by Jeff Parsons

Created on: January 24, 2008

A forlorn voice tells a tale...

Something evil has bewitched the Swee pollen collectors and awakened the sinister forest with a dark, twisted and malicious intent: angry flying insects, hungry frogs, poisonous snails, acid spitting ants, snapping Venus fly traps and more...

The very survival of the faeries depends upon the courage in your heart and the swiftness of your wings. You alone must collect the pollen and bring it to the Transient Star, so that the Great Tree may be kept alive. You must free the Swees. You must not fail.

When you first start your quest, you'll be momentarily stunned by the background graphics. The background's gleaming blend of watercolors creates an astonishingly beautiful, lifelike effect that immediately pops out at you. The remaining layered graphics, which make up your character and the swarming insects, are comprised of colorfully vivid pixels with well-defined edges to clearly separate them from the background. Very impressive!

Your character is a diminutive, quick and lively faerie that flits about with the merest movement of your mouse. It's so easy, that eventually, you won't notice that you're using the mouse; you'll just automatically dodge in and out among the insects with an uncanny, fluid grace.

Collecting pollen and freeing trapped Swees is an entertaining challenge. The pollen motes drift slowly about the screen while flying insects buzz around you. Some of the insects hold the keys to the Swee's floating prisons. As you save the Swees, you become more powerful, and you can further develop your agility, health, strength or magic. With high point scores, you can also improve your wings.

When you give your pollen to the Transient Star, you may receive one of these temporary magic powers: deep freeze, lightning, starburst, aura shield or mystic attraction. Even better, when you've harvested enough pollen, you have the power of ancient fire... my favorite. It's like a circular bug light that splatters all the insects that run into it. I added my own sounds effects for that. Yeah, it's fun.

While you're darting about with the greatest of ease, the insects will eventually crash into you, but, not to worry, it takes a lot to kill you. One exception: if a nasty denizen nabs you from the background, then usually, you're a goner. No problem there. You can replay previous levels to your heart's desire. Since there are ten circles with ten levels each, the range of gameplay is wide and diverse.

Amazingly, the intense graphics and gameplay can be run on a Windows 98 system with a modest video card and CPU, so that opens the game up to a lot of people. The music soundtrack and sound effects are well done in a simple, pleasant and relaxing style.

If only this beautiful, well-crafted game was around when my kids were growing up... I'm considering buying it for some of my younger relatives. I give it a 4 out of 5 rating.

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