A puzzling start to the year

Late last year, I had a bet with my friend the MuppetThumper that I could finish all the Xbox 360 retail games that I owned on the last day 2008 by the last day of 2009. This means that I need to complete over 20 X360 titles in the year, on top of whatever new games I decide to play (and I have nine systems to choose from!) Of course, as a zen master of displacement activity, I immediately set to playing XBLA games rather than retail ones. Thus the first game I completed in 2009 was the excellent Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords from Infinite Interactive.

If you're a regular gamer, Puzzle Quest probably doesn't need much of an introduction. Its marriage of the addictive match-3 gameplay of Bejeweled with a traditional fantasy setting, evolved from Infinite's long-running Warlords series of games, made it one of the cult hits of 2007, particularly on DS. I was actually shown the game in prototype form at GDC 2005, their agents demoing on a laptop in the coffee area. It was clear that the basic gameplay was fun and easy to grasp, but the game faced big hurdles. Infinite were (and still are) a small developer, located in Australia (a long way from most publishing head offices) with a track record of fantasy RPG games (not a sexy genre for videogame execs) and 'casual gaming' had not yet penetrated into the industry consciousness to the point where CEOs were chasing a non-core gamer demographic or developers churning out clones. The game would have been laughed out of our boardroom at the time and so I didn't push hard to sign it. Thankfully for all of us, D3 Publisher had the vision to sign the game and thus reaped the rewards - the game is currently available on DS, PSP, PC, PS2, PS3, Wii and IPhone.

If you've not played the game, be warned that it is exceedingly addictive - true "digital crack". In the process of completing it, I played past 3am, to the point where I could barely focus my eyes. Genre-combining games often fail because one part of the game is neglected or simply more poorly executed than the rest, but in this case, the game away from actual combat is lovingly crafted. There's depth to the RPG elements (the different classes play very differently for one thing) and the writing stops the storyline descending to high camp melodrama through the injection of some good humourous touches such as Khalkus, a dwarf who just won't shut up and Drong, a troll with an insatiable appetite. This article on Gamasutra puts forward a theory on why the RPG genre was the perfect fit for this sort of game design mash-up but Penny Arcade's take sums up many people's initial reactions to the game.

Shortly, we'll need to begin calling it by its full name, as the hex-based sci-fi themed sequel, Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, is almost upon us - you can try a demo at their website.