• Price: $9.99 USD (currently on sale for $7.99 until August 2nd)
• Developer: Spell Pie
• Publisher: Sometimes You
• Release Date: August 1, 2024

A review code was kindly provided by Sometimes You on behalf of Spell Pie. We thank them for allowing us to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

Farlands Journey is an adorable platformer that caught my eye with its vibrant colors. You play as a witch whose goal is to recover the “stolen heart” of her magical academy. There isn’t any dialogue, but they managed to convey the basics of the story without it.

You start with a tutorial stage, which contains the majority of the game’s text to teach you its mechanics. Gameplay is simple, with controls for using a spell, jumping, picking something up, and running.

Once you’ve gotten the hang of things, you can start the first of ten stages between the tutorial and the boss stage. Jump – and occasionally swim – through each level, solving basic puzzles and attacking monsters with a spell before they can hit you with their weapons.

The animations when you defeat an enemy are pretty funny (especially the pigs when you use a fire spell on them). I think the monsters could use more variety, but the ones they have are cute. The boss designs – like the pirate parrot – were fun.

You’ll find that some enemies will be wearing hats – once you defeat them, the hat is yours for the taking. Each hat has its own special ability attached to it, like the bunny hat that allows you to jump much higher than usual.

It seems that wearing a hat allows you to absorb one hit, and then you need to find a new one. I did wish they would have included information on each hat’s function, as I hadn’t figured out what some did by the end of the game.

There are gems scattered throughout each stage, which you’ll want to gather to convert into currency for use at the school shop. They included a lot of hidden areas in each level, so you’ll have to search every nook and cranny to collect all the gems. Every stage also has one or two puzzle pieces to find; I believe you need to find them all to be able to access the boss stage at the end?

In between levels you can return to the academy and use your gems to restore some health, temporarily unlock a different spell, or buy a hat (again, for temporary use). I didn’t really understand how spell usage worked, as spells beyond the default bubbles seem to run out after a certain point.

I wish that unlocking new hats and spells was permanent, and that we could swap between them at will (even if it was just once a stage). It might have been interesting to unlock new abilities and return to previous stages to reach previously inaccessible areas.

You can find little bubbles in stages that let you use a different spell for a bit. It seems that the gauge above the HP meter is some kind of MP meter, which can be replenished by destroying pots.

If you lose all 3 hearts worth of health, the good news is that the game doesn’t punish you for it besides taking away your current hat. You then reappear at the beginning of the screen you are on.

I was pleasantly surprised by how long each level was; I really appreciated that stages aren’t timed. Farlands Journey is a colorful, low stakes experience with a peppy soundtrack that will last you several hours.