news at gamesradar.com/oxm THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE 099