To overcome the first enemy you meet in Key Fairy (a Bugle with big eyes and bat wings), you zip around the woods with a grapple, avoiding its circling and collecting the stars it dispenses. When you collect three, it turns friendly and apologises for attacking you. “Worry not, little bird”, I reply from a set of dialogue options. “My cloak is thick.” The next screen is inhabited by three cyclopean worms chanting about the “eels of creation”. I like it here very much.
Brought to life with spacious, enchanting and playfully layered electronic music and hand-drawn art (you can change the colour palette to something cooler or monochrome if you wish), Key Fairy’s forest is a place I want to live, and I’m very grateful for even a short opportunity to spend time in it.
You’ll find the demo on Key Fairy’s Steam page, which also has one of the loveliest descriptions of making things I’ve read in a while:
“An adventure made just for you! We forged this forest out of blood, and ink, and thought. Come, join us for a while, we are only small, and there is space enough to share.”
“The Forest Contains…”
- Dozens of unique monsters
- Fast paced, frenetic engagements
- Trinkets by the bagful, for you to collect
- Whimsy
- hundreds of hand-crafted rooms
- People, with hopes and dreams
- Sounds (if you walk softly, you may hear them)
- The truth
- An ungodly quantity of keys
- Pages and pages of hand-drawn art
- A sword! (not to be used as a weapon)
- No secrets. we promise there are no secrets in the forest…
The full game’s release is still to be announced. Do visit the forest if you get a chance. It’s a marvellous place.
