Downwell is a game about a boy falling down a well with a pair of gunboots. Your objective is to kill enemies without taking damage, falling until you progress through all of the four zones and beat the final boss.

The game is influenced heavily by Spelunky, as the main programmer for the game (Ojiro Fumoto) was busy playing spelunky while he created the concept for Downwell. Both games share the 'four zones design, and the procedually generated levels.

-- Warning, this section is 100% obvious --
You use the left and right arrow keys to move from side to side (or the 'a' and 'd' buttons), and the spacebar to jump and shoot (or the 'shift' button'). If you press the spacebar while on the ground, you will jump. If you press it in the air you will shoot your gunboots, suspending yourself until you run out of ammo. You can hold down the spacebar for continuous fire, or tap it. Different guns work differently, but that will be covered in the weapons section.

The basic mechanics of the game are quite simple, and can be worked out by playing the game for a short while. Shooting enemies kills them (different enemies have different amounts of health), and so does jumping on them. Some enemies cannot be jumped on, and some cannot be shot. Which enemies can be jumped on and shot is covered in the enemies section.

You will take one damage (no matter what enemy) if you touch them for the sides of the bottom. If you bounce on the top of them, they will die instantly. However, some enemies cannot be jumped on, and if you try it will result in you taking damage.

Shooting enemies with your gunboots will kill them, but not instantly. It all depends on the gun module you are using (more about that in the guns section) and the enemy you are shooting. Some enemies are impervious to shooting, namely the turtles (covered in the enemies section). If you try to shoot these enemies, they will not take damage.

Enemies who cannot be jumped upon can be shot, and enemies who cannot be shot can be jumped upon.

Every time you finish a stage by reaching the bottom of it and falling down, you will fall to the next stage. However, before you reach the next stage, you may pick one out of several upgrades. By default there are three, but you can increase this to four by picking the 'youth' upgrade. The upgrades are randomly shuffled. There is 20 upgrades in downwell
Each individual upgrade is in the below list. If I have missed one out, please notify me.

Youth
This upgrade resembles a Fetus visually. The effects of ‘Youth’ are to restore one health instantly, and allowing the player to choose from an increased selection of upgrades (one more than normal) upon completing stages in the future.

Rest in pieces
This upgrade visually shows an explosion with what appears to be the upper half of a person sticking out of it. If you get this upgrade it will allow you to shoot the bodies of enemies (some enemies drop them, such as the bat) which will cause an explosion

Rocket Jump
Rocket jump visually shows a man flying off with an explosion behind him. This upgrade changes your jump to a much higher rocket jump, which causes an explosion which damages enemies.

Knife and fork
This upgrade looks like a knife and fork crossed over each other like a coat of arms. It allows you eat the bodies of enemies by standing on them. Eating ten bodies will restore one health, and when this happens it will be indicated by the word ‘omnomnom’.

Laser sight
This upgrade resembles a laser pointer. It adds a red line below you, indicating where your bullets will go. It also increases the range on your guns, causing them to shoot all the way to the bottom of the screen.

Candle
This upgrade looks like a candle. It increases the amount of time in which you are invincible after taking damage.

Gem powered
This upgrade resembles a gem with some smaller pieces of gem around it. It causes your ammo to partially refill each time you pick up a gem. I previously thought that this upgrade was one of the less powerful upgrades, but after more use I now believe it to be one of the best, especially for use with the burst weapon for high combos.

Member’s Card
This upgrade looks like a rectangular card with a picture of a smiling shopkeeper on the front. It causes one shop per stage (three stages per area) to spawn right at the start of the level, and the player will get a 10% discount on the items sold there.

Blast module
The blast module’s image appears to be a foot with an explosion coming from it. It causes downwards facing explosions to happen whenever you jump on a monster, killing other enemies in the radius.

Hot casing
The hot casing looks like a bullet shell in a flame. It causes your bullet cartridges (which fall out when you shoot) to do damage. I personally think this is the worst upgrade.

Heart balloon
The heart balloon looks like a floating balloon shaped like a heart. It causes a balloon to float above the player, and if an enemy touches this balloon it explodes violently, killing everything in its radius. This consumes the balloon, but it will come back again on the next stage.

Timeout
This resembles a Downwell player character curled up into a ball inside a timevoid. It causes a circular timevoid to spawn around the player whenever they take damage, killing enemies and freezing time if they remain inside it.

Popping gems
This upgrade resembles a bullet smashing out of a broken gem. It causes a bullet to shoot upwards whenever you collect a gem, killing enemies above you.

Drone
This upgrade looks like a helicopter blade with a metal body attached to it. It flies around above the player, following you and shooting when you shoot. It works better with faster firing guns, as it will rapid fire if you have a gun like the noppy, but only fire one bullet if you have the laser.

Gunpowder blocks
This upgrade resembles a bullet smashing out of a broken block. It causes a bullet to shoot upwards whenever you destroy a block, killing enemies above you. If a block releases a bullet, all adjanced blocks will also go off.

Reverse engineering
This upgrade resembles a wrench with light shining outwards from it. It allows you to shoot gun modules once, changing which gun it will give you. This can be useful if you want to avoid picking up a certain gun, but still want to gain the health or charge benefits the gun modules give you.

Apple
The apple looks like a picture of an apple. It instantly rewards four health. This is useful for getting while at full health, as you can instantly increase your maximum health by one.

Safety Jetpack
This upgrade allows you to continue suspending yourself in the air for a short while after you run out of charge. This is useful for comboing.

Gem Attractor
Sucks in nearby gems.


Gem Sick
Gemhigh lasts for longer duration.

As the player you have two statistics, health and charge. Once your health reaches zero, you die, and the game ends. In a word, charge is ammo. You use charge while shooting, and once it runs out you cannot shoot or keep yourself in the air, and will inevitably fall. Upon touching the ground or bouncing upon an enemy, your charge refills instantly.

As the player you start with four health. Every time you get hit by an enemy, you take one point of damage. Upon reaching zero health, you die. However it isn't all bad, as you can regain health in multiple ways. Every now and then there are caves (see the caves section), which contain a weapon module. This will be shaped either like a heart, or a power box. If it is shaped like a heart, you will regain one health.
The other way to regain health is to purchase it in shops (see the shops section). You can purchase varying amounts, such as 'sushi', which restores two health. Between each turn the 'apple' will sometimes appear as an upgrade, and this will restore 4 health if chosen (see upgrades).
To increase your maximum health (so you can get more than four), there are two ways. First, you can buy 'curry' from the shop, increasing your max health by one. The other way is to continue purchasing and picking up health after you are full health. There is a small white bar under the health bar on the screen, divided into four quarters. For each point of health you pick up while at full health, one quarter will be fulled. Once the bar is full, you will gain one more maximum health point.

In Downwell, charge = ammo. Charge is consumed as your shoot, and once empty you can't shoot until bouncing off an enemy or touching the ground, upon when your charge will be completely refilled instantly. The more charge you have, the longer you can fire in one go.
To gain more charge, there are multiple ways. First, you get more maximum charge each time you perform a combo (see combos). The second way is to purchase it from the shop, just like health. It can also be picked up from power box shaped gun modules, which will reward you with two charge points.

Caves are found at the sides of the well, protected by a timevoid (see timevoids). Caves can contain three things: Gun modules (see gun modules), gem clusters, or shops (see shops).

Shooting a gem cluster with your gunboots enough will cause it to burst, releasing many big and small gems for the player to collect.

In Downwell, there are four different areas, with different enemies and terrain. First there is the caverns, then the catacombs, then aquifier, and finally limbo. After limbo there is a boss fight, and if completed, the well is beaten.
Caverns
The caverns is the first area, and is most likely the easiest one. It contains the most destructible blocks, which are set up in huge blocks, sometimes filling the well from one side to another, requiring the player to shoot through. The caverns also has an abundance of wall climbing enemies, such as the snail or hedgehog.

The caverns is a slow stage with many platforms. It is most definitely not a freefall level, therefore not making it amazing for combos higher than 15.

There is nothing unique to the caverns, other than some of the enemies.

Catacombs
The catacombs is the second area, and contains many shelves of indestructable terrain. It is every medievally themed, with skull and ghost enemies and traps. It contains unique blocks which will spike the player if they stay still too long, doing damage.

The catacombs has spike blocks, which are unique. Many of its enemies are also unique, not appearing in other zones. However, they are also unique in the way that some of them (the ghost) can move through blocks.

Aquifier
The aquifier is the third zone, and contains less blocks to land on than the previous two stages. There are also coral blocks, which will instantly damage the player if stood on. The aquifier is most unique as the player has a time limit for each stage, being their breath as the area is under water.

Enemies also act uniquely, swimming through the zone.

Limbo
Limbo is the weirdest of the zones, having almost nowhere to land upon the ground. There are floating destructable objects, but these are only killable by jumping on them. This is the only way to reset your charge, as none of the enemies are killable by jumping upon. Because of the lack of ground, Limbo is the easiest to combo in.

All enemies in Limbo can pass through the ground, and appear as black balls or objects with a red outline.

Below is a partial list of enemies, along with pictures for some of them of them. I have stopped working on this guide (it is still current though), and will not be updating this section. If anyone wants to, you can add me or send me what you've written.

Bat
This enemy is one of the most hated in the game, causing many new players to die in frustration. The bat roosts of the walls, and once the player gets below or near them they will take off any follow the player. Their AI is simple, they just move in a straight line towards you.

Can be shot, can be jumped upon.
Appears in area one and two.

Floating Jelly
This enemy is similar to the bat, except it is much slower and bigger. It doesn't spawn roosting, and appears to have a similar AI to the bat.

Can be shot, can be jumped upon.
Appears in area one.

Turtle
The Turtle is the (only?) enemy which can't be shot. It slowly lumbers around moving from side to side upon platforms. It doesn't appear to actively attack the player, but will inflict damage if the player stands still and the turtle runs into them, or if the player runs into the turtle.

The turtle is different in area there, instead of slowly walking from side to side, it swims from side to side at a reasonable speed.

Cannot be shot, can be jumped upon.
Appears in area one and three.

Frog

Timevoids are areas inside small red circles (or semi circles, as the terrain is often blocking the majority of the timebarrier). If the player moves inside a timevoid, all enemies will pause, but the player can still move. Timebarriers guard the entrances to caves, shops, and the exit of each stage. The timevoids are behind the timebarriers.

Enemies will die if the player moves in a way that the enemie moves into a time barrier.

If a player touches the ground inside a timevoid with a combo (see combos) they will NOT lose their combo, and can continue to increase it after leaving the shop/cave.

Gems these are dropped in two forms by enemies, clusters of gems in caves, and some terrain. There are big gems and small gems. Big gems reward 10 gems, and little gems reward 2 gems. Gems are used to purchase health and charge in shops.

Shops are found in caves with signposts outside with the word 'shop' on them. You go inside and will find a shopkeeper along with three items next to him. Walking up to the shopkeeper and pressing spacebar will open the shop, in which you can select which item to buy. If you use shops in later areas, the items will cost more.

There are some shop keeper interactions. For example, buying an item or multiple items will cause the shopkeeper to say 'thank you', 'come again', or 'take care'. Trying to buy the empty slot in which one of his items was before you bought it will cause him to say 'huh?' and jumping over him and moving behind him causes him to frown.

Complete list of items to buy in shop:
Sushi: +2 health
Battery: +1 charge
Rice roll: +1 health
Curry: +1 maximum health
Car battery: +2 charge
Energy drink: +1 health, +1 charge

In Downwell, as you will all know, you have a pair of gunboots. These shoot bullets at a reasonable speed, with a reasonable damage, but it is possible to upgrade them. If you find a cave (see caves) there is a chance that there will be a gun module in there. Gun modules are either heart shaped or power box shaped, indicating that picking it up will either give health or charge. The gun module also has a letter on it, which is the first letter of the gun you will recieve from picking the module up.

There are many different guns, and they are all listed here





Burst:
This is one of my favourite guns. It does more damage than most of the other modules, however as it fires in quick bursts it doesn't give you as much suspension.

Noppy
While this gun is looked down upon by some players, I find it to my liking. It increases the fire speed of the default gun, and makes the bullets smaller. I would estimate that it does slightly more dps (damage per second) than the default weapon, and if you are moving from side to side, the bullet stream will tilt dramatically in the direction you are moving towards.

Machine gun
The default weapon on steriods. It does more damage and has a different noise.

Shotgun
Fires in bursts, like the burst gun, but they are spread over a wide distance, do more damage, and are overall much more powerful. The shotgun is one of the best guns, and despite being a burst fire type weapon it can suspend you in the air quite well.

Triple gun
This is the default weapon, but with three streams of bullets. The main stream points down, and the two extra are on a ~30 degree angle to either side. This is a very powerful weapon.

Laser
This gun is by far the worst at keeping you suspended in the air, but fire very powerful tap bursts of laser straight down in a line, killing almost everything instantly. It also pierces, continuing on downwards through enemies. It is not a projectile, therefore killing enemies further down at the same time as enemies next to you.

Puncher
A very high damage gun, similar to the default weapon but with a wider projectile and much more damage.

If you kill multiple enemies without touching the ground, you achieve a combo. A counter appears above your head (it appears once you have killed 5 enemies in one go), and once you touch the ground the combo will stop. If you bounce upon an enemy while in a combo, the combo will NOT end, so it is the only way to refill your charge if trying to combo enemies, except for stepping inside a timevoid, as the ground there will not reset your combo. Jumping on destructible environmental objects, such as pots or torches, will not reset your combo.


Once you end a combo by touching the ground, you will be rewarded gems, health, and charge, depending on the amount of enemies you killed for the combo.
8 + enemies rewards 100 gems
16 + enemies rewards one charge (and one hundred gems)
25 + enemies rewards one health (and the lower tier combo rewards)


Combos can also be continued from level to level.

In Downwell, there is a thing called a ‘Gemhigh’. This occurs when you gather a large amount of Gems, and is represented in a bar along the top. It goes away over time, and takes 100 gems to achieve the high. Once you get a gemhigh, it slowly decays and can be lengthened by picking up more gems.
The effect of the Gemhigh is to make your bullets visually much bigger, therefore hitting more enemies, and presumably making them deal more damage.
A gemhigh is relatively easy to maintain permanently without conscious effort towards keeping it. It can however be lost if the player remains still without picking up any gems for a long time.

Picking up a cluster of gems in a cave gives 120 gems, instantly giving the player a gem high.

Another interesting mechanic of Downwell is wall jumping. If you jump against a wall and have full charge (or ammo) and then press space again while moving away from the wall you will jump again at the cost of no charge. An example of this would be to jump from the middle of the well to the left, and upon hitting the wall pressing the right arrow key space at the same time, which would cause you to launch off the wall.
Wall jumping costs no charge (or ammo), and cannot be chained. If you wall jump and then try to wall jump again without touching the ground you will fail.
A tip for wall jumping is as follows: To tell whether you will be able to wall jump, look at your character. If they are VISUALLY rolling through the air, then you will be able to wall jump. Rolling happens automatically when you jump with a sufficient angle. This means that if you jump straight up, or only with a slight angle, you will not be able to wall jump.