Puzzle Quest wasn’t the only match three puzzle game in town, but its clever blend of RPG mechanics and battle board made the game a hit. It’s success spawned a genre which includes titles such as Puzzlegeddon and Puzzle Kingdoms, developed by Puzzle Quest creator Infinite Interactive. Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, a sci-fi spinoff bucked the trend with a circular board and hexagon pieces, but Puzzle Quest 2 goes back to basics.
In a sea of puzzle brawlers, how does D3 solve puzzle of market oversaturation? I brought the question to Tim Ramage, Producer, of Puzzle Quest: Galactrix and Puzzle Quest 2.
“It’s a challenge,” Ramage candidly commented. “It’s been three years since Puzzle Quest 1 and since then there have been a lot of games that saturate the market. Spanning out from those games is definitely a challenge. We have the benefit of the Puzzle Quest label, the benefit of working with the developer that invented this genre to help us standout. Then it’s just a matter of making sure that we’ve done the things to refine what we did in Puzzle Quest 1 that were successful, recreate those in Puzzle Quest 2, and improve them as well as a few new touches that make everything standout.”
While Puzzle Quest 2 uses a standard match-three puzzle board, the sequel has more items to equip, a different art style and pseudo-dungeon crawling.
“Hopefully, it’s the Puzzle Quest name that gets people to go ‘Oh let me check this out.’ Once they jump in and play the game, or demo, or whatever they realize ‘Oh yeah this is why there are so many puzzle games out there. Because this was the original. This was the best. This is still the best’.”
Will it be the best? We’ll find out this summer when Puzzle Quest 2 comes out on Nintendo DS and Xbox 360.
Published: Mar 30, 2010 05:32 pm