The Creator of the Smash Indie Game ‘Animal Well’ Is Already Working on His Next Project

Billy Basso was glued to his computer. It was launch day for the Chicago developer’s debut solo game, a surreal Metroidvania called Animal Well, and he couldn’t stop reading reviews online and watching people play the game. He’d pulled off the impossible: breaking through a turbulent industry to create a hit game that would grow to be a critical and commercial success. He just didn’t realize how big of one it would be quite yet.

Most successful video games are made by teams of people that vary in size from a half dozen to somewhere in the hundreds. Basso had made Animal Well entirely on his own, start to finish. Music, art, story—it was all his, dictated by the singular goal to finish the game.

He thought it would take six months. It took seven years. “My entire life has completely changed since the game has come out,” Basso, 36, says.

This year, Animal Well is up for five awards at the Game Developers Choice Awards, including prizes for Best Design, Best Audio, and Best Debut. The awards are being handed out this week at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, where Basso is also a featured speaker. At a talk on Monday detailing the nitty gritty of how he made the game, from coding to describing the game’s lighting, Basso held court in front of a rapt audience packed to the brim. Attendees laughed and “ooh’d” his presentation. While describing some of his more homebrew methods of development, one developer in the audience whispered “this guy is the GOAT.” After his talk, a circle of fans surrounded Basso to offer praise and ask questions.

Basso had arrived. It just took some time to get there.