Does Animal Well WANT Us To Cheat?

There is a fairly significant amount of content hidden in the walls of Animal Well that is all seemingly inaccessible without cheating. There's also an item in the game, also in a seemingly-inaccessible location, that allows us to further cheat, and eventually corrupt, the game. Is this somehow intentional?
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#animalwell #secrets #ending

[@DAN-gf3qx]

fun fact, the dachshund dog (the one who chases you on the little tunel), can actually hurt you while you fly with the ring, making him the most powerfull being in animal well.

[@boblobgobstopper13214]

Wiener dog solos fiction

[@FuryForged]

The most terrifying beasty

[@JamesTDG]

What about the manticore

[@sunla]

My hare-brained guess is (now this would be amazing if it actually happens): the corruption values somehow point to a date we can expect a game update to take place, and this update makes the special room accessible legitimately, and the cheaters ring is replaced with the magic ring again, and the game no longer corrupts when fully explored, but the hidden bunnies and room buttons, as well as songs for each animal, triggers a *final* (and functional/corruptionless) endgame. And with that, all save files with the cheaters ring are locked out of this. I feel like doing this would make everything flow together harmoniously in a way that makes these loose ends 'make sense'. Kudos to Billy Basso, this game is an artistic masterpiece. Also, the UV lighting revealing hidden secrets reminded me a lot of my ocean dragon painting, "Glimmering Seabed" - I feel sentimental about that piece. (I have a timelapse of the painting process, and it hits a similar vibe) He absolutely nailed the UV paint colors, and the way light reflects off fluorescent objects. The game is the most beautiful work of art, I just can't explain how much I love it.

[@alittar8062]

@@sunla No major updates are planned, according to billy himself. I doubt we'll get an update to add something like this.

[@alittar8062]

My theory behind the extra bunnies is it was designed as a small extra layer of datamine protection from BDTP. If you pick up any of them, you cant do it. So you'd somehow have to know exactly which 16 bunnies are legit (or even know theres exactly 16 to collect). It was likely intended to make a small delay to anyone trying to datamine out BDTP to be too late to the community solving it first. If that was the goal, it worked. When we were at 14 bunnies, someone began using cheat engine to teleport and found these bunnies but could not do BDTP anymore and we couldn't use that info to help us. We then figured out all 16 bunnies legit, and despite those cheaters trying, they could not figure out BDTP using it.

[@beef6299]

this actually makes a lot of sense, you may be right about this. The strange thing to me is the one cheater bunny with the flame room warp song. Billy must have wanted this to be found out at some point if he expected the time capsule to be solved. I love how cryptic this game is!

[@TurtleKwitty]

@@beef6299 Has to be specifically to make dataminers think it's a legit bunny I twould think

[@kukukachu]

If that was the case, than why does the ring reward you instead of punish you?

[@Boommage4489]

@@kukukachu Probably because Billy wants us to continue exploring this game and that some of the deepest secrets require some level of cheating.

[@EviGL]

Talking animals though must be connected to something. I also wonder how exactly collecting those disables BDTP and why couldn't this difference be also datamined.

[@autonomousanonymous6310]

You take the blue pill, the game ends, you exit to your steam library and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the Animal Well goes...

[@the_most_ever_company]

Layer 1 -- 4 flames -- standard ending Layer 2 -- 64 eggs -- true ending Layer 3 -- bunnies -- secret wings Layer 4 -- unicode secrets -- secret message Layer 5 -- cheating -- ???

[@Ohdangit930]

Ijh

[@nitefly99]

Great comment

[@Im49th]

Let’s just be grateful that Billy removed the dialogue from the main game. Can you imagine going up to every animal and they are like, “I like bananas”. 100% the right decision.

[@ivanyordanov36]

Honestly, I think Billy put all this to fuck with us after we have already complete the sheer insanity of the main puzzles so that we can think there is just one more thing to do in the game

[@Jaymic]

It's more common than you think. Remember the Furtive Pendant from Dark Souls? I think the Tunic ARG just sorta faded because its way more interesting than the dev coming out and saying "yeah you found it all". The potential that there may be just one more thing drives people to continue buying it I guess.

[@MaraMash]

I swear babe it's not what it looks like, Animal Well told me to cheat on you so I could get a shiny ring!

[@KeithSammut]

LMAO

[@FuryForged]

Oh boy

[@connorlego5229]

To me, the cheater’s ring previously having a normal name and being in the beta kind of implies that at one point it was meant to be normally obtainable, but then was later removed (probably replaced with the moth form, judging from how both are game-breaking upgrades related to flight) but the dev decided to rename it and leave it in at a place only cheaters and glitch exploiters could find

[@TurtleKwitty]

And the easy code that used to be there was for Billy testing the game without needing to go through everythign everytime just cheat your way there

[@La0bouchere]

Seems reasonable, however it's very strange to have a huge window into an inaccessible room in a game like this. It's also strange to leave a no-clip button in the game at all, especially in a room that every player will know about and want to get to. If it's just a throwaway easter egg for cheaters, why not have it in the walls like the bunnies?

[@connorlego5229]

@@La0bouchere Probably to make people actually try to get in there, assuming there’s nothing that gets you in there glitchless, it’s like the title of this video says, the developer expects you to cheat, using the window as bait to do so. (Or more accurately, the dev expects you to use glitches)

[@Handles_are_garbage]

Could be debug items

[@macyyyyyyyyyyy]

i remember in dunkeys video billy said that early on in development the animals talked but then he realised that animals dont talk, so its likely just the animals that didnt make it to the final game put in random spots

[@citricdemon]

Yeah that's probably part of it

[@michasokoowski6651]

Except, there is a talking frog you can find by using the top

[@SantiagoArizti]

Dunkey says “in fact all the dialog in this game is buried underground”

[@blackyonbi]

Why not removing them at all ? Even as an optimization pov , you'd get rid of these ideas or put them behind an actual debug mode.

[@macyyyyyyyyyyy]

@@blackyonbi the game is like 30mb, and its just fun Easter eggs to have

[@OwlScowling]

On a Reddit AMA, someone asked Billy if there was a legitimate way to reach "Snail Island" and Billy said "No comment." That could imply there is a way we haven't found. Or that there isn't a way and he does intend us to cheat and that there's something hidden in the corrupted save. The numbers of the health, firecrackers, eggs, etc all seem peculiar. I wonder if that spells out a flute code?

[@Disorder2312]

I mean, what if cheating is a "legitimate way". That would explain why you would answer "no comment" instead of just "yes" or "no"

[@TurtleKwitty]

Was thinking "Sounds like specific eggs... new egg song?" yeah haha

[@Tree3D]

That's a cool idea, what if the 17 eggs you have unlocked gives you a new song to play when you go back to the egg room

[@chara_white]

yeah a cheat code like konami code that puts you inside that room

[@Solrex_the_Sun_King]

Yeah we need to document all 17 combinations

[@Pikaman20008]

I remember The Binding of Isaac had this special puzzle that was meant to require several players working together to solve… and some guy solved it in a day by datamining. Billy probably added the fake bunnies to avoid that exact scenario.

[@zebefreod871]

It was the unlock for "the lost" character, they datamined the flags starting from the sprite. That's why in the subsequent updateds the devs added some fake images to red herring any data miner.

[@pedroff_1]

​@@zebefreod871Also locked that update's secret challenge character (Keeper) behind an ARG for the community to solve, so it'd be andded on an update. Since its code wasn't even physically in the game, it was impossible to datamine. It had to be unlocked by everyone participating in the ARG

[@MMM67-u5m]

The sheep is actually reachable without Cheaters Ring. *Spoilers warning* In the Animal Well discord, someone found that there is actually another challenge similar to 'the floor is lava' challenge. You need to stand on top of the giant bunny temple and then plunge into a body of water

[@gmdFrame]

What's giant bunny temple?

[@gamingtime4835]

@@gmdFrameplay the game some more 💕 (wholeheartedly)

[@AzweeeL]

So there may be a way to go to all of them or at least pushing those three pink buttons without cheating, damn it's so exciting

[@gmdFrame]

@@gamingtime4835 no, I've completed the entire game and got every bunny (even the fake ones) . I made a typo or misunderstood the comment because I don't think that you can jump into any water from the bunny temple where you obtain the wings.

[@-ZH]

@@gmdFrame Ngl, never played the game, but can’t you fly by that point?

[@rockleesmile]

I have another take, and I'm thinking this is genuinely a viable answer... possibly the "Cheaters Ring" is simply a troubleshooting and dev tool and there's a teleport point to it that only the dev knows. They may have dressed it up knowing that players will eventually find it anyway, so it adds another potential layer of speculation and mystery, but largely it was just there for functional reasons. The extra animals may have been additional tasks or puzzles that got scrapped along the way in dev work and they just left them in as fun bits to discover once you've unraveled the whole game. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if there WAS some extra thing around them, but knowing how devs work, they're constantly creating and abandoning ideas as the project takes shape. Sometimes it's easier to leave things alone so they don't break other things if they're removed. As far as the corruption goes? Yeah maybe to protect against dataminers but it's really hard to say. I mean, it could just be there to give another red herring to keep people obsessing ad infinitum thinking there's always one more mountain to climb. It's really tempting to latch on to all those juicy numbers at the end (matches, eggs, etc) and try to start spiraling into new ideas for things to try, but the game does have to end SOMEWHERE, right?

[@devinspencer1678]

The fact that there is exactly one more wall than the array can handle really makes it seem like it's not an accident.

[@sandwichboy1268]

Makes it seem like those secret walls were never actually intended to all be opened. Like the spike room, having a door out makes the bunny seem more legit, which obfuscates which bunnies are real or cheat bunnies

[@idlegameplayer3756]

i'm 99% sure it's not intentional. the values get corrupted into different things based on the console you play on, and the order you open all the other doors.

[@JohnSmith-sk7cg]

@@idlegameplayer3756 I'm 99% sure it's absolutely intentional. There is no reason to set up the array to be that small unless you were done with game development and trying to optimize at the end of development to the extreme. I could see something like this happening on a large team or with a 3rd party engine since knowledge of the code is incomplete for each engineer, but a solo dev who made their own engine knows the entire code-base intimately and in its entirety. This means that making a mistake like this would be both unlikely, and trivially easy to patch if it did happen. It both exists and hasn't been patched which makes this almost certainly intentional. The buffer overflow producing different results on different consoles is expected with a buffer overflow since the software libraries/compilers handle RAM differently between them.

[@idlegameplayer3756]

@@JohnSmith-sk7cg even taking what you said at face value, it just doesn't make sense for it to be anything meaningful, or the first clue to some hidden next layer. the fact that it's been so long since the game released and the only hint that this supposed "next layer" exists is some shaky evidence doesn't make me hopeful, especially given the fact that the time capsule has a very clear feeling of finality and that there's been absolutely no dev hints to look deeper. i think the killing blow to this argument, though, is that in these types of meta puzzle games, the devs are usually VERY quick to patch meaningful hints that are different between consoles. otherwise, you're locking out 75% of your player base from finding the next puzzles. it would be like if in super meat boy the only way you could unlock dark world levels was by playing on xbox.

[@JohnSmith-sk7cg]

@@idlegameplayer3756 To be fair, that could be part of a community arg. I don't think this is the case simply because it didn't release on all platforms at the same time. Similar to how [spoilers below] You can't collect one of the bunnies on your own as everyone gets a small piece of the picture.

[@codesymphony]

13:48 Absolutely can't be a coincidence that there's 9 blocks in the background near this secret. I like to think that a lot of these could just be leftover ideas and assets of previous versions of the game, and he's intentionally left them in as homage and/or to just mess with us for discovering them. Fun seeing more stuff being discovered either way. I don't want this game to end

[@panampace]

I’ve seen a lot of people speculating about that, that same background structure is in several more locations.

[@Nick-Rutten]

The cheater bunnies to me seem like a form of encryption to ensure the big bunny island directions could not be datamined. A red herring to obscure which bunnies are legitimately obtainable. However very interesting if there could be a 5th layer with the cheater ring...

[@EviGL]

Maybe but hidden speaking animals with different dialog can't be random it has to mean something.

[@arbust8]

This definitely seems to be the reason to why they exist, especially considering the spiky corridor that one of the cheater bunnies has. From a cheater's POV that would look like a legitimate challenge included in the base game experience

[@Coffeeplease69420]

wait, there's a fifth layer? I ONLY KNEW ABOUT THE THIRD ONE. What's the fourth layer, then?

[@goom4689]

I like the theory that the ring is a challenge from the dev to see if players can break into a spot that has no intended solution.

[@DrEnzyme]

I've been making games for a while, I can't speak for Billy Basso, but a lot of secrets like this exist because instead of removing things it can sometimes be easier to "plaster over" them. E.g. instead of removing the buried city in WoW, you kind of just push it out of the world and build a new city on top. Similarly, If you had an array of removable walls and were moving these around the world as you were doing your level design, you might decide that instead of deleting leftover removable walls at the end and screwing up the ordering of the array, you might just move the walls you don't need somewhere that can't be accessed. The data corruption may have just be an unintentional side effect of moving the walls like this, and Billy left it in because it's kind of a neat coincidence that only happens when you cheat. Or they did it on purpose, which is genius. Other secrets exist because when you're testing your game you want to have quick and easy access to certain things. The cheat ring probably exists just as a quick in-game way of getting around the world, hence why it's been in the game since the start. Billy probably had an easy way of adding this item to their inventory with a keyboard shortcut and when it came time to ship the game they simply removed the shortcut instead of removing the ring (software developers are lazy like this and we love it). Other secrets exist because the dev made something and had to cut it but didn't want to waste the work they put in, so they'll move it somewhere you're not supposed to go and leave it in as an easter egg. The hidden animals might be something like that. In the end, most devs *WANT* you to find these cool details. It's sort of like a little hidden message that the dev is leaving for you. "Our little secret" if you will.

[@Quenlin]

A good chunk of "playable" content in a game not available to the player might also be a really hacky way of handling things. For example, in the Japanese version of Final Fantasy Tactics, everyone's name in dialog includes their job class, which is why you can hack in "jobs" that are held by characters who only appear in cutscenes. A more well-known one is Imoen's Belt in Baldur's Gate 2, which actually renders the wearer unkillable, this however is a rather redundant item as there are far easier (and less visible) ways to prevent a character from dying but to say BG2 is coded like shit is an understatement.

[@MortonGoldthwait]

I thought I was special for finding the Groveling Toad on my own. Then I see this.

[@Dusty_Doggo]

Everyone is talking about the implications of the secret animals and corrupted save, but is no one talking about what the cheater’s ring implies!?! DUDE, OUR BLOB HAS FINGERS.

[@sunla]

More accurate: he IS the finger (a little caterpillar! He's a Mexican jumping bean, AKA a teeny moth caterpillar in a seed pod)

[@ItsActuallyThisWide]

then how he holds the bubbles wand and how he throws the disc.

[@TheSolBlader]

Cock ring

[@bobbycorwen]

@@sunla I love this theory! And is now canon for me.

[@likecnsnnts]

So if you didn't break one of the 'normal' walls earlier in the game, you could press all 3 pink buttons without any issue? It's the overflow of the 17th wall in a 16 wall array that corrupts the save?

[@FuryForged]

Yup. You just have to refrain from opening one of the other, "legit," walls.

[@3laserbeam3]

Do you get the max health buff when doing this? Or is that a side effect of the save file corrupting itself?

[@likecnsnnts]

@@3laserbeam3 The Max health comes from the corruption. But I wonder if the corruption is different depending upon which wall overflows? Or if it changes anything that the pink buttons are activated on a non-bricked save...

[@maudjito]

@@FuryForged Wait, this sucks. So that means that the corruption will be different depending on which one is your 17th wall.

[@potato4dawin1]

Time to start documenting all wall combos. Lol

[@krysidian]

I'm still so obsessed about all that glass strewn throughout the game, seemingly random. It often doesn't feel like it "fits" into the scenery and is just there as a utility block or an obstacle. And the unreachable island blocked by glass solidifies that even more. So I was surprised when it was said there was no way to "break the glass" in the AMA. I still think there is something with this glass. I always speculated on phasing through that and I guess with the ring that's possible. I just wonder if there is anything to all that glass before. Even the Manticores breaking that specific kind of glass felt like a hint when I first played. I thought maybe we could either bring a manticore up into the well or get a similar laser ability but all that doesn't seem to be the case.

[@Jaymic]

I got the second Manticore to follow me pretty far because I wasn't ready for it and was trying to retreat. If you just keep running and don't use warps it just keeps following you until it kills you I think. Same thing with the cat ghost, I initially thought you had to take the mock disk to the K Medal door which caused me so much pain trying to run from one spot to another with the cat in pursuit.

[@aaronrosenberg1769]

After much effort, I got a manticore to that room. Its lasers do nothing to that glass wall. So disappointed.

[@metaKnightSpamer777]

I have been trying to do a 'no Permanent items' run, (not even the map, fire crackers, or such), and with 1 potential exception, (the place that 'normally' requires bubble & disk), I THINK you might be able to get all the matches, & light all the candles; (keys & doors maybe to, but that's a whole other thing) The only Main Item I can use is The Disk, (since it is not permanent) & with ghost dog chasing me, which makes things difficult... (hesitant to pick up the mock-disk) I just unfortunately, lack the digital dexterity required to pull it off; that room near the chameleon with the 3 shadows... it is hypothetically possible to use the disk to make it to the candle there while avoiding the shadows AND ghost dog, but I just can't do it; crazy secrets sometimes require very unorthodox playstyles, & the fact that this 'no Permanent items' run can possibly achieve something like All Candles has gotten stuck in my head;

[@alittar8062]

The final mantacore room has a door requiring yoyo, and the final fight needs slinky. You can skip lantern with 12 HP just barely. The other option is to bubble warp using bubble wand and animal flute, at 2 items. The true ending is the same using bubble warp, but without major glitches, 7 items is likely possible (bouncy ball, wheel, remote, top, flute, yoyo, bubble wand)

[@metaKnightSpamer777]

@@alittar8062 The flute would also require eggs to be on your inv; screen, but I thank you for the requirement summary;

[@indo1354]

Would not be surprised that there is a 5th layer to this game. Couple theory’s I have are 1 the corruption is actually a code, it seems so oddly specific to get all of those numbers. Question now is what order is the code and where do we use it? The corrupted bunnies are possibly also hiding a new path way with their ears as well but yet again where and in what order.

[@eater9494]

this is really specific but the whole "layers" thing about this game genuinely triggers my thalassophobia somehow . it fills me with the exact same dread as imagining the feeling of being in the middle of the deep ocean...

[@eater9494]

and it's a kind of dread i haven't felt since i found out about gaster in UNDERTALE through KZbin videos in 2016

[@thisfortheboys]

I subscribed for this. The animals being played songs to change their dialouge blew my mind. Why cant we get more games as complete as this one?

[@ProjectPi]

This game is mind blowing! Billy Basso made an all time classic literally by himself! Take notes gaming industry....

[@FeebleCatSoup]

I just realized the flower you come out of are the same shape as the fruit you eat

[@piisfun]

This feels like a combination of factors... The buttons and animals feel like content that was planned but later abandoned. Though it is interesting that those buttons should be pink, unlike the other buttons. Rather than discard the unused content, they just buried it in game for people to find. The same goes for the fox. The out-of-bounds bunnies definitely feel like they were put there as a trap to prevent cheaters from getting first clears on the end game content, though. Especially if they are mixed in such that data miners have to know to skip them. That would very much be a "I don't mind you cheating, but not competitively" thing to do. The overflow triggered by those buttons is extremely easy to guard against from a programming perspective (simply by putting a watchdog method to protect against overruns), so most likely they, too, were converted from unused content to a countermeasure to prevent cheaters from clearing the game first. Can the manticore break the glass blocking the island?

[@EugeneYunak]

no it can’t. it’s a different kind of glass

[@burtcolk]

I can't shake the feeling that this game is partially inspired by the 1985 "Alice in Wonderland" for the Commodore 64 (and its predecessor Below The Root). Many details big and small have parallels, and I've noticed a couple of comments scattered around the web that show I'm not the only one who's made this connection. (Plus "Animal Well" = "Rabbit Hole"!) In that game you collect a few little songs, and in some places you have to play the right song to the right character at the right time. These hidden animals who speak in short cryptic sentences, respond to being played music, and in one case explicitly ask for a lullaby REALLY remind me of Alice in Wonderland. I don't have the patience to delve into the world of frame-perfect warps and corrupted saves so I'm not going to do this myself, but I would love for someone to try playing them the tunes from that game. (At one point I did try playing the main title music from the Alice game, but nothing happened.) The lullaby in Alice in Wonderland is "Shut your beaks" and you sing it to some birds in a nest to get them to go to sleep so you can pass them.

[@Tracequaza]

just noticed something interesting, the save corruption button glitch reminds me of a glitch in super metroid you can do called the spacetime beam: with frame perfect timing you can equip the plasma beam and spazer beam at the same time (normally the game doesn't let you). using a certain combination of other beams and shooting it lets you fire off a beam that essentially resets all progress in the game including item pickups and door/room triggers but lets you keep all the items you currently have: for health upgrades it means you can get more health than you should have at maximum. the interesting part for me is that when you fire off the beam the game also similarly lags for a sec. May or may not be intentional but I think it's an interrsting connection: most likely though it's just a similar coding process happening like you described

[@im_fine_im_fine]

when you pressed the last button it jumpscares me with an add

[@xHarpua]

So happy when I saw this. I miss when all the animal well videos were popping up & people were figuring out secrets

[@powerless_imp0682]

Well, in dunkey’s announcement video for the release of the game he has an interview with Billy where he says that he originally had the animals talking and telling you what to do but then he wanted to “make the game more realistic” so he ended up hiding the dialogue later because animals don’t talk. Maybe it’s worth going through that video

[@blue_birb]

13:17 you have no clue how much I thought about that specific wall you have no idea

[@-MysticMayhem-]

I feel as though this is actually layer 6, as it seems to be the most secret of the layers. I believe the layers go as follows: 1. Flames 2. Eggs and Secret Ending 3. Rabbits and Rabbit Shrine 4. Unicode 5. Figurines 6. Cheating

[@inasuma8180]

i like how billy basso included honey pot bunnies to punish you for cheating lol

[@will2998]

14:52 Sounds to me like you gotta unlock a specific 'last door' to corrupt the save file in an intended way lol

[@peterpeladon]

Wait, hold on, doesn't that mean each of the 17 walls would cause a different corruption!? Could it be you can hit those three buttons safely if you can skip at least one wall?

[@alexielouisl.8462]

You know there's one thing that bugs me with this whole thing. Like getting into the snail island does require a genuine use of glitches, but past that point? You get a baked in item that allows you to noclip, which leads you to discover secret NPCs with a sense of direction, which then leads you to find secret bunnies with buttons in the same room? Getting to snail island might not be intended but past that, it is all designed, I agree wholeheartedly with what you said because this does feel like it is something! I wonder if getting all the normal bunnies after the corruption does anything, I suspect it wouldn't since you'd basically be re-filling the modified counters. I think we're looking at something that was a work in progress with that bug in mind. Anyway throwing thoughts at the wall won't change anything, I have yet to finish the third layer, so I can't test those assumptions rn lmao but maybe sometime

[@La0bouchere]

Another thing that's strange is he's patched some of the glitches used to get into that room, but hasn't patched the wheel glitch (and it'd be fairly easy to fix it). Seems like he's intentionally leaving in the hardest way to get to that room.

[@mrusi29]

I was waiting for this video! I didn’t even realize the dialogue changing or the fact that you get 20 hearts. Also didn’t imagine it could be a layer 5 but that’s exciting. Was awesome to see. Thanks for showing us in such detail for those who didn’t want to risk it ourselves. Was going to suggest collecting all the eggs again and of course you’re already doing it. Love to hear that. Excited for your figurine video once the collectors edition drops and also excited with any and all updates with the cheaters ring.

[@TheRandomLurker]

So, the 3 pink buttons causing corruption because the array is too small, what if you start a new game and *only* open those three walls by getting the cheater's ring as fast as possible, while avoiding doing anything else?

[@zebefreod871]

Judging by other comments it won't corrupt the game until you open more than 16 wall. It's opening the 17th one that f-up the code.

[@gabrielbenini4064]

More animal well secrets discovered? Gotta leave school

[@luma8895]

There's something else that I find quite weird about the cheated bunnies, which might be intentional or a bugged oversight. Either way, you are able to reach the Time Capsule without ever reaching the Bunny Temple by doing the BDTP code into two TC codes on a bricked save, which makes me wonder if there are more islands that still have yet to be found in the game's code or assets and require the cheated bunnies or save corruption. After this too however, you're also able to reach the Time Capsule several times over from the Time Capsule island itself by doing the TC code again with some small variations, such as going left from the start of the first capsule two extra times when doing the code again. Sometimes you even reach the Time Capsule within two rooms of each other.

[@grindhardt]

this video blew my mind like 100 different times. cannot wait for the next update. godspeed, Fury.

[@tingliestlasagna2495]

i wonder if 8:43 would scare someone who never played elden ring

[@Rowlet_Is_Kinda_Cool]

I have no clue what it is, but it’s definitely a little creepy

[@cah137-y4s]

As someone who _has_ played Elden Ring, it still momentarily scared me.

[@someperson8984]

it did

[@mixingcat5213]

So what's that? It legit made me jump

[@thegr8hatty]

scared the shit out of me and I've played the game a ton

[@beejay2525]

So I did this about a week ago, and when I played the flute for the sloth (i believe it was clockwise about 4 rotations starting from the 1 position) I was suddenly unable to take any action, the room started shaking, and my controller buzzed for ~2 seconds, similar to a secret door being opened. Since i couldn’t move I wasn’t able to tell what door was being opened and it was after I had already corrupted the data. I still haven’t figured out what happened. But I’m tempted to do a normal runthrough and try playing the flute in all the animal rooms and see if I can get it to happen again without corrupt data

[@sunla]

That is so weird! Any update on this?

[@GabrielACGama]

I think this is totally intentional and Billy just created this layer to be sure not all secrets would be discovered really fast.

[@Enlightenment0172]

I think the values you get after overflow aren't for layer 5. They aren't consistent between overflows. Switch player, overflow gives 13 keys, 8 matches, 21 eggs, and 11 max firecrackers. Steps went back in-bounds less than a second after. Did it again in a different order. Only +3 hearts, steps stayed in-bounds. 3 keys, 3 matches, 19 eggs, 5 matches but not maxed.

[@IRules2244]

I like to think they are intentional (the bunnies. Not the animals) Also, are we sure the bunnies prevent the bunny temple? The code is based on the direction of bunny ears, what if the code is dynamic and changes with each bunny you collect. More bunnies = more ears = more code. Just my theory, I would test it if I knew how the original BDTP was found.

[@timob1681]

the directions of the bunny ears make up the order and the directions of the code. right is 0, down is 1, left is 2, up is 3, and then that's encoded into binary. for example, if a bunny points its left ear up and its right ear right, that makes the code "30". in binary, "3" is actually "11", so you get "1100" which is 12. the next positions of the ears are just the directions you need to go in. so if it points its left ear down, and its right ear to the right, you will need to go down, then right. doing this for all of the bunnies results in a code with 32 directions, indexed from 0 to 15. the issue with adding more bunnies to the equation is that there's only so many possible combinations you can get from the ears being encoded to values between 0 and 3. if both ears point up, you get an index of "1111" or 15, which is the maximum index it's possible to get with this setup. it wouldn't be possible to encode more than 16 values using the same cypher, so it's safe to assume it does lock you out of reaching the temple. in addition, the time capsule code is unrelated to the directions of the bunny ears, so it wouldn't make sense for that to also be locked if your theory was correct.

[@rodomify7681]

@@timob1681 The time capsule path starts at the bunny temple, so getting extra bunnies only locks it because the bunny temple is locked.

[@alittar8062]

We are 100% sure they lock you out of BDTP because the system used to make BDTP caps at 16 bunnies. There is no way with the system to use a 17th or higher bunny. this is because it is base 4, at 2 digits (each ear, each cardinal direction). Base 4 at two digits caps at 0-15, or 16 total.

[@timob1681]

@@rodomify7681 still, there is no way to have more than 16 indexes encoded with the BDTP cypher

[@partywumpus5267]

Yes they lock you out, you need to have the *exact* right bunnies or the code that spawns it doesn't work

[@Skullzi]

I think this game is just trying to play off that community ARG style mystery solving that Notia is known for. The mysteries in that game are insane.

[@kbtiest]

i got jumpscared 8:45

[@quangan1288]

I remember the sheep when I was traveling through the pipe but holy crop I’m startled that they are actual beings rather than backgrounds…

[@MrBgood]

Fury, are you going to make a video about the two clocks and stuff that i assume is related to speedrunning? Also, is there any discover about the buried frog?

[@FuryForged]

I am, but I've been holding off on it because there are a couple figurines that we can't legitimately obtain yet and I'm sorta on the fence about whether or not I want to show people how to get those before we even know how it's supposed to be done.

[@La0bouchere]

@@FuryForged Is this related to the large bunny room with the chest at the top? I accidentally found the song to access it online and really want to know where that song came from.

[@CashewDaSquirrel]

what's the buried frog?

[@steeevealbright]

Probably have to play the right songs for each animal.

[@JugglerJJ]

I feel like it’s more just unused content turned into fun Easter eggs

[@Jaymic]

My only thought is maybe the cheat bunnies are supposed to be done after BDTP and then don't corrupt your save by pressing the last button and see if there's anything at all that may be different. As much as I would like there to be another layer, I think most of what is left is just unfinished parts that got repurposed as a datamining honeypot. I could imagine programming the flame room warp but never finding a place to put it, and eventually going "Yeah they'll probably find it here eventually". The only thing that really throws me is not removing the "exploits" if there is really no use for them. Unless he leaves in things people find that aren't game breaking to just mess with the community, then that leaves the question of why the wall overflow is still there. Is it a deliberate programming choice or a bug/limitation of the engine? It reminds me of the secret save file and the dev world from Tunic. Speaking of, people should be really looking at inspirations of Animal Well for ideas on potential secrets. There's a Tunic easter egg I found in the game, nothing is just for show, right? EDIT: Just an afterthought I wanted to share. Could there be any way to translate the garbled text from the time capsule puzzle into some meaningful information?

[@justsomeguy4422]

Ya know cheaters ring actually makes sense when you think about how everyone thought we could break glass at some point. Why break it, why not go around it. I feel like animal well is only getting started.

[@LumpkinBoi]

8:44 what the fuck is going on here? LMAO that scared the shit out of me

[@thisisapc5676]

elden ring item that when you use it, it says you're beautiful in a creepy voice

[@panampace]

On the topic of intended cheating, it’s worth mentioning a couple more things. In the source code there’s a few messages like the encryption key “good luck with this one” and “data miners win again”. Also there’s a check where if you externally edit your save file, it spawns a manticore to follow you everywhere. I dropped off from following the discord a couple weeks ago so those are the only ones I’m aware of.

[@Zyodl]

guarantee the 12 keys 4 matches 17 eggs ect is a code to something billy probably realised that opening too many walls could corrupt the game, then took the info from that corruption and made it the password to something

[@Pretzel2]

1:02 “idk” great delivery lmao

[@Searcad]

There's no way, as soon as you pressed the third pink button i got an ad and was left very confused for like 2 seconds

[@ReidClayson]

10:31 you have void stranger favorited!! That makes me so happy!!

[@lukasvolkert1171]

I think it's not there to make fun of dataminers, seeing how the recording in the time capsule congratulated even the people who cheated to get there. So probably one fo three things is true: either you are meant to cheat, there is a way to get to snail island no one has found yet, or (even though I think it's unlikely) there is some weird double standart thing where they say "good job cheaters" in one place but "boo cheaters" in another

[@TurtleKwitty]

Nothing says boo cheaters though, if anything the capsule is saying "There is additional stuff if you cheat around have fun with it"

[@timno19]

It might be an additional layer of difficulty for cheaters that only they have to deal with. Discerning whats real, what isn't, whats a red herring etc. Its its own kind of challenge and puzzle if you look at it that way

[@theultimatebro9278]

Should be noted that getting the hidden cheater bunnies with the ring would permanently lock you out from reaching that congratulatory message to begin with, so perhaps billy is actually condemning cheating and the 'cheating' he refers to in the message is maybe just looking up the solution without figuring it out for yourself

[@brycelikespiano176]

So on my first play through, I was in the room with a chinchilla in the dog area where you have to raise and lower the block to press buttons to obtain a chest. There was a funny texture on the wall and I tried getting in but of course I couldn’t. I left the room and came back a few seconds later and the wall had opened up. I’m playing on Switch and didn’t do anything special with the flute, but the wall just opened. I went through the gap and found a bunny. I didn’t know what it was but once I collected it, I was soft locked in the room unless I used the flute. I later found out this was an illegal bunny. Does anyone have any idea on how I got in without cheating?

[@SneakyG67]

bro every time I see a post about this game It's like my brain doesn't want to believe what I'm seeing. This level of depth and secretism is INSANE bro

[@sunla]

If I had to make any guesses, an update will come on a date that we can predict based on ingame Easter Eggs, and the update may include another ending involving all of these things, locking out save files with the cheaters ring... Adding insult to injury for those who have corrupted their saves,

[@XionSteel]

Without any input from the creator i can only assume its a deliberate layer 5 for cheaters to make sure you couldn't get to the final BDTP. There was initially thought to be 16 bunnies you needed to collect for the end game since I believe that's all data miners could see on a map, only for a lot of those to be fake. The rest were hidden behind doing certain actions and appearing out of nowhere rather then sitting in a visible nook.

[@clcsqueejy04]

Ayy Environmental Station Alpha making an appearance on the channel! Nice

[@FuryForged]

There'll be even more, soon enough. Soon enough...

[@alexcollins1007]

This is basically my first video after beating the game... wheel? moth? wtf?

[@herryjerald9825]

Turning the frame rate down on the steam deck helps right before you get to the ten second room. I turned it down to 10

[@develpala]

The array overflow catches my attention - from a programmer's perspective, it seems too deliberate. Each wall must have a unique ID, which means getting other ID as the last one will write different values. Someone PLEASE try all 17 wall ID as the last one.

[@noddaduck2605]

Honestly, not everyone even has this level of computer knowledge that they could cheat or look at data on their own like this, I know I don’t. If anything isn’t that just another kind of skill to use in the game? I never would have known about this without you “cheating” and showing it to me, the time capsule said Billy was happy even if people found it by cheating or watching someone else do it. Isn’t it kind of amazing that on an internet that people often consider so unreliable and full of misinformation people can come together and uncover secrets and share them like this? Maybe that’s the point of this.

[@Saneo123]

I like your voices for the animals. They remind me of Allan from Smiling friends, which feels appropriate for reasons I can't fully articulate.

[@boomertiro1422]

What happens if you flip that final button before you're at max walls so it is under the max and doesn't overwrite. What else should it unlock?

[@Ross8k60]

This is insane ❤️ But wait... Can we not use the cheater bunny's ears (without collecting them) to get a new flight pattern or to complete or substitute parts of the existing one? I swear to God, there's a complete second game hidden outside the well/in the second dimension. Also, I think there might be a legitimate way to get the bunnies, as in, more ways to make some of the walls disappear, just like we make the wall between the starting and finishing areas disappear by using the top on capsule island. It could be something as crazy as finishing the game on save slot 3 and playing again up to a certain point on save slot 2, but how would you even begin to search for a solution, hahaha. Is there anything to learn from the corrupted save file? Or by comparing a corrupted file with a backup from right before? Hex viewer... Follow the flowers....

[@sixteen5142]

Has anything come about the “flowers” hint? Is it still being worked on or has it been determined to be a red herring?

[@FuryForged]

Nothing yet...probably. But there are a lot of very interesting things with the flowers, including at least one that only appears in the water reflection and not actually in the world.

[@imanstuart]

​@@FuryForgedgotta do with the sky map being a reflection of the world map

[@ajdude9]

This makes me wonder if all the animals you find (and can coincidentally 'talk' to) are just cut content from the early versions where the animals would talk to you, as according to Mr. Basso, you'd originally be able to talk to the animals in the well before he cut most of the dialogue. Maybe the fox being Sprite 1 along with all the other animals in inaccessible locations are just animals you'd have encountered that he left in the game for those with the cheater's ring?

[@Illumina_Blade]

He's too smart for the game to corrupt (accidentally) when exactly all the walls in the game open.

[@Matt23488]

Billy seemed to believe that it could legitimately take years for the most hidden puzzles to be solved. Perhaps he just underestimated the autistic power we have, or perhaps there is still something beyond layer 4. I want to believe there is.

[@the_most_ever_company]

there has to be. Billy is WAY too experienced & knowledgeable about the way internet ARG hunts work (and how insanely fast they tend to work) to be as naive as he's currently half-feigning publicly. There's a Layer 5 and it begins with the cheaters ring, and the "solution" will definitely be a fair bit tougher to figure out than Layer 4 Honestly -- I would NOT be surprised if there was a Layer 6 ... or 7 ...

[@Gabriel_Blair]

billy basso has such a fun name to say

[@blackyonbi]

So here is the thing I finished the game , freed the first chimera and said " My , this game is pretty short" Only to be flabbergaste by the next 3 rooms Then there is a room with a vortex , and in the final room its obvious that youre forced to highlight the green peguin statue before olunging back into the center and comtinue exploring This game goes very very deep with the rabbit hole and im sure we havent found Edit : I dont think the cheaters ring is an accident. Ive noticed that there are small cavities scattered along the map z like one square sized cavities with different kinds of lamps ( Red , blue and normal lamps ) Which i find it odd z since you cant see them unless you have this rin equipped.

[@stephensto1422]

Has anything been made of the hidden lamps? The three above the top of the well/manticore zone entrance seem so peculiar.

[@TheVerandure]

I didn't get the same inventory on corrupting my save. I got no additional health.

[@linforcer]

The pink buttons remind me a bit of the red/pink bits in Fez

[@SuperRitz44]

With all these secrets, easter eggs and map stuff accounted for, this game to me is like a mix of Fez, Tunic and Noita, even. Hell, throw some Outer Wilds in there. You can really see what inspired Billy, and I think he achieved his goal and created a worthy colleague to those titles.

[@creditwhereitsdude7544]

THIS is the video I have been waiting for. I've gotten the skip down to a science and can usually do it in 3 trys at most, but often 1

[@bluedrake1218]

Hey, if there are many more inaccessible bunnies that would theoretically end up at the bunny island (if we could get there with them) what if you took their ear motions code and tried to figure out what order they would show up on the final island, from there there might be an extended set of directions that you need to go to get to something. Just a thought, though without being able to see their order on the final island it might take a fair bit of brute force to get their order right.

[@Rotomoo]

Someone tried to just use the cheated bunnies path, it leads to nowhere.

[@bluedrake1218]

rip, was a pretty good idea

[@Leryoful]

I just wonder... What if we isolate the extra bunny and see the direction input they gives. Maybe the cheating bunny gives access to another area from the platform ?

[@sunla]

Hey, this is hardly related but umm, I found something by scanning the Animal Well title itself as a barcode. It's a little spooky, I had a hunch it would work...

[@FuryForged]

Which logo did you scan? There are several.

[@sunla]

​@@FuryForgedI'm not sure if it's coincidence, I was freaking out when I first tried, and I'm still kind of weirded out, especially if it is coincidence. I took a screenshot off of game footage of all things, of the titlescreen and cropped the title text "ANIMAL WELL" and fed it through my barcode scanner, and it's detecting a match of the code "44446666" (EAN 8). This, however has proven hard to replicate on anything besides that screenshot, so I'd almost be willing to lean toward coincidence... if the code wasn't so freaking creepy. My husband told me I should post it over on Reddit. Either my screenshot is haunted (welp, I'm terrified) or secrets even made it on like, one single frame of the titlescreen or something crazy like that. It just felt so intentional since that came right up easily on my first attempt, but now I'm questioning my own sanity. Can share the files over on Reddit or the Discord (I'm not on it, but I can look for it) Thanks for your videos, they are so well-made and very entertaining!

[@tisanne]

what did you find? i tried scanning the logo but couldn't get it to work :/

[@citricdemon]

You're still one of my favorite KZbinrs. I like the way you say things.

[@nyekomimi]

Hello, here is a random question: What happens if you gather *only* the cheater bunnies, then follow their ears in the sky?

[@TallDarknGruesome]

its an old school single player game, its got cheats because cheats are fun. its got mysteries because mysteries are fun.

[@physiqueamateur]

The weird tile background of that cheat bunny with the spikes makes me think of binary.

[@physiqueamateur]

Some of the columns are covered with water, and some aren’t. It’s exact too…

[@Hlebuw3k]

Do you think there's a way to get the squirrel at the very start of the game? Does the corruption respawn it?

[@bandit217]

I actually got wrong warped directly to one of the cheat bunnies while attempting this glitch lol

[@auralarcheology]

not sure if anyone has thought about this but it looks and sounds like an intentional kill screen from the arcade days and if that's so, it fucking brilliant and perfect for the vibe this game captures. i get that kill screens were only obtained from being uber good at really hard arcade games and not cheating but what a cool throwback that would be!

[@matthanbow7412]

Could you get the mantacor to break tue glass the Snail Island?

[@FuryForged]

Nope, it doesn't break any glass other than the "weak glass" (which has a rainbow sheen to it) in its arena.

[@nocapsbb]

yes.

[@brandonburns1396]

9 bunnies in the walls and 9 windows within the wall....then six windows below. could the six windows be referring to the animals trapped in the wall and would the toad count as the 6th? there are only 6 that have dialogue as far as I know