bayala – the Game Beginners Tips

Adventure game bayala is based on the movie’ bayala – a magical adventure’. What’s more, the movie, and the game, are based on the lovely figurines by Schleich. And who doesn’t know about these wonderful toys?

If you have picked up bayala – the Game, chances are that you or your child are big fans of the Elvish world and the movie that is the base of the video game. And maybe you are trying to help your child with her or his first steps in playing an adventure game.

This guide is made to help you through the first chapter in the game. It will teach you the basics, and give you tips to get familiar in the game. So I hope it helps you to really enjoy this magical adventure with Surah and friends!

What’s the game about?

In the beginning in bayala, there was a magical link between the Elves and the Dragons that was so strong, that the Elves even guarded the dragon’s eggs. Until the evil Shadow Queen Ophira stole the eggs. This was the beginning of a worrying time, because when the dragons disappear, the power of magic might vanish, too.

Surah and her friends set off on an adventure-packed journey through forests, into caves and across bayala’s Dragon Mountains. She faces off against the evil Shadow Queen Ophira, to save bayala from certain doom, and bring back the magic!

The game of bayala comes with three save slots. You can change the settings in the game, where the languages available are German, English, French, Italian and Spanish. 

Let’s start our adventure

First of all, you start your game by choosing the Story.

Surah starts out in the town, waiting for you to take control. The L-stick makes her move, A will make her jump and by pressing X you can shake the flowers along the way to collect their seeds. 

It’s a good idea to collect as many seeds as you can from the start, as you need them for one of the first tasks you get ( collect a 100 seeds for Sera). Plus, you can use them to buy pictures in your Collectors Book, but I’ll get to that later. 

You’ll notice that some ledges and tops of walls are glowing gold: this means they can be climbed. Press A to jump, and when hanging on the ledge press the L stick upward. The game can be a bit fiddly there. When it doesn’t seem to work, just press B to fall down again and try over. 

At the end of the road you find your sister Sera with a question mark above her head. That means she has a task for you. Press the R shoulder to talk to her. Sera tells you to head to the Throne Room to find your other sister Eyela. A circle appears with pink rings circling above, step in it and press R shoulder again. 

Quest management

Both your sisters are in the Throne Room. They both have tasks for you, but remember that you don’t have to do all of them to drive the story forward. 

When the sisters have ‘…’ above their head, it means you have one of their tasks in progress. When there’s a ! above the head, the task is complete and you should talk to the one who set the task for you. If someone has a ? it means there’s a new task. 

After you receive a task, a big + with a ! appears in the right downside corner. Pressing the + button shows your Quest log.

This is more important then  you think at first. It shows all the things you need to do as the quests all get a colored dot.

On the right side of the Quest Log, there’s a little map. The purple triangle shows where Surah is on the map, and the colored dot shows the warp circle you must step into the take care of the corresponding task. This is important: the first time I played the game I ran around from warp circle to warp circle without knowing which one I needed to enter.

Task: clean up the town

Stepping in the warp circle brings you to the first alley you need to clean up. As soon as you walk into the road, a white glowing circle appears between the first couple of houses. Step into it, and you will warp to another part of the town. This is the part where stacks of books are found.  Pick one of them up and put it in the little white circles that appear near to you.

You also see packages lying around. Ignore them for now, as they are part of one of the next quests, and you won’t be able to interact with them before you get that task.

As soon as you have places the three book stacks the +! Appears in the right bottom corner. This means one part of your task is complete, or if there was only one, the entire task. 

Step back into the glowing white circle and you’ll go back to the alley you started in. As soon as you move to the left, a new white glowing circle appears. Step in it, and you’ll find a new alley to explore. 

There’s a grey pedestal kind of rock with blue swirls in it that makes a nice stepping stone to get on the ledge to the left. Another such pedestal is on top of the ledge. Pick it up with the R-shoulder and place it in front of the next ledge to the left. Don’t forget to harvest the seeds! 

You find three more stacks of books to place, and the +! tells you the task is now complete. But you can’t  go back yet: moving to the left you see a blue flower pattern on the ground. One with a grey pedestal on it, another is bare. Pick up the other pedestal and place it on the flower pattern. A white circle appears that transports you back to the original part of town. Move to the right and go back to the red rings.

Clear two tasks in one go

Remember how I mentioned that Sera will ask you for a 100 flower seeds? So while you are heading back to the Throne Room to report your progress in cleaning up the town you can work in that seed quest as well.

If you find it hard to collect 100 seeds, remember that as soon as you’ve left an area, and re-enter it, the flowers are ready to be harvested again. This saves time. Also notice that next to the first white ring that appeared there’s a house on an elevated platform. The rim of the leaf it stands on glows gold. This means you can clamber on it and on the leaf there’s a pod filled with seeds and two more flowers. The seed pod gives you a nice haul!

Time to get new quests

Go back to the throne room, report to your sisters and get seeds as a reward. They both give you a new task, notice that now Sera gives the red task while Eyela gives the task with the green dot. For this one you have to go into the caves, and a new red glowing warp point appears. The map now shows which warp circle to take for the corresponding (red or green dotted) task.

You will find that for the task to clear the streets from the presents that are strewn about, you go to the same alleys as before. Don’t forget the chest that is up a little platform you can reach by a leaf stair. 

The mushroom quest leads to a different part to explore: the caves. Here you will bounce on your first bouncy mushroom and push a big rock by using the R shoulder to unlock a floating rock platform.

The route through the caves is pretty easy to figure out. Note that in several of the tasks you get after this one, you will revisit it. There’s only one warp exit, and that is the way in and out. 

Marween races to the town

Next, we get a movie cutscene about Narween finding the talking rock. Watch closely as it morphs seamlessly into Marween balancing on the rolling rock and you controlling her run to the city.

Try for the seeds along the route, and there’s a glittering picture in there as well. But beware, for every obstacle you hit, your life circle looses a bit. If it is empty, you have to do that part again. 

After the run, you find yourself back in the throne room as Surah again. Sera, Eyela and Marween will now give you quests. The first one is finding the talking rock that Marween lost somewhere in the city. Checking the quest map under + shows which circle you have to go through. 

Back in one of the alleys pick up the pedestal and put it on the blue glowing picture of a flower. You’ll get the help you need to go up over flower bridges and jump from leaf to leaf to find the egg. 

Eyela’s next assignement is to make the town more festive. You have to unfurl the ribbons on the plant-poles all around. Having difficulty finding the plant poles? You will see a glitter at the base of the right structure to tell you that’s the one. 

Run along the now familiar alley all the way to the left, unfurling the decoration poles as you go. Then step into the white circle to the farthest left. 

Find yourself in an area with a blue diamond-like stone and a pattern of blue flowers on the floor. The trick is to put the stone on the pattern In a way that all five flowers glow up: put it on the middle flower. A stair is formed, and up above, there’s another pattern of blue flowers on the ground. The blue stone you need for this is atop a ledge.

Go get it first and put the stone on the flower in the middle. Another handy stone appears to progress. You will see these puzzles more often on your journey, and every time you must plan the position of the blue stone in a way that all patterns are lit.

Don’t forget to unfurl all the poles you come across, and notice the little bag that’s on the ground. You can’t do anything with it now, but once Sera sets that task for you, you will be able to pick it up.

Go through the white circle that has appeared and you’re back in the original alley. Jump across the channel to the right and enter the next white circle. ignore the pedestal puzzle, you’ve already done this before. Instead, go to the right and climb on the little wall. Go right on the leaf stair, jump from the platform on the leaf roof of the carriage and go on to the high ground. Unfurl the pole, jump down and find another pole. Leave the area through the white circle. 

Back in the alley again, run to the right to the next white circle, you then enter the last area, jump down the ledge and find the final pole. Time to head back to Eyela in the Throne room.

Mini Games

This time no quest from Eyela, but  you to do your first game of Jewels Puzzle. 

The objective is to clear away the bottom row of stones by playing match-3 with the board of jewels. Once you’ve done that, the minigame Jewels Puzzles is unlocked, which you can then access through the title menu.

Later in the game you will get more mini games added. Once you have done them once, they unlock in the title menu. So whenever you are up for a little game, you can access it directly.

Search every part of this alley, jump from leaf to leaf and go through the white circles that appear on the big leaves that have a Elf home on them. Find all the crows and beat them by pressing X.

When the crows hit you, your energy circle on the left top of the screen slowly depletes. But you will see that the crows you slay leave seeds behind and an occasional bright green star. Run through those to fuel up your energy circle. Once you’ve vanquished them all, head back to the throne room.

Your sister is Queen!

Eyela’s Coronation Ceremony is taking place during another beautiful cut scene from the movie.

Sadly, Ophelia’s Ravens are crashing the party, and Surah has to fight them to protect Eyela. Follow her when she tries to hide, to keep the crows away from her. Don’t worry if your energy runs low, as the game is very forgiving. You just come back to the same moment to fight on.

The story then continues with the fact that Marween talking rock turned out to be a dragon egg. To protect it Surah, Marween and friends set out to bring it to safety. Another race game this time, with you on a horse trying to avoid all obstacles.

The game is set up in a way that the next setting is when the group first set up camp. Once again you get quests to fulfill, this time in new beautiful environments. On the world map in between game parts you will see your progress.

Additional tips

Through the title menu you can access the Collectors Album. Using the plant seeds you are constantly collecting you can buy puzzle pictures pieces. Some of the picture pieces though can only be found in the game, these are the shiny puzzle fragments. You will sometimes find them, like on a level you are exploring or during the horse races. The aim of course it to fill up your Collector’s Album entirely., which gives you a nice surprise.

Saving: The game saves automatically, no bothering finding Save points and such. 

Mini games: there are four mini games to unlock. The Jewel Puzzle, Fishing, Practice magic and the Raven Dance. Added to that, there are several levels to each game to master. And like I mentioned, you can access them from the main menu.

Last tip, but maybe the most important one: If you want to go quicker through the main storyline, you can skip some of the quests given to you. Generally, the red dotted quest is the one you need to do, the others are optional. Important when you want to collect more seeds to get more pictures, but the downside is that you often re-visit the same level.