Puzzle Quest 2 Preview

Joystiq has conjured up a quick preview of Puzzle Quest 2, thanks to some recent firsthand time with the puzzle/RPG sequel followed by a conversation with Infinite Interactive’s Steve Fawkner.

Although castle sieges and the forge are gone (crafting just requires you to fill out recipes, “like the Horadric Cube”), there are still plenty of minigames to play in the form of disarming traps, searching rooms for more loot, learning spells or opening chests. And here again, Infinite learned its lesson from Galactrix. Minigames are a rewarding affair and no longer exist solely to block progress. I played the chest-looting minigame, and the more matches I made with special crown and goblet gems, more and better loot appeared in the chest that I was opening. If you do badly on a loot minigame, you simply won’t get loot as nice as if you had done well, but you’ll get rewarded no matter what.

Balance was a concern with the first game (especially as it was developed across platforms at different times), but Fawkner said this is the best-balanced version of the game they’ve made yet. “We spent a lot longer balancing this one,” he told me, “because we had a bigger team.”