What’s the Best Strategy? It’s Harder Than it Looks in Devil and the Fairy

Indie virtual reality (VR) developer HandyGames currently has two titles on Steam Early Access, both of which you play a powerful overseer. But while Townsmen VR casts you as a god trying to protect and nurture a civilisation, today’s gameplay video looks at the other, much darker title Devil and the Fairy. This casts you as a reawakened demon who needs to protect his dungeons from invading heroes.

Devil and the Fairy

A wave-based tower defence style experience, Devil and the Fairy puts you in command of goblin troops to defend your dungeon whilst having access to a selection of defences to slow down and injure the invading forces. As you’ll see from the video, the Early Access title has three levels available at present – one of which is locked until you successfully complete the others – and they certainly don’t make it easy from the outset.

Currently the videogame seems to be setup for right-handed players with the inventory opening up on the left hand, whilst the right does all the picking and positioning. To begin with there’s only a couple of inventory items available in each class. So you have a standard goblin who does melee damage plus a goblin shaman that shoots magic at range. On the defensive side there’s a barricade and some floor spikes. None of these can be put down haphazardly has you only have so much magical energy. Once depleted you can either wait for it to recharge – very slowly – or start looking around the level to smash things up. Boxes, jars, barrels, basically anything that looks breakable might well be, unleashing more magic or possibly all manner of other items to help your troops.

VRFocus previewed Devil and the Fairy last week: “If you like a good tower defence videogame and don’t mind Early Access titles then Devil and the Fairy is certainly an interesting choice. With decent visuals, a solid control scheme and some cheeky humour through out, there’s plenty to like.”

Preview: Devil and the Fairy – Be the Demonic Dungeon Keep you Always Wanted to be

HandyGames might not be the most well-known virtual reality (VR) developer but that’s likely to change soon. Having launched a couple of titles in 2017, 2018 has seen the studio hit the ground running with two Steam Early Access releases in February, Townsmen VR and the quirkily titled Devil and the Fairy. The latter certainly grabs the attention, not really revealing too much about what the title is but intriguing none the less. It is in fact a strategy/tower defence videogame that puts you as the monster trying to wipe out waves of annoying heroes.

Devil and the Fairy

As with any Early Access videogame the developer is testing the waters, giving you the main core of the title while additional flair and features will be added later on. So currently Devil and the Fairy has three levels to complete, each one consisting of six waves, and three difficulty levels to challenge yourself on.

Supporting both HTC Vive and Oculus Rift (the latter of which VRFocus used) Devil and the Fairy is really easy to get the hang of. As a dark demonic overlord who’s in charge of keeping their magic crystal safe, all your inventory items can be found in your left hand by tilting it palm up. You also have two rings on, one red, one green, with the former giving access to troops while the green ring is for defensive items like barricades or spike traps. These can then be plucked from one hand a placed in one of the highlighted areas.

To begin with your choice of options are fairly limited, with a melee goblin and goblin shaman the only troop choices while defences are the ones already mentioned. The more you play and build experience across any of the maps will unlock more allies to place and defences to help them, such as a healing tower. This does mean that to begin with Devil and the Fairy can feel somewhat repetitious and shallow has you grind those experience points out.

Devil and the Fairy

While you may concentrate on planning your strategy and where items are going to be placed don’t forget about exploring the levels. Not only are they really nice to look at and get in close to, they also hide secrets. While merely a secondary feature, the secrets each level hold can help you in battle so they are worth exploring prior to combat. They work much in the same way as a table top VR experience, so you can sit down and move them around with the controllers or stand up for a roomscale experience. You’ll find boxes to smash which will unleash more energy to build troops, or pick those same boxes up and throw them at invaders to stun them for your troops. Later on you may even find other goodies that can be advantageous. It certainly makes each level and run through that bit more involving whilst making the dungeon seem that bit more alive.

If you like a good tower defence videogame and don’t mind Early Access titles then Devil and the Fairy is certainly an interesting choice. With decent visuals, a solid control scheme and some cheeky humour through out, there’s plenty to like. So long as HandyGames continue to add more troops, items and levels then Devil and the Fairy could turn out to be its best VR title yet.

Defend Your Dungeon in Devil and the Fairy on Steam Early Access

Last week Handy Games launched Townsmen VR for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. Hot on its heels from the developer is another Steam Early Access title called Devil and the Fairy.

Devil and the Fairy

The videogame is a tower defense style experience in which you play the Devil. Commanding hordes of demons and other monsters, you need to protect the magic crystal which is the source of your power from loads of pesky human heroes.

In its current early access form Devil and the Fairy includes three different dungeon levels with three difficulty settings. As Handy Games explains: “A cute fairy, will act as a guide through the tutorial and explain the game mechanics to the players. The players are tasked with improving their dungeons and leading their units in order to defend their realm against waves of human invaders. In addition to roughly 3 hours of standard gameplay, the player can spend many more hours experiencing the progression system, unlocking new units and upgrading items to be even more effective against intruding raiders.”

The studio plans on being in early access for approximately a year, in that time its goal is to increase the number of playable dungeons, expand on the existing war machinery more props and units for both minions and raiders. The team does note that: “Again, however, while more content would be great and there are a lot of ideas we are excited about, we can’t promise any additional features.”

Devil and the Fairy

Devil and the Fairy can be purchased now via Steam Early Access for £7.19 GBP, for either Oculus Rift or HTC Vive.

Townsmen is another strategy experience, but instead of the forces of good and evil battling it out you’re now a god watching over towns folk, helping them with their everyday lives, speeding up process by getting workers to where they need to be. VRFocus will continue its coverage of Handy Games, reporting back with the latest updates.