Galactrix, Puzzle Quest's sci-fi spin-off, looks to be a pretty impressive step-up from the original Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlods that took everyone, including the developers, by surprise.
This time around the puzzle game will have a full storyline penned by a professional writer, rather than something dreamed up by the development staff. The game opens after a scientific accident provokes an alien race to try and exterminate humanity. As with Challenge of the Warlords, players create a character who gains skills, craft items, and in this case, upgrades their space fleet and deals with political factions.
The new hexagonal puzzle board now drops uses gravity, based on a player's location in the universe, to determine how to drop pieces as others are cleared. The game will also include a set of new mini-games that has you hacking jumpgates, negotiating with other factions, trading commodities and collection blueprints.
My very short time with the game gave me a glimpse of the new game board and, as with Trism, the new gravity-specific gameplay adds a whole other level of complexity to the game. I'm sure I'll end up being just as addicted to Galactrix as I was to Warlords when it finally hits.