The fox who slings webs to unstitch a scientist's spliced-together animals

Born from the ideas of the developer's five-year-old son, it splits players: some unwind for five hours, others quit once the second area just repeats the first.

You don't kill the animals — you stitch them back together

Here you don't defeat the creatures you meet along the way: you shoot a web and heal them. Spider Fox casts you as a fox with spider powers, dropped into a world where a mad scientist has sewn different species into one another — animal halves stuck together, scattered across the scenery, waiting for someone to pull them apart. The web is the tool for everything: it swings the fox from branch to branch through the air and undoes the mash-ups whenever it reaches a creature.

The rest is a collector's stroll. You wander the maps rescuing animals, pick up coins, items and treasure chests, and spend what you find in a shop to raise your web and climbing levels. Each new area opens according to the tally of creatures healed and upgrades bought — the more you heal and improve, the more world appears. It's a single-player game, with controller support and family sharing.

Planet 47 Games released Spider Fox in April 2024. Off sale it costs $7.99 on Epic, where it's being given away until August 13; on Steam it runs R$26.49.

One developer, three games, and health troubles along the way

Spider Fox has a single father, and he hasn't stopped. Wes Abrams, who runs Planet 47 Games, kept shipping games after the fox: Morels: Out of This World came out in May 2026, and before it Bigfoot Life arrived on November 3, 2025, announced back in September of that year. In a note from May 2026, Abrams thanks players for the support he received during his health troubles as he introduces the new project.

Meanwhile, Spider Fox has become a go-to for charity drives. The studio put it on sale for the GamesAid campaign in March 2026, and for a suicide-prevention drive in September 2025, with a donation pledged. In August 2025, the fox leapt from the game into the real world: the studio began selling 3D-printed figurines of her, made to order.

The game whose audience christened the heroine 'Foxpider'

The review that did the most to help others decide — the one marked helpful by fourteen people, written by someone with six hours in the game in April 2024 — isn't exactly a wholehearted rave. It says Spider Fox gets it right for anyone after something casual and built around simple achievements: just roam around rescuing animals, collecting, and upgrading the fox. It's a yes with a caveat, and maybe that's why it was read the most.

Another player, with one hour in April 2024, recounts that the game grew out of the ideas and reactions of the developer's five-year-old son — and that this, far from cheapening it, explains its slightly loopy charm. He found the outing strangely addictive, longer than it looks, and had fun inventing a name for every animal combination. In an April 2024 livestream, with four hours played, one streamer describes a light title that runs on any computer and went off without a hitch — and says her audience christened the heroine the Foxpider. One dad, in June, sums up the crowd he sees for it: buy it for your little kids, and slapped a nine out of ten on it.

These numbers come from the game's Steam page, not Epic: the store rates its reception very positive — 58 recommendations against 3, 61 in all, 95% in favor. Since the game is being given away on Epic, this is audience reception from another store.

The first area is over in thirty minutes — and the rest just repeats

The complaint that keeps coming back is a single one: healing creature after creature never changes. One player with four hours, in July 2024, says the formula doesn't vary from start to finish, that the settings don't hold you, and that demanding every upgrade to reach the final boss is too much — and points out that other item-collecting games mix up their gameplay far more.

A Finn with two hours healed every animal right in the first area, because the game never warns you it wasn't necessary, and within thirty minutes already felt he'd seen it all; the next area, which opens after 25 creatures are healed, brings something new, but not much, and its overly colorful scenery hid the items to collect. A third player, also with two hours, sums up what bothered all three: there's a good game in here, it just lacks polish — the maps are too big for how much there is to do, and swinging on the web is great when it works, but it doesn't always. He received a free copy to review.

The novelty vanishes in the second area; that's where you decide

Anyone with kids at home has found the target: it's gentle, it hurts no animal, it runs on a weak machine, and it fits into an afternoon. Anyone who enjoys the movement — swinging from web to web, hunting hidden treasure — finds enough for about five hours. Those players will stay.

Anyone looking for variety or challenge will give up, and you can predict where: at the point where the second map shows the game is always the same thing — rescue one more creature to open one more area. If half an hour in the first area already wore you out, the rest won't win you back. It's being given away on Epic until August 13.