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Site: Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
Publisher: TransGaming, Inc.
Developer: Infinite Interactive
Genre: Puzzle & Trivia

Game Media

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By Brad Cook

Sometimes you find yourself in the mood for a brain-teasing puzzle game. Other times, role-playing adventure seems like the perfect outlet for your energy. And then there are those moments when you want to sink into deep thought with a strategy game.

What if there was a title that swirled all three into a tasty mixture? You’ll find just that in Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. Choose from one of four classes as you create your character and explore the world of Etheria. Embark on over 150 quests and become powerful enough to take on the evil Lord Bane. Along the way, your group can include up to eight companions at any given time, giving you strength in numbers when fighting orcs, skeletons, giant rats, dragons, and other creatures.

As in most role-playing games, those quests earn you experience points that allow you to reach new levels and increase your skills in various areas. When the time comes for combat, however, Puzzle Quest switches to a game board where you swap adjacent objects to create matches of three or more and deal damage to your opponent, accumulate the various types of mana you need to cast spells, or gather more gold coins and experience points. To defeat your enemy, reduce his life points to zero.

The strategy element topping off this mélange comes in the form of your character’s citadel, where you construct buildings that allow you to learn new spells from captured enemies, forge new magical items, and even attack and occupy other cities. When you take over another city, you can access your citadel through it as well as earn a gold tithe each month, as long as you visit it.

The Coming Storm

Puzzle Quest’s story concerns something rotten in the state of Etheria. Your father, Sir Albion, has interrupted your studies to give you a broken shield that belonged to your grandfather, before he was recently mortally wounded while fighting a group of skeletons. You wonder how that could be, since the undead have not been seen in the local area for centuries, but the Queen informs you that there have been other fresh reports of undead sightings.

“Go back to your training,” she commands. “I sense a storm brewing.” After you do so, the Queen asks you to take a message to your father. Before you can meet with him, however, a thief attacks you. Only by defeating him on the puzzle board can you complete your task.

The puzzle board is reminiscent of Bejeweled, except the matches you create grant specific effects. The spells you learn during your adventures require specific amounts of red, yellow, green, or blue mana to cast; you gather it by matching three or more of the same-colored gems. Match three or more skulls to damage your opponent, three or more stars to gain experience points, and three or more stacks of coins to pick up extra gold pieces.

Between quests, use your gold to purchase items that grant you bonuses during combat, such as armor that gives you a chance to deflect damage inflicted by your opponent, or a sword that increases your Battle skill. And don’t forget to start working on your citadel by erecting buildings that allow you to capture enemies and learn spells from them, capture mounts and learn to ride them, and more. You can even put up a statue that declares you king or queen and increases your life points.

Learn Who to Trust

You can also build up your character’s abilities without taking on quests by choosing Instant Action, which pits you against a random opponent. Choose the opponent you want to fight, from a lowly skeleton or rat to a mighty flame dragon. The game can scale your adversary according to your character’s level, but it can’t do much if you’re fifth level and you want to battle a dragon.

Now if you’ll excuse us, our eighth level wizard must defeat a couple orcs near the Ruins of Artum to assist Syrus Darkhunter, who knows much about the ways of the undead that have infiltrated the local countryside. He can help us with our larger battle against Lord Bane’s forces, but we’re not sure how far we can trust him. All in a day’s adventuring in Puzzle Quest.

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Lord of All You Survey. The main map screen tracks your current quests, displays your character’s vital stats, and shows where you’ve been.

When Puzzles Attack. Match three skulls and deal some damage.

Who Are You? Choose your character’s profession, name, and portrait before beginning the adventure.

If you liked this game, check out:

System Requirements:

Mac OS X version 10.4.10 or 10.5.1
Intel Core Duo processor
1GB of RAM
Video card: Nvidia 7300 or ATI X1600 or higher, or Intel GMA 950 chipset
150MB hard disk space

The Professions

Knight: These noble warriors base their spells on red and green mana. They can use the stars on the board to earn extra experience points or heal themselves.
Druid: In touch with the natural world, druids’ spells typically use yellow and green mana and produce subtle effects, such as changing the gems on the board.
Warrior: Red mana forms the core of their spells, which deal direct damage to opponents.
Wizard: These characters utilize a variety of offensive and defensive spells that mostly use red and yellow mana.

The Skills

Each time you reach a new level, you earn a certain number of points that you can spend advancing your skills in certain areas.

Earth, Fire, Air, and Water Mastery: Grants bonuses to the mana you earn from matching gems, as well as to the mana with which you begin combat. You also gain a chance of getting an extra turn or a wildcard when matching gems.
Earth Mastery corresponds with green mana and gems, while Fire, Air, and Water Mastery affect red, yellow, and blue mana and gems, respectively.
Battle: Gives a bonus to the damage you inflict, along with a chance of an extra turn or a wildcard when matching skulls.
Cunning: Increases the effects of matches made with wildcards. You also gain more experience and gold from defeated enemies, and you increase your chance of an extra turn or a wildcard when matching gold coins.
Morale: Increases your life points, gives you better spell resistance, and offers a better chance of an extra turn or a wildcard when matching purple stars.

Tips and Tricks

If you wait a few seconds when it’s your turn during combat, an arrow will appear giving you a hint for your next move.
If you execute a move that doesn’t result in a match, you lose your turn and receive five points of damage. However, after you choose the first part of a move, you can click that square again to de-select it and try something else.
If you match four in a row, you get another turn. Match five in a row and you get a wildcard on the board, in addition to a second turn.
Think defensively as well as offensively. For example, if your opponent relies on red gems to cast spells, take them off the board with matches, even if you don’t need that type of mana.
Pay attention to what will happen to the board when you make a move. You don’t want to set up a skull match for the enemy, for example.
You can repeat completed quests to increase your experience points and level up before moving on to tougher assignments.
Many spells’ effects are cumulative, although some have limits. For example, if a certain spell lasts for eight turns and you cast it four turns ago, you can cast it again and make it last for 12 turns. You may not be able to cast it once more on top of that, or it may have a cool-down period of a certain number of turns, however.
If you find yourself stumped, GameFAQs hosts a comprehensive walkthrough, along with a page of in-depth FAQs featuring a guide to the runes needed to forge magical items, monster capture puzzle solutions, and more. While the documents may say they pertain to various console versions of the game, the information they contain applies to the Mac edition too.