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As a gamer, and to a lesser extent in real life, I’m prone to the enjoyment of limited amounts of chaos. While I definitely don’t go looking for trouble in my everyday life, I do tend to seek out games that invoke that fight-or-flight reaction, and Dark Fairy Tale: Dreamland Survivors is one of those games.
Dark Fairy Tale: Dreamland Survivors is a top-down, auto-shooting roguelike based on familiar characters from beloved fairy tales from childhood. As stated in my review of Deathless, I’m not usually a huge fan of roguelikes, but I’m starting to think that I may have been missing out on a lot of fun by avoiding them.
Dark reimaginings of beloved characters
In Dark Fairy Tale, you play as Pinocchio, albeit a darker version than you may be used to. If you’ve seen Guillermo del Toro’s version of the beloved childhood tale, then you’ll have a good idea of what to expect here. He’s wooden, as a pupper made of wood should probably be, and strangely adorable if you’re like me and love anything that’s a little bit dark and twisted.
In the various levels you’ll encounter within the demo, you come across other recognizable, although reimagined, characters. The doll-like Red Riding Hood is the most commonly encountered enemy, but there are also variously sized Snow Whites and other creepy yet cute memories from childhood.
I should mention that I’m generally pretty horrible at roguelikes and, other than a bizarrely lucky first attempt where I reached level 10, I haven’t progressed very far through the 25 levels available in he demo. This does mean that I’m at something of a disadvantage when it comes to telling you about the enemies you may encounter further down the line, but I can at least say that they’re all beautifully designed and fun to look at, even as they try to kill you.
Despite the dark and grungy aesthetic of the art for enemies and the arena itself, I can’t write this out without commenting on the joyous juxtaposition between those things and the attacks themselves. The attacks, even if I don’t fully understand them, are undeniably fun to look at, and they all share the same, almost pastel-pop color scheme. Not only does this make the attacks themselves stand out, but it really adds to the sense of complete chaos.
How do you like your eggs?
As with all roguelikes, you gradually become stronger throughout each run by unlocking or purchasing eggs that boost your stats. The Life Egg increases your base HP, the Corrosion Egg increases the damage done by corrosive attacks, and so on. Some eggs are definitely more covetable than others, such as the Curse Has Come Egg, which randomly curses any monster within pickup range. Coupled with the Mass Curse egg, which increases damage by 24% for every cursed monster? You become pretty much unstoppable at that point.
You get these eggs by either leveling up or purchasing them with the in-game currency. Both are earned through killing monsters. You can then either ‘Devour’ or ‘Activate’ these eggs, and both options give a different set of stat boosts. I tend to devour my eggs, not unlike in real life. Devouring does tend to dilute the main purpose of the egg, but you do end up with a nice spread of evenly boosted stats, which feels good for me.
Run like the wind, bullseye
I’m not sure what the generally intended playstyle is for the genre, but my adopted tactic for getting through the rounds of Dark Fairy Tale is eerily similar to the one that I plan to adopt should the world ever be subjected to a zombie apocalypse: Run, don’t look back, don’t touch anything.
Each round lasts for around a minute, and I figure, as long as I can outlast that timer without meeting the grim reaper, then that’s a solid tactic. Maybe that’s naive, but this is an auto-shooter, so running is pretty much all I have control over, and I’m very good at running away from things. I know what my strengths are, and I will play to them.
Sadly, this tactic cannot be used during the boss fights that occur every five levels (presumably – like I said, I’ve never gotten past round 10, because I’m terrible at this). Whereas the usual rounds are endless arenas in which you have space to escape pretty much everything that comes for you, boss fights are much more confined, and with rules seemingly designed to make things completely unbearable.
In a good way, I swear.
For each boss stage, you’ll need to draw a tarot card to decide which type of boss you face. I’ve thus far encountered the Lovers, the Hangman, and Judgement. The latter was fine, but the Lovers and the Hangman made me want to tear my hair out about as much as they made me want a rematch. The Lovers introduces a second version of yourself that mirrors your movements, while the Hangman reverses the world and inverts the controls.
Needless to say, I died very quickly in both of those boss stages. I guess I need more practice.
If you thrive in chaos as much as I do, and want to dive in to this dark and twisted fairytale world, then there’s good news – Dark Fairy Tale: Dreamland Survivors is available on PC via Steam as of June 20, 2025, and there’s a free demo to try out if you want a taster.
