Hello Questers!
This is Warlock from the 505 Games community team here to help usher you into the rich world of Puzzle Quest 3.
It’s an exciting time over at Infinity Plus 2! With the announcement of Puzzle Quest 3 launching on mobile and Steam PC early access on March 1st, many players will soon be introduced to our unique ensemble of five new playable heroes that enhance the game’s deep RPG gameplay.
Paladins – a holy warrior who offers protection against the fiercest of foes.
Necromancers – their control over the undead will rattle your bones.
Assassins – their sharp wit is only matched by their deadly knives.
Shaman – their toxic spells will leave a lingering impression on you.
Berserker – a class that’s all the rage at parties in Etheria.
Puzzle Quest 3 marks the first time you’ll be able to select from this unique mix of classes so let’s take a deeper dive into the development process of how our team at IP2 built them.
We sat down with Steve ‘Sirran’ Fawkner to answer a few questions that may be on your mind:
The previous Puzzle Quest franchise games had different classes.
What thought process went into deciding on the class selection in Puzzle Quest 3?
There were 3 things we wanted to achieve with the PQ3 class selection.
First, there had to be one class to fit with each elemental gem color in the game: fire, ice, poison, light, and darkness. As you can imagine, that’s a wide variety of hero types.
Second, and this is something that repeats quite strongly in our design, all the classes had to be something that players familiar with RPGs would instantly recognize – a lot of Puzzle Quest’s charm has always been about feeling that warm nostalgia we get from old school RPGs, both pen & paper and video games.
Finally, we looked at 5 classes that were able to give us distinct visual themes.
Once we’d done that, there was still quite a shortlist to pick from, but we’d ask ourselves if I was joining an RPG campaign… would I be excited by playing this guy?
Within each class, you have 2 separate races, for example, the Berserker can be a Dwarf or a Minotaur, what is the reasoning behind that?
Rather than just give a male/female choice of a hero like we had in the past, we thought it might be fun to also make them quite distinct shapes and sizes within that class. Usually, we’ve tried to give one option that would be close to what you’d expect to see, then another option that’s visually a little offbeat, for players looking for a little variety. The two variations have the same gameplay, but the choice is fun and opens the game up for both RPG traditionalists and players looking for some novelty in their avatar.
What challenges did the dev team face when creating these heroes?
I think the biggest challenge is creating a unique silhouette for each of the 10 heroes (5 classes, and 2 options in each class) that players can choose from. It will be important for PvP gameplay that players can quickly identify their foe, and even more important when you consider that in the coming years, we have plans to release MANY more hero classes to players to collect!
How did the dev team take story and PvP balancing into consideration when creating the different heroes?
I could talk for hours about the game balance, but our general process is to take things like classes in quite different directions, making them as fun and interesting as possible, and then refine them back to a point of balance. We discovered that PQ3 has quite a high skill cap, so it was important to create strict rules about various spells and gear loadouts so we could stop any craziness. Fortunately, we’ve been in early access for some time, so we’ve logged lots of hours of play getting all this done for worldwide release.
As for the story, we approached it like one of those classic RPGs… We’re not sweating the fact a Necromancer is out there saving the world – who said dark tortured mages can’t be nice guys too? We just want our players to have fun playing the game THEIR way.
Will players be able to experience the game with different classes?
Absolutely – you can create a hero of each class if you like and play through multiple times. We have plans for more classes and more stories too, in Seasons that will release multiple times per year.
Seasons won’t be active in the worldwide release, as there’s quite enough to do already, but they’ll be starting soon after.
We do understand that no matter how fun the story is though, playing through it repeatedly isn’t going to be the best way to experience all the variety PQ3 has to offer. We’re currently working on a plan to provide new ways to play all these extra hero classes that players will want to try out.
Are there any other tidbits the dev team would like to share about building heroes?
We iterate through many hero designs to find ones that we like. I can confirm from experience that a shirtless male necromancer with 6-pack abs did not look right at all.
What hero class is your personal favourite?
Steve/Sirrian: ASSASSIN – I’m really engaged by timing the gameplay around the Shadow Gems that the Assassin can create to maximize his damage output.
Josh: BERSERKER – Really satisfying watching the board explode from the Rage gems. And when you combine the Rage buff with Heroic Effort *Chef’s Kiss*.
Hadleigh: NECROMANCER – Not only do Death Gems fill the board with Skulls to take down any Enemy, but the Necromancer also packs a powerful punch with the bonus of stealing their life.
Kylie: BESERKER – I like filling the board with Skulls, the Rage buff and exploding Gems on the board for maximum matching. Also, I love the character art for the Minotaurs and think the female Berserker design is cool.
Rhio: NECROMANCER (female) – Because Hair Goals.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this little glimpse into the development process behind the hero classes in Puzzle Quest 3. With five classes available, players might need a little help deciding what path to take so over the next few weeks we’ll be diving into each specific class, their skills, and their masteries to learn more about their different playstyles.
Until then, join in on the celebration and Pre-register for Puzzle Quest 3 on Android and iOS. PC players, don’t forget to wishlist the game as we approach PC Steam early access!
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