Having spent countless hours days months caught up in the addiction that is Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, I can honestly say I was shaking with an addict’s anticipation of their next fix when I heard about the imminent release of Infinite Interactive’s new game drug, Puzzle Quest: Galactrix. I’d have posted the news earlier, but I made the mistake of playing the demo first. I’m just now getting around to showering and eating.
For those readers who’ve been living under a rock, the Puzzle Quest games are a riff on the classic time-waster, Bejeweled, only with RPG trappings slapped on top. It’s a soul-suckingly brilliant pairing.
Galactrix takes place in space; instead of battling Ogres, Griffons and the like, this time players take on aliens with space ships, mine asteroids and hack LeapGates (think controlled wormholes) all while using the “match-three gems” construct. (I told you it was brilliant.) Galactrix’s board’s new hexagonal shape gives players greater manipulation of the board – gems will fall in the direction you move the gem – or in my case, get my butt handed to me more often.
The 135MB demo is available for download at all the usual suspects: WorthPlaying, Gamershell and FileFront.
Galactrix is scheduled for multi-platform release (Nintendo DS, PlayStation3, XBLA and PC) in 2009.
Now, if you don’t mind, there are space pirates waiting to do battle with me…
Oh, yes… I know how you feel. The original PQ Challenge of the Warlords sucked hours, days and weeks out of my life like it was nothing. I am honestly scared of downloading Galactrix demo because I know once I start playing, everything else – Persona 4, Left 4 Dead, Loco Roco 2, EVERYTHING (not to mention work and family) goes down the drain…
That’s quite an introduction the demo storyline has. I think some religious folks may find it offensive. The game itself I found difficult. Maybe it’s a learning curve thing. But, I can see how it would be potentially addictive.
O.R.
OR, watching the opening cinematic in my normal clueless state, it never occurred to me that people might take the storyline seriously. (You’re probably correct in thinking that some could be offended) I simply chalked it up to another wacky PQ story.
With the hexagonal board, it does take some getting used to how the gems will fall off the board. I played the Flash version – on the main website – ten times and only won twice; however, once I pulled down the PC demo and actually read the instructions, all was made clear. That doesn’t mean I’m any better at it, but it’s clearer. At least the game is somewhat forgiving in that you can attempt battles, mining and hacking until you get it right.
I’m pretty sure my life’s obligations will suffer – again – once this releases.
Games Radar has posted a very nice hands-on preview of the game together with developer interview…http://www.gamesradar.com/ds/puzzle-quest-galactrix/preview. For those of us who are DS fans, this last paragraph was interesting:
“MS: I’m most proud of our Nintendo DS version of Puzzle Quest: Galactrix. This was the first DS game that Infinite has ever made in-house and it was a huge undertaking for them. Trying to capture the depth and experience of the higher-res versions of Galactrix on the DS was an extreme challenge. We went through many iterations of GUI, functionality on the game board and the look of the system maps. It turned out to be an awesome DS game and we’re really pleased with it.”
O.R.