If you’ve made it here then chances are you’ve reached the Pedometer at the top of Animal Well and you’ve run into the strange purple figure that appears out of a chest. Upon opening the chest you see an image of the creature and you receive a strange message in symbols. This find has then cascaded to others locating different strange instances where this is used. In this Animal Well Strange Character Solution Guide we’ll cover how to obtain each of the strange messages and what they mean.
How To Obtain The Unicode Messages in Animal Well
So far there are five Unicode Messages that have been discovered in the game. They can be obtained by:
- Reaching the Pedometer in the top of the map and going to the far right with less than 100 steps on your step counter (this rolls around at 99,999)
- Repeatedly creating bubbles in different locations in a room with a hummingbird (like the one to the right and up from the central flame pedestals). After a time the humming bird will get frustrated and ‘say’ something in these Unicode Messages
- Using the code to obtain the Mama Cha figure in the Dog Bowl room (two to the left of the alternating maze) and getting the Kangaroo stuck in the hole. Once it is stuck in the hole use a firecracker and it can’t escape and will say something in Unicode
- Play the song to unlock the Wheel chest in the Bobcat room on your flute, without freeing the kittens from the Ostrich area
- Starting a new game and interacting with the Squirrel by sneaking up on it five times. After obtaining the fifth nut you will also receive a Unicode Message
At the moment there are still a few Unicode messages that are lost in the wild
What Do You Do With The Unicode Messages?
The Unicode Messages are all different length and can be formatted and inserted into the image of the calendar in the house. After inserting all of the available Unicode Strings a path begins to emerge showing the player character starting at the left side of an island and making their way through a series of screen transitions.
The starting point shown is the left side of the island that the players were able to reach by completing the Animal Well BDTP process.
While not all of the Unicode Messages have been found players in the Animal Well discord were able to brute force the answer to reveal the correct path leading you to a new island dubbed the Time Capsule Island.
The path from the left side of the Giant Bunny island is: Left – Left – Up – Left – Down – Left – Up – Left – Down – Down – Right – Down – Right – Up – Right – Down – Down – Right – Up – Right – Down – Down – Right – Down – Left – Left – Down – Left – Up – Up – Left – Left
Once on this island use your top and you’ll reveal a chest with a message from Billy Basso, Dan Adelman, and VideoGameDunkey. The message is as follows:
Billy: The date is March 12th, 2024. This is Billy Basso the developer of the game you’re playing, I’m recording this as one of the last things I do before submitting for certification. If you’re hearing this then that means that you just solved a set of puzzles that I honestly did not really design to be solvable, um, I didn’t even expect them to discover them so I’m kind of taking this opportunity right now to break the 4th wall and personally congratulate you. Whether you did it legitimately, or you hacked the game, or you just looked this up online either way I’m very very proud of you. Good Job.
Dan: This is Dan Adelman, I helped Billy Basso with the business and marketing side of Animal Well. Billy has been telling me for years about all of these crazy puzzles that he was putting into the game. I kept telling him that no one would ever even realize these puzzles were in the game, much less figure them out. Billy being Billy was ok with that since he’d know they were there, so if you’re listening to this congratulations, youv’e proved me wrong. Your tenacity to uncover the secrets buried deeply in the shadows has me equally impressed and slightly worried about whatever else you might set your mind to. For that I congratulate you and I fear you.
Dunkey: Hey it’s Dunkey, I’ve been trapped inside of the games code for 277 years and I just wanted to say thank you for releasing me from this game. It was a good game, I liked the part with the Ostrich and the <Baner?> Monkey, you know I loved him and maybe I can go play Animal Well 2 now by the time you’ve discovered this.
What next in Animal Well?
At the moment people are still hunting down the last two triggers for the Unicode Character sets that are missing. From the space in the calendar we know that one will be 10 characters long and the other will be five characters.
Players have also noticed that by digging out the dirt on Time Capsule Island that a passageway between the Tutorial section of the game and the final area, which opens after collecting all four flames, has opened.
Potentially just a glitch but it has also been discovered if you repeat the Unicode Message path from the Time Capsule platform and then repeat it once more you will reach a glitched out screen version of the Bunny Platform.