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.
Watch on YouTube
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.
