...In this game, codenamed Warlords-Online for the moment, you create a Warlord character and play puzzles to gain gold. You then use that gold to help your character conquer the World of Etheria. All this takes place in an internet environment where other Warlords are trying to help their chosen races conquer the world too.Fawkner says it's a present to everyone who's supported Puzzle Quest and the Warlords series of games over the years. I have to say - it's a tasty sounding gift.
We also asked him a bunch of questions regarding Puzzle Quest, the Australian games development scene and balancing hardcore and casual gameplay....
Kotaku AU: How did you come up with the idea for Puzzle Quest? Did you intentionally set out to create a game that mixed hardcore and casual elements?
Steve Fawkner: I love Bejeweled and I love RPGs. It seemed kind of natural to experiment and put them together. I was really making the game for myself though - I wasn't aiming at a particular audience. I find that I do my best work when I'm creating something just because I want to play it...
Kotaku AU: What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt from Puzzle Quest?
Steve Fawkner: The biggest lesson for me from Puzzle Quest is that design can still win out over graphics. Ideally you want to produce a game that has both, but Puzzle Quest is a graphically simple game, and it's still been quite successful. That's very heartening for a designer to see.
Kotaku AU: Of the platforms you’ve developed for, which do you feel is the easiest to work with? The hardest?
Steve Fawkner: PC will always be the easiest platform to work on, because the tools and development pipeline are the easiest to manage. Of the console platforms, Xbox 360 is an absolute delight to develop on because of its similarities to PC. The hardest would certainly be the Nintendo DS - it's a great platform with great games - but its difficulties stem from the fact that it is very low-spec machine and a lot of compromises have to be made to get a game to work...
Kotaku AU: At Game Connect last year, you mentioned that Infinite was working on a free web-based game to tie in with Puzzle Quest and the developer’s future titles. I don’t suppose you could provide some more information regarding this project and what stage it’s at right now?
Steve Fawkner: We have a free web-based game in development - mainly as a thank-you to all of the fans who've been so good to us with both Puzzle Quest and Warlords over the years.
It is planned that it will eventually link to Puzzle Quest, as well as to a number of older Warlords games.
The initial version will be stand-alone, however the link to Puzzle Quest will be provided a little later.
