Little Folk of Faery
Platform: Windows
There are a lot of casual simulation games out there, and most of them seem to take place on an island somewhere. What if you love the genre, but are getting a little tired of sand and beaches? If so, then it's time to check out Little Folk of Faery. Created by Kylotonn games, Little Folk of Faery is a gorgeous, whimsical, amusing little game that takes place at the base of an ancient tree, which itself is inside an antiques shop.
The story begins with the heroine going to the old abandoned curiosity shop that she inherited from her grandparents. The shop itself is dark and dingy, but she soon discovers a giant tree of all things is growing right there inside. A poor faery village exists at the base of the tree and used to be cared for by her grandparents, but since they've been gone everything has fallen into wreck and ruin. The faeries have lost most of their magic, and many have wandered from the village and become lost in the woods. The food is now scarce, the water source has disappeared, and mist encroaches from all sides, mist that contains wistful spirits. Telling their tales of woe, the wistful spirits have depressed the normally cheerful inhabitants of the village into a depressive coma which can only be cured with copious amounts of food and music.
Your job is to rehabilitate the faery realm, as well as help clean up the musty, dusty shop. You can see into the faery realm, and tell the little folk what to do by the simple expedient of picking them up and dropping them on something that looks interesting or useful. Slowly you will begin to uncover the faery elders who are trapped, along with uncovering and repairing the resources needed to return the realm to its normal state. Along the way you must also attempt to lure back the missing inhabitants of the village, in order to have enough manpower to complete the necessary tasks.
Everything is controlled by the mouse. Pick up villagers and drop them on their appointed tasks with a click of the mouse button. You can navigate around the area in several different ways: click and drag the scenery, pick up a faery and scroll by moving to the edge of the screen, or use the handy overview map to quickly move to an area. You can click on some items to find out if they are important, others will only be identified if you "hover" a villager over them to see what they say. The menu at the bottom of the screen shows tallies of supplies as well as your villager's state of mental health. Details on tasks, collectibles, and the different types of faeries in your village can be found in a tome of faery lore. A handy slider allows the player to control the game speed, from paused to fast forward, with stages in-between. Just remember, like many casual sims, Little Folk of Faery continues to run even when the game is off, so be sure to adjust the speed accordingly if you're going to be away for very long.
The village consists of four different fantastical creatures, pixies, gnomes, dryads, and leprechauns. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses, and talents that can be exploited. Each also comes with their own charming little animal sidekick who accompanies them everywhere. Identify the areas that need to be improved and place the appropriate faery on it, and the game begins. There are places where you can train each of the folk of your village in different tasks, and many places that need uncovering, repair, or just some tender loving care. Just be careful to avoid the wistful spirits, or at least distract them with some music so that your workers can get on with their tasks. Each major accomplishment banishes more of the mist and reduces the number of wistful spirits, until the village is back at full strength and the glory of the faery realm is restored.
Analysis: Little Folk of Faery manages to pack both a visual punch and a variety of amusing puzzles into one gorgeous package. Whereas most casual sims tend to go for cute and cartoony, Little Folk of Faery has gone for stunning, detailed, and downright breathtaking. Gamers may spend a goodly portion of the beginning of the game just gazing in wonder at the little folk and the background scenery in which they live.
Whimsical touches are in the details. Details like the use of "big people" objects incorporated into every facet of faery life, from chairs made of buttons to a water mill made of an old coffee mill and thimbles. Everywhere you look in this world is wonder piled upon wonder, from the strange faery elders to the haunting wistful spirits, who also have their own little animal sidekicks. The music is lively and unobtrusive, but the great quality is in the incidental sounds, from the lively, incomprehensible chatter of the natives to the mournful cries of the wistful spirits, everything only enhances the experience of a Victorian watercolor brought to stunning life.
A tutorial will get you started and a helpful guide faery will help you along the way. You will also get clues from your faithful dog Ginger, who will bark to bring your attention to things that need looking at. The learning curve is smooth and easy, and the faery tome will also help with an ongoing list of all the tasks that need to be done. As you progress to the more difficult tasks, clues become fewer and fewer, inviting some creative exploration and puzzle solving to finish the game. Not that the game completely finishes, as you can keep your village running long after all the puzzles are solved.
There are a few quirks here and there. For example, the prompt to find the honey spoon stayed up for me long after the spoon has been found, repaired, and filled with honey. And the guide faery made continued attempts to draw my attention to the compass, even after it had been discovered. These are minor annoyances in what is otherwise a lavish, enjoyable escape to a world of pure imagination.
Little Folk of Faery will appeal to a wide range of people, from those who enjoy its fantastical look and feel to those who enjoy the casual sim genre as a whole. Whimsical, melancholic, gleeful, astonishing, and definitely worth a look, Little Folk of Faery is casual gameplay done right, with attention not only to every detail of the look and feel, but the gameplay dynamic as well. Get lost in the beautiful land of the faeries.
Windows:
Download the demo
Get the full version
Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.
Walkthrough Guide
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Little Folk of Faery Walkthrough
General tips
You'll need 2 levels in each knowledge tree in the Tome of Knowledge to finish the game. Beyond that, spend your Enchantment Points freely.
Your dog will bark when he finds collectible objects, but often that's slightly too late, and the objects will fade out before you can get a fairy to them. Watch where he's going - often he goes in a straight line from a Learning Nook to a just-spawned object.
Train your fairies to Level 4 as soon as possible, as you'll need them at that rank to finish the game. Doing tasks also trains that skill, so it's okay to use them, but put them back into training when you don't need them.
Collect food constantly. Your fairies are ravenous.
Strategy Guide
Getting Started
After the starting tutorial, divide your faeries into half: the Dryads should collect food, the Gnomes, Pixies, and Leprechauns should train knowledge, music and exploration. Collecting food also trains Nature, but you'll need the food to throw banquets.
Once you have about 500 food, throw a couple of banquets. It keeps your faeries' morale up and gets you more hands to work with, which will help you out later. Assign them to be trained as well. Make sure that each fairy has a couple specialties - there are some tasks that require more than one.
Building Your Village
Once you have your faeries to rank 3 - shouldn't take too long, turn it off and watch a movie in the meantime - start going through the main quest. You'll need a Musician, a Scholar, and an Explorer. Get the Scholar to decipher the Ancient Writings, then click on the Stele in the top left of the map, next to the Library. Make sure to use a Musician to distract the wistful spirit. Trade Musicians off if you have more than one - they can only distract the spirit for so long before it starts affecting their morale.
While your Scholar is cleaning the Stele, get your Explorer to start cleaning the Compass. You'll need all the Enchantment points you can get. If you have extra hands with a rank of Explorer, get them started on cleaning and repairing the mirrors that are strewn about the map. The ones that are in the default clear area are next to the Muse and the Orchard. These will get you Enchantment and train those fairies in Exploration. Once they're clean, they need to be repaired by a Scholar.
While you're doing all this, make sure to get a fairy to pick up every rune or stone you see that's sparkling. Building these collections will give you more Enchantment. Ginger will find them for you, so make sure to click on the dog button every now and then.
Once you've got about 500 Enchantment and are finished with the Stele, pick up a rank of Harvest for your fairies. Then send one of the Dryads to talk to the swamp god just below the Hermit Fairy's house. After she finishes talking, make sure that the Dryad cleans house, switching off musicians again to keep the Wistful Spirit off her back.
Send a fairy to bring fruit to the King of the Fireflies. After he's done that, you'll need to bring him some Golden Syrup - but first, send a Dryad to plant the seeds in the Orchard.
After that's done a tree will appear in the Orchard and you'll get a prompt to find the Water Source. It's in the lower left of the map, the giant sprinkler can. At this point you should have more than one fairy with Rank 2 of Knowledge - assign them both to repair the Water Source.
If, like me, it worked out that the fairies with high Music ranks were also the ones with Knowledge, then every so often you'll have to pick them both up and send them to have a feast. Keeping your fairies happy is more important than working them until they're scared by Wistful Spirits.
After the Water Source is repaired, you're tasked to wake up the Queen Bee. She's inside the flower next to the spout of the watering can. At this point, after an hour or two of brisk harvesting, you should have some Dryads at level 3 Nature or higher. Assign them all to the flower, and cycle your Musicians to keep the Spirits off their back.
At this point, you should have enough Enchantment to buy rank 1 of Enchantment, which will help you accumulate Enchantment points faster. Do it.
Freeing the Queen Bee gives you 300 Enchantment points and a couple new quests to find the Honey Spoon and repair the Still and Hive. Set your Knowledge people to repairing the Still, and put your Nature fairies to preparing more food.
Repairing the Still will take quite some time, so devote your fairies to cleaning the Mirrors, retrieving Sylphs, and other side quests. These will pump your Enchantment points, so you can eventually have the first rank of all of the upgrades. Make sure that you have the 2nd rank of Harvest, so you can finish the Swamp quest line and revive the Fireflies' Mushroom.
Your Food Store will become full if you've had fairies harvesting all this time. Throw banquets! Throw many banquets! Having more hands means you can accomplish tasks more quickly.
Also, at this point your Dryads will probably have reached Rank 4 in Nature, the highest rank. Cycle them out with Leprechauns or Pixies to learn Music or Exploration - Dryads aren't good at Knowledge.
Finishing the Game
After getting the second rank of Harvest, your Dryads will be able to replant the Orchard Seed in the Swamp. Cycle musicians as usual to keep the Spirits off their backs.
Once they're done that, set them to carrying Sugar Flowers to the Still and back. Level Movement to 2 with the Enchantment you got from replanting the Seed, topping it up with the collections you're working on.
You should have enough Musicians at this point to do more than one Wistful Spirit distraction at a time. Work on clearing the Faery Mirror near the Fairy Circle on the left side of the map.
Set your Gnomes or other Knowledgeable fairies to work on repairing the Honey Spoon, distracting as needed. If you have any left, set them to repairing the mirrors that remain and collecting more stones.
If you're having trouble keeping the Spoon fairies' morale up, do some other side quests to level up Movement some more. But there's no getting around it here - you're going to have to babysit your Gnomes. You can't quit the game and wait it out, because your fairies will get sad and run back to the tree.
Around this point, I found it necessary to throw a couple more banquets. I'm sure it's possible to finish the main quest without recruiting more than six or seven fairies, but it'd take forever.
Once you've cleaned the Honey Spoon, the fog will clear and the Queen Bee's bees will start collecting the honey. You need to help them along, though - assign the Dryads to carry the honey from the Spoon to the Still. While you're doing that, have your Leprechauns clean the Xylophone, since you'll eventually have to do that anyway.
After the Xylophone's clean, you need people with Level 3 Music to learn the Melody of Legend. Fortunately, this means you'll have people to rotate out to keep the Spirit distracted.
When the Dryads finish carrying the honey, then you'll have to assign a couple of Gnomes with at least Knowledge 3 to refine the stuff into Golden Syrup. Fortunately, they do it at the Still, so you can just assign them to it and worry about other things.
Next, you'll need Enchantment 2 to relight the Fireflies' lamp, so keep collecting those stones and doing side missions.
Once the Golden Syrup is refined, you'll have to repair the Fireflies' lamp, which requires fairies with Knowledge 4. By now, you should have more than enough musicians to distract the Spirit from your multiple workers.
At the same time, get two Dryads with Nature 4 to start ferrying Golden Syrup to the Firefly King. They'll be walking back and forth, but you'll still need Musicians to protect them. This will take a while, so put your other fairies on whatever side-quests you haven't done yet, like repairing the Water Mill. (which will expand your food stores so you can get all twelve fairies, if you want.) If you haven't done all the mirrors yet, you need to before you can light the lamp.
Finally, it's time to lead the Firefly King back to his home. Put all your Level Four Musicians on the Firefly King's throne, and they'll lead him back to the lamp. Use some other musicians to distract the spirit. Once the percentage reaches 100%, you're done! The Firefly King returns your dog to the mortal realm and your shop opens for business. Congratulations!
Main Quests
Decipher the Ancient Writings
Send a Scholar to the Great Tree (root on the right side of the tree).
Find the Ancestral Ruins
Click the ruins in the top left of the map.
Translate the Ruins
Send a Scholar to the Stele to research the ruins.
Find the King of the Firefllies
Top right of the map, next to the Orchard. Click on the firefly by the tree.
Feed the Fireflies
Bring the King fruit from the Fruit Store. Drop a villager on the King and he/she will bring the King fruit.
Wake Olianth
Click on the large creature just below the Hermit Fairy's house (in the swamp).
Clean the Swamp
Drop a Dryad in the swamp to start cleaning.
Replant the Orchard Seed
Needs level 1 of Harvest and a Dryad to help it grow. Drop a Dryad on the seed.
Find the Water Source
Click on the water can in middle left of map.
Repair the Water Source
Requires 2 Scholars. Drop 2 scholars on the water can to repair.
Wake the Queen Bee
Requires 2 Dryads, she's in the bloom immediately above the can's spout. Drop 2 Dryads (or any villager high in nature) on the bloom.
Repair the Still
Requires 2 Scholars, it's next to the Fruit Store. Drop 2 Scholars on the still to repair.
Find the Honey Spoon
Click on the stick at bottom middle of map.
Repair the Honey Spoon
Requires 2 Scholars. Drop 2 scholars on the honey spoon to start repairs.
Harvest Sugar Flowers
Requires 2 Dryads, the sugar flowers grow in the Swamp. Drop 2 Dryads (or villagers who are high in nature) on the flowers in the swamp to harvest.
Collect the Ingredients
Requires 2 Dryads to ferry the honey to the Still.
Refine the Golden Syrup
Requires 3 Scholars at the Still. Drop 3 scholars on the still to refine.
Repair the Faery Mirrors
Requires an Explorer and a Scholar to clean and repair each mirror
The Telescope Lens
The Mirror of the Faery Cricle
The Mirror of the Blossoming Plain - near the Queen Bee
The Muse's Mirror
The Hermit's Mirror - by Fruit Store
The Fireflies' Mirror - by King of Fireflies
Melody of Legend
Clean the Xylophone and send 3 Musicians to learn the Melody. They must be level 3 musicians and all must work at the same time.
Relight the Firefly Lamp
Requires 3 Scholars at the Lamp. Drop 3 scholars on the lamp to repair and relight.
Lead the King of the Fireflies Home
Requires 3 Musicians at the King's Tree.
Secondary Quests
Repair Faery Lights
All three are by the Water Mill.
Drop a scholar (someone who is high in knowledge) on each light to repair.
Repair the Compass
Have a Scholar and Explorer clean and repair the Compass (below the telescope).
Clean the Hand of Titan
Have two Explorers clean the moss-covered hand south of the Ruins.
Repair the Old Mill
Have a Scholar repair the Mill - gives you more Food Stores.
Repair the Glowing Mushroom
Have a Dryad repair the blue Mushroom next to the Learning Nook.
Rescue the Villagers
Get all 12 Fairies to come back - requires Old Mill. Keep throwing feasts until all 12 villagers return.
Ent Roots
Collect all 10 Ent Roots.
Moonstones
Collect all 10 Moonstones.
Breaths of Sylphs
Collect all 10 Breaths.
Special thanks to Karl for this strategy guide!
Posted by: grinnyp
|
April 3, 2010 7:08 AM