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6.5 extra fun
You know that sinking feeling you get in your stomach when bad things are coming, or evil is afoot? Like when the gypsy fortune teller looks at your tarot cards, begins babbling in shock, and cancels your reading? Or when your favorite Arby's closes?
The fairies of Feyruna have gotten that same feeling, because mysterious dark clouds are forming on the horizon and evil creatures are creeping into peaceful Fairy Forest. As queen of the fairy guardians, you fly into the nearby meadows to investigate, leaving in such a rush that you forget to remove your oven mits. It doesn't take long to see what's behind this looming darkness: Feyruna's glowies are under attack! Glowies are simple beelike beings that fly in formation around Feyruna, providing illumination. (They're cheaper than streetlights because they don't require electricity - they can just forage for food.) They're being gobbled up like potato chips by all manner of evil creatures. To protect Feyruna, you must protect the glowies.
Feyruna - Fairy Forest, by Jochen Kärcher, is a mouse exercise game. Wherever you move the mouse is where your fairy will go. Unfortunately there is no keyboard control. The goal in most of the levels is to collect the glowies while avoiding all manner of enemies. From the screenshots I expected a sidescroller, but each level in Feyruna is a single screen. Glowies and enemies and powerups all move on and off the screen, and you must move accordingly to avoid or contact them.
The evil creatures come from Shadow Rock, far away on the map. They include giant bats called darkwings, huge cyborg bumblebees, tractor-driving witches, flying storm witches (they look like a witch would if it had been stepped on by an elephant), swamp ghosts, goblin hang gliders, and even robotic mosquitoes. And more. There are bosses, too, like the prince of darkness who wears a coat of bubbling slime.
To defeat most of these enemies, you must collect enough glowies to fill your light meter. Once filled, that level is safe and all evil will be immediately vanquished. You also have a dark meter, which fills up when you make contact with the forces of evil or when glowies are eaten by the enemy. If your dark meter fills completely, your fairy will give out a horrifying deathbed screech and plummet to the ground. Don't have any naive illusions about saving every glowie, because it can't be done. They fly onscreen directly into the path of enemies and the first few in the formation are swallowed before you can even react, let alone dodge a screenful of monsters to come to their rescue. That can be frustrating.
Luckily, you have friends in high places. Sometimes magic potions are dropped into the screen by a mystery benefactor. (My guess is that the benefactor is a giant blue beetle in a hot air balloon, because after you finish some levels a giant blue beetle in a hot air balloon floats in and throws you presents.) Catch a potion, and you'll activate its spell. For example, a defensive ball lightning spell. Balls of lightning circle you, and will destroy most enemies. Another potion makes the glowies fall in love with you and fly toward you. Another creates earthquakes that cause the tractor-driving witches to crash.
At the beginning of each of the sixty levels, you'll read the message, "You spread your wings and journey on..." Even at level one. This suggests there's a secret level zero where your fairy gets to drive a tractor.
The background scenery in Feyruna is simply amazing. These images stand head and toes above anything in the foreground. Sometimes they have simple animations, too, like a cute Ghibli-style monster peeking out of a well. They follow closely the world map, which is similarly well designed. Your fairy queen (named Gloriana or whatever you like) looks like a 3D clay model, while the other enemies are more 2D. Some look a bit 3D with nice shading, like the cool cyborg bumblebees, others look flat, like the darkwing bats.
Feyruna's music fits the game well. Personally I enjoyed the opening of the map theme the most, because it sounds very similar to a piece from the score of Peking Opera Blues.
The disparity in graphics artistry is unfortunate, but the biggest disappointment in Feyruna is the gameplay. It's a mouse only game and gets rather repetitive. As screens become more chaotic with lots of enemies and glowies (and wild red glowies and butterflies) the game becomes an exercise in scanning a new object as it flies onscreen, quickly determining if it's an enemy or glowie/potion and then avoiding it or catching it. Don't even try to complete some of the higher levels using a laptop touchpad. Your finger will fall off.
If your finger does fall off, you can use a magic hourglass to reverse time and try that level again.
Feyruna - Fairy Forest is a nice game for anyone who really likes moving a mouse around the screen. Others might be bored. There are three unlockable minigames that, though basic, add some replay value.