Various items that increase Ptolemy's projectile radius, as well as kill multiple enemies at the same time, will also appear throughout the stages.

The player controls the witch Ptolemy through a series of single-screen stages, with the objective being to defeat all of the enemies on each screen.

[2][3] At various intervals between levels, an intermission screen appears during the game showing Ptolemy riding on the back of a large, wingless blue dragon named Rodemy.

[6][7] While working at Taito's Yokohama Institute, Tsujino drafted an idea for a game where the player had to defeat enemies by crushing them under large cakes, which he claims to be partly inspired by his addiction to Namco's Dig Dug.

[6] Early versions of the game were said to have been "monotonous" and left Tsujino largely unhappy with the outcome — being inspired by Broderbund's Lode Runner for the Apple II, he gave the game a larger emphasis on strategy and memorization, featuring reworked stage designs.

[1][8] A port of the game was released worldwide in December 2020 for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 as part of the Arcade Archives initiative by Hamster Corporation.

[10] The game is featured on the Taito Egret II Mini as part of the system's default 40-game lineup.

[21] When reviewing Taito Legends 2, Eurogamer wrote that the game was "hugely additive", although criticized it for the lack of co-op play.

[1] However, it was noted that the Sharp X68000 version was the best way to play the game, due to the addition of the save system, as well as the fact that it lets players continue anytime they liked.

[1] The game's inclusion in Taito Milestones has similarly led to a mixed to positive response overseas.

[25][26] The Fairyland Story is often considered to be one of the spiritual predecessors to Bubble Bobble, mostly due to the similar gameplay mechanics.