Well Dweller Steam Demo Review
Verdict: Play
A dark fairy-tale metroidvania where a shift-bubble launch will swear you out of the run until it clicks, and a scissors
I almost quit several times. There is a bubble mechanic where you jump into it, press shift, and it fires you off in a direction. In theory that is clever. In practice I was getting launched the wrong way into enemies, off platforms, into spikes, and into walls. I swore at the game a lot. Then I got it right, landed exactly where I needed to be, and felt clever enough that I kept on playing. Well Dweller is a dark fairy-tale Metroidvania from Kyle Thompson, the solo dev behind Crypt Custodian and Islets, published by Top Hat Studios. You are Glimmer, a tiny bird armed with a matchstick. My verdict is Play.
Well Dweller is a play if you want a dark fairy-tale metroidvania with stunning art and a matchstick-wielding bird worth rooting for. Expect to swear at the bubble first, cheese a boss from an overhang second, and still come away wanting the full kingdom. Try the demo on normal if Crypt Custodian and Islets already sold you on Kyle Thompson's style. Wishlist it for 2026 on PC or Switch.
Pros
- Hand-drawn art gives the rotten kingdom real weight
- Demo opening sells family stakes fast without over-explaining
- Bubble launches feel great once the timing finally clicks
- Matchstick combat and wall launches open routes cleanly
- Deaths on normal felt explainable even when the run was hard
Cons
- Gardener boss can be overhang-cheesed once you find the safe spot
- Normal difficulty still punishes if metroidvanias are not your genre
Family, art, and the demo's opening
The demo starts with quiet storytelling work in a small amount of time. Your mother is ill in bed. You take your brothers and sisters out to find food from the hunter's cabin. The art is hand-drawn, dark, and detailed, in a way that makes the world feel like it has weight.
This is a Metroidvania map you read in every direction. Plenty of Platformer puzzles sit between timed jumps, bubble launches, and the usual genre tension of seeing a route you cannot reach yet.
Matchstick, molotov, slide, and the bubble fight
Your matchstick is your weapon for hitting enemies, and it can be fired into walls to reach high platforms. You unlock a molotov cocktail later on. The slide ability gets you under obstacles and makes you invincible for a short period, which is why I used it more for combat than navigation once I understood what I was doing.
The bubble is the skill check. Jump in, press shift, get fired off. I launched into enemies, off ledges, into spikes. I almost stopped. When it finally clicked, the Platformer rhythm felt earned rather than arbitrary.
Safe points are wizard hats on the map where your siblings wait. They also heal you and let you equip trinkets. Only a couple of trinkets appear in the demo, but the system is clearly building towards something bigger in the full game.
Boss cheese, difficulty, and what is coming
The boss in the demo is a creepy gardener with scissors for legs. I got his timing wrong repeatedly, then found overhangs where two of his attacks could not reach me and spent the rest of the fight hiding there and poking him. Not my finest moment, but it worked.
On normal I found it hard. I am not very good at Metroidvanias, and I learned that quickly. The Discord had people speed-running it on hard. Even so, difficulty on normal felt fair in the way good games in this genre do: when I died, I knew why. You meet odd characters along the way, including a sad clown figure trying to recover a loot bag from the hunter's house. The Adventure tone lands even when the Platformer sections are making you swear.
Looking at trailers for what comes later in the full game, the bosses look genuinely good, and I am excited to see where this one goes. Full release is planned for 2026 on PC and Nintendo Switch.
Game Info
- Developer
- Kyle Thompson
- Publisher
- Kyle Thompson, Top Hat Studios, Inc.
- Released
- 22 September 2026
- Full game
- Out now ($19.99)
- Platform
- PC
- Multiplayer
- No
- Controller
- Yes
- Playtime
- 1h 10min
Watch the video review: YouTube
Tags: Metroidvania, Platformer, Adventure, Indie, Horror, Action, Cute, Exploration
Appears in
- Best Game Demos April 2026: April was a good month for demos. I played through more than I expected to and these five stood out. Different genres, different styles, all worth downloading.
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