The demo for The Well’s Blessing is a sweet and heartfelt adventure in which three friends explore the mystery surrounding the Sanctuary of the Old Well. So much fun!
The Backstory of the Well’s Blessing
I played as Kai, a deer. He had recently lost his job and was returning to the area where he grew up. In particular, he wanted to explore the Sanctuary of the Old Well, located in Geudan National Park. It’s a mystical place; the well has been linked to superstitions about “starting over”. Sadly, the entire area was badly damaged in a fire, but Kai heard that it had recently been restored and wanted to investigate that. I think he’s hoping that the legends are true and he can be given The Well’s Blessing and the chance to start over too.
He met up with two of his old friends, Val and Alex. They hadn’t been together in a while as their lives have taken different paths. But together they embarked on an adventure, and I got to join them.
The Look and Feel of The Well’s Blessing
The Well’s Blessing is a charming first-person exploration. It’s a 3D open-world game, and I was able to explore wherever I wanted. I liked that. But I also felt very subtly guided, and I liked that too. I was given little hints of where I might want to go next. I didn’t have to follow the hints, but I could! I liked the options. The landscape was colorful and kind of spikey! There were definite paths to follow, but I was also able to go off the paths and explore to my heart’s content.
To add to the whimsy of The Well’s Blessing, all of the characters are animals!! Kai is a deer, Val is a cat and Alex is a dog. During my time playing the demo, I encountered a family of pandas, a lone wolf collecting plant specimens and other fun animal characters! I interacted with most of them, and they told me little snippets about themselves. I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more about them in the full game. Geudan National Park seemed like such a special place. There’s even an area in the park where the porta potties are kept!
The Gameplay of The Well’s Blessing
The Well’s Blessing is not a difficult game to master. There’s a lot of walking and a lot of choice. I chose which path I wanted to take and who I wanted to talk to. Once I began conversing with other characters, there were many dialogue choices. With each choice, I learned a bit more about the character, which made The Well’s Blessing very interesting to me. I like characters that develop over time.
The world in the demo is not huge, and it has a lot of very distinct landmarks, so it was easy for me to find my way around. These landmarks included a lighthouse, satellite dish, playground, the Wall of Wind and a monument with antlers. But there is also a map which is nicely detailed. It could be marked up using different colors to show areas of interest, but that’s not a feature I took advantage of. It may become more necessary as the full game progresses.
If the nice map and the distinct landmarks weren’t enough, there were also signposts liberally sprinkled throughout the landscape. I get lost a lot in games, but this game was a breeze for me to navigate.
In The Well’s Blessing, I had no backpack with inventory items to fuss with; there was no day/night cycle, I had no energy levels, and I did not need to eat or sleep. The entire demo was wandering around, exploring and interacting with other characters and objects. It was very relaxing and cozy, with no pressure at all.
Interesting Things in The Well’s Blessing
During my time wandering, I stumbled into the Wall of Winds. As described, it was a windy place; I could hear the wind howling and see the snow blowing. This was a really interesting and mysterious place. It had a number of huge stones, arranged randomly. Each stone had a different symbol carved into it, and when I approached, each stone played a different fragment of a song. I am very curious to see what they are all about. Will they combine to make one song? I guess I have to wait for the full game to find out!
There are also blue phones scattered about in The Well’s Blessing. When I used one, I was connected to a help desk. The staff member seemed to be there just to give me hints of what to do next. I loved how the devs turned a hints feature into a funny and real part of the game. At one point in my conversation with the help desk, before I was given a hint, I was asked: “Are you sure? This might spoil the fun of the journey”. Ha. I did not choose to hear that hint and indeed continued my journey instead.
And there is something going on with crows. We saw a very unusual formation of crows flying and are anxious to figure that out. So many mysteries to solve in The Well’s Blessing!
Final Thoughts
There was a lot to love about The Well’s Blessing. And there were so many fun details which I encountered but did not have the space to write about. These include but are not limited to 2 people at the park who are communicating via Post-it notes on a tree, a lazy park ranger napping on a bench and a really cool mural on a rock which hints at a puzzle to solve. I highly encourage you to try the demo out for yourself; you can play the first chapter. The prologue, 3 additional chapters and the epilogue will be in the full game. At this point, the demo does not have a save feature, but one will be added soon. The demo should take an hour, give or take.
I had a few questions as I played the game, so I reached out to the dev on Discord. I received a very complete reply soon after. I’m always impressed with game devs who are very responsive to players. To me, it indicates that they are committed to developing an excellent game and want to make sure the players have the best possible experience with it. So Bravo to Big Stretch, the game devs for The Well’s Blessing. The game actually started as a solo-dev thesis project in 2023. But the dev continued to work on it and slowly added some very creative friends to the team. This is their first commercial project as Big Stretch, and I wish them all the best.
The demo for The Well’s Blessing is available on Steam; it should be released sometime in 2027.
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