Tips to making Fae Farm magical

Fae Farm is the first farming sim to really answer what it would be like to be a fairy farmer—or, at least, a fairy-like farmer. You, a human adventurer, answer a plea for help from a message in a bottle about a realm where natural disasters have run rampant. From there, it evolves into a story between two realms and how you integrate into both and uncover the magical causes behind aforementioned natural disasters. More importantly, the way the magic and worldbuilding are incorporated into the gameplay enhance an otherwise traditional farming sim experience. 
 

Bippity, boppity, boo

Fae Farm makes it known early on that you will be knee-deep in magical dealings. Your town (which you can name yourself) starts filled with environmental dangers like dark purple thorns and impassable smoky fog. Once you get your magic wand, you’re able to banish the thorns around Azoria with a single swish. As you calm the Sprites causing mayhem across Azoria, you learn more spells that help you on the field and in combat. My expertise eventually grew with spells like Vortex, the spell that dispelled the miasma blocking off certain regions. I also used my magic wand to gather crops instead of plucking them from the dirt with my bare hands.

Fae Farm also incorporates an equipment system that eventually upgrades to magic-infused tools that require mana. You can use these abilities at your leisure, but I ended up chugging mana potions to get my chores done faster. After all, why water crops one by one when an enchanted watering can can water a whole square at once? Other sims also feature chargeable tools that can cover larger areas, but these typically don’t rely on a separate mana bar or magical ores like Feyrite for upgrades. 

Drink the witch’s brew

Mana potions aren’t the only kind of drinks you can throw into your boiling purple cauldron, either. Potions cover a number of effects from restoring your health to protecting you from miasma. Once you unlock your cauldron, you need a potion ingredients table and fae conservatory to craft what you need for said potions. 

Conservatories are like “mini farms” that turn little critters into useful items like Frog Sweat (yes, you heard that right) and Fae Dust. These drops don’t come from just magical creatures, but even from mundane ones like snails and dragonflies. In addition to potion making, you might also be able to use these ingredients for crafting and cooking.
 

Mundane yet mystical

Fae Farm doesn’t let you forget that it’s based in fantasy. I bounced over cliffs using bouncy purple mushrooms as trampolines, something that made up for the lack of early-game fast travel. Instead of growing cotton, I harvested it from Cottontails, sheep-like rodents that you can keep in a coop. I also had access to fancy fertilizers that sped up my crops’ growth or even swapped them to seasonal ones. Despite the different presentation, Fae Farm had enough similarities with reality-based sims that I could recognize alternatives for everyday items. 

It also delves into a completely separate realm from the original starting point. Your first home looks like a typical medieval town with brown wood and gray stone buildings, but the Fae Realm looks like a sugary sweet version of Middle Earth with its bright colors and pastels. Elven homes feature blue-violet wood and colorful roof tiles, and boast a neighborhood full of fantastical flora. The difference is further highlighted with the curvy gray trees with pink leaves, violet-capped mushrooms, and colorful, spritely critters. 
 

Meet magical creatures

As the name might suggest, Fae Farm does have fairies in it. I saw my first fairies, humanoids dressed in robes and adorned with wings, after I unlocked my first section of the map. Eventually, I even met other races like elves. However, not all magical creatures are friendly. 

Azoria also features fantasy fauna and flora. You can converse with the likes of fairies and elves, but you have to fight the likes of grumpy clocks, floating statues, and Howler-like book traps in dungeons. These add a light element of combat to the game, but not enough to make Fae Farm a farming sim and action game in one–and for the better. Most of the magical creatures you meet are more to flavor your otherworldly experiences instead of adding nightmare fuel.

Touch the sky (kind of)

Azoria is filled with magical races, but you’re not one of them. You’re human. Despite that, the Wisp Mother, this world’s fairy godmother, grants you a pair of wings herself. These don’t enable you to fly like fairies, but they do enable you to double jump and more gracefully glide in the air than without them. After receiving them, I almost always double jumped so that my wings could carry me further than they could on foot. 

So Fae Farm has the same satisfying grind that other farming sims have. However, it wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining without the magic. By the halfway point, you should be an expert at juggling fairy hero responsibilities like caring for magical creatures and straddling the divide between the normal and Fae Realm.

So play Fae Farm if you’d like to try farming in the shoes of a fairy-like being. You might find it more adventurous than the typical slice-of-life sim. While you’re at it, be sure to check out our beginner’s guide to prepare yourself for the adventure