Meadowland

It is a pretty game, but it could be prettier. You have to complete tasks (click on your fairy at the right place during the right time of day or night), and was mostly spent waiting for the time of day to change so I could click on the fairy. This wouldn't be so bad if it was more beautiful. It's also not the kind of thing I'm going to go back and play, as one play-through was more than enough. Also, upon completing the game I felt it wasn't very rewarding, and nothing really happened.

[i]Meadowland[/i] is the first game of Mårten Jonsson, and more of an art form rather than a game if you ask me. It bears no complexity in gameplay and only serves for an hour's diversion, yet it presents a naively beautiful display of an age old story. As the dawn breaks, our gaze meets with a sleepy valley under the summer sun. There is a pond, a meadow, a bridge hanging between two huts, an old archway and a cliff by the sea... and a storybook residing just above the valley. The utter presence of ultimate peace. And here, out of nowhere, we come in to this pastoral scenery. As many gamers call it to be "Navi" - a reference to the fairy companion of Link from [i]The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time[/i] - we take the role of a tiny glowing fairy. As we move our cursor around the environment, the fairy moves around and explores this limited geography, and when we click on it, it sings. Our aim here is to take clues from the storybook scenes and make the fairy sing in the appropriate...

You move the mouse cursor around and if you hold the button down the fairy flies toward it. You can make some cute effects happen by flying through things like grass and flowers. Sometimes barely visible puzzle pieces are laying around the place and you can fly over them to pick them up and add them to the puzzle. Day and night slowly cycle continuously. There's some stuff to look at, like the two people that live on islands in the sky. There's a picture book to look at as well. The big question is: What the heck am I supposed to be doing here? There's no real goal or purpose. It's just a fairy on a small map with things happening. See the background to the logo at the top of the page? That's the whole map. The fairy is roughly the size of the star on the far left side. (That may actually be the fairy, since that's the starting point.) Also, the visual effect during daytime makes my eyes lose focus to an extent that is physically uncomfortable. I had to look away from the screen seve...

This was a very nice, relaxing game. There isn't really a lot to it on the surface. You basically fly around as a butterfly or something (who everybody is referring to as Navi lol) singing little butterfly songs and essentially unlocking stuff. Your song helps to create events which further the progress along. The story itself is a minimalist as can be. Basically it is really the representation of a short poem/musing about the limitless possibilities of dreams. You probably wont get that during the game itself necessarily, but the message will be conveyed to you in the end. Overall, not a bad hour long game, but there is also definitely not much in the way of replay value. Presently, the game is a buck on Steam. That seems to be the right price in my estimation. But it for a buck and enjoy. Spend more and you will likely regret your purchase a little bit. All told, for what is basically concept art/poetry in game form, I give this a straight 6 out of 10. Worth your time, pleasant, bu...

TL;DR: Meadowland is an "artsy" exploration game with interesting but ultimately shallow game mechanics that rides with its dreamy expression. Placed inside a dream, you are a faerie who can fly around and sing in the serene, mystical dreamland. What's going on? Game shows you and immediately gets to the action of finding out yourself. User interface is minimal, only telling you how to move and how to sing. As there are no special maneuvers to attempt, the controls are sufficient for flying around: the faerie goes where you click and hold and then sings when you click the faerie. Singing is the main thing you want to do all the time. Singing at right places (and times) induces special events like e.g. rain or flower blooming. There's also a story that only progresses when you sing at the right place at the right time. Flow of time is seen in the celestial motion but all events nevertheless happen exactly at same times each day or night. Unfortunately "the song" gets old pretty fast...

I do believe Meadowland was Marten Jonsson's (Star Sky, Star Sky2, But to Paint the Universe) first Steam game. As a walking simulator (though the player flies) the ambition I feel was to tell a simple visual story with the added elements of a puzzle game. As a puzzle game the visual clues found in the book are a bit difficult to understand but the story is "age-old" of when a boy and a girl meet and fall in love. Biggest review complaint is about an achievement called "Tree of Dreams". To gain this achievement the player must fly back and forth across the whole landscape (day and night) looking for semi-translucent puzzle pieces, a type of mini-game. A bit tedious but doable. No offense intended to Mr. Jonsson but I am glad he steered away from actual puzzle elements in his later games. His later endeavors are still beautiful art pieces but focus more on the tale being told then gimmicky puzzles. (Since I own all of this developer's work I do feel I have a little right to co...

There is not much to enjoy in this art-game: Pros - Nice graphics - good music and sound effects (with one exception) - Night/day cycle that looks very good - Interesting changes you can make to the scenario Cons - Gameplay is very limited and slow - Not many things to interact - No real story, which is told without worlds (just a sequence of events) - Short and not very memorable Considering the time spent on this game, I believe you could use it better with more interesting games, considering the huge amount of games on Steam (or even elsewhere).

[h1]"Dream with a singing fairy and a blooming meadow"[/h1] Relaxing exploration flashgame on a very small map. You fly around with your singing fairy. Automatic daytime/nighttime change. Sometimes a little bit boring because you just wait for triggering certain events. Sounds and night vision effects are quite decent. But the puzzle pieces collecting is a pain in the a s s.

Completing the game is easy and short, but not fun at all. It's really lacking something.

Very simplistic puzzle game with uninspired graphics. For what it offers it should be free. I've seen free (non-F2p) games which offer more than that. There's basically just ambient sounds and not much else. The UI isn't friendly to use either. If you want a good game with fairies, I recommend you Child of Light. It isn't in the same price class admittedly but it's way better than this excuse of a game.