Queensland-based developer Owl Machine is a team of two working on a game that looks as unique as its premise sounds. Pulling straight from the game’s website and Steam page, Key Fairy is “a hand-drawn, pacifist, folkloric, bullet-hell,” which is certainly an interesting elevator pitch.
While the bullet-hell genre is synonymous with a screen filled with enemies to mow through with a range of weapons in a near-automatic fashion, Key Fairy opts for a different approach. Using a grappling thread to traverse various fantasy locations, the challenge comes from avoiding attacks from misguided and misunderstood creatures. Collecting treasures, trinkets and keys while interacting with the denizens of the magical land you inhabit will drive your experience, not committing acts of violence.
We recently asked Tex Barnes, one-half of Owl Machine and the lead behind Key Fairy’s programming and design, about the reasoning behind taking a pacifist approach to gameplay, to which they said:
“I think you gain a lot from taking elements away from existing genres. When I’m playing bullet-hells, I tend to just permanently hold down the fire button anyway, so it’s not an active mechanic. We realised you could take away the ability to attack and instead have a deeper movement system, with a grappling hook, to focus on evasion and positioning. And once you take away the ability to attack, a whole world opens up around you.” Barnes continues, “To replace direct attacks, we had the monsters drop stars, which you collect to calm them, which leads to a frenetic gameplay style of dancing around monsters, getting close enough to collect their stars without getting hit.”
By watching the gameplay trailer below, it seems clear that removing violent combat from the equation won’t make Key Fairy any easier. However, the challenge will undoubtedly be different to that found in a more traditional bullet-hell game like Enter the Gungeon.
The pacifist gameplay is, without a doubt, a unique selling point, but the most immediately noticeable feature working for Key Fairy is its largely monochromatic art style. Watching the trailer for the first time, my mind went to the Mr. Game & Watch-style titles from the 1980s, though I was sure other influences would be at play. Posing the question of influences to Niosis, the other half of Owl Machine responsible for art and world design, they had this to say:
“The monochromatic art style is coming from a heavy mix of the 1-bit aesthetic inspired by games of that era and similar trends in computer games limited by early graphics, as well as the striking black and white art of old tabletop RPGs like the original 1974 D&D books, all filtered through the lens of storybook illustrations.” Niosis continues, “The art of the game has a focus on experimental mixed media, being almost entirely scanned ink illustrations and heavily edited photographs, so the limited colour palette immediately makes any elements we combine look visually cohesive even if they’re as different as traditional art, pixel art and real-life trees.”
You can watch the Key Fairy announcement trailer here:
You can wishlist Key Fairy on Steam as it currently has a “To be announced” release date, keeping us wanting for now.
Are you as intrigued by Key Fairy as I am? Let us know in the comments or on our social media.
