Me and the faeries

I have to admit that I spent most of my weekend caring for a little tribe of faeries in a new casual game. “Little Folk of Faery” is a strategy game, very much like “Virtual Villagers”, “Escape from Paradise” and some others.

Such games consist of a number of missions you have to accomplish in order to finish the game (“Little Folk of Faery” also has secondary missions you don’t have to accomplish to finish the game). In order to do so, you need to train your people (in this case gnomes, pixies, leprechauns and dryads), so they can tackle the missions. You also need to feed your people (and in this game, they are clever enough to gather food themselves if the storage is running low) and take care of them. One of the secondary missions is to reunite the whole group by organizing parties that call them back, one by one, from the forest.

Unlike in other games of that type, your faeries don’t die. That’s a major drawback I have encountered in other games of that type. You have finally maxed out one ability of one of your people and then he or she dies. And once you’ve gathered all 12 faeries together, you can actually get a lot of work done.

The main missions circle around the restoration of balance and harmony, mostly by chasing away wandering spirits that haunt and scare the faeries, repair various places and getting the light source (the King of Fireflies) back to work. In order to that, though, you have to do other things, like repairing the mirrors which multiply the light of the fireflies, rescue the Queen Bee and her hive so they can produce honey, restore the swamp so you can harvest a special kind of flower and learn a special song that will lead the King of Fireflies to his old new job.

Beside those things, you can also reunite the tribe (that’s no primary mission), repair various lights around the place, gather various objects (four collection, one of which actually makes part of the fog and a wandering spirit disappear) and do other things.

This is a leprechaun, the first of my little faeries who actually maxed out all four trades a fairy can have in this game. That’s why he’s accompanied by a chimera instead of the other, normal animals that accompany the faeries.

Usually you can tell which ability a fairy has maxed out last (or used most). Music brings a bird as a pet, nature a gerbil, knowledge a chipmunk and exploration a weasel. Leprechauns usually prefer exploration, but each fairy can max out every ability. Once they do, they are accompanied by a chimera.

It took me about 14 hours to master all primary and secondary missions (and a little extra time to max out my leprechaun). Currently I wonder whether I should start over or continue with the current game. I really would like to know if something happens once I max out all 12 faeries…