Puzzle Quest: Galactrix - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, or Galactrix, is a puzzle video game developed by Infinite Interactive

Infinite Interactive

Infinite Interactive was a video game developer with headquarters in St Kilda, Victoria, Australia. The company was founded by Steve Fawkner in 1989. After a long alliance with SSG, resulting in the development of the Warlords series of games, Steve moved on to make Infinite totally independent in...

for the PC

Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

, Nintendo DS

Nintendo DS

The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...

, Xbox 360

Xbox 360

The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...

's Xbox Live Arcade

Xbox Live Arcade

Xbox Live Arcade is a type of video game download distribution available primarily in a section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360, that focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent game developers...

, and PlayStation 3

PlayStation 3

The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...

's PlayStation Network service.

The game offers a full-featured campaign mode, online multiplayer for 2 to 4 players, and downloadable content, including ships, items, plans, planets, factions and missions.

Gameplay

Like the original Puzzle Quest

Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords

Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords is a game developed by Australian company Infinite Interactive and published by D3 Publisher. The game combines role-playing with strategy and puzzle elements...

, Galactrix has Bejeweled

Bejeweled

Bejeweled is a puzzle game by PopCap Games, first developed for browsers in 2001. Three follow-ups to this game have been released. More than 75 million copies of Bejeweled have been sold, and the game has been downloaded more than 500 million times....

-style gameplay with a few exceptions. Tiles are now hexagonally shaped and gravity will be a factor in how they fall. If the match takes place in orbit around a planet, the tiles will always fall downward but if you are fighting in open space new tiles will come from whatever direction you made your previous move.

Unlike the original Puzzle Quest, Galactrix's quests will have you traveling various planets, star systems, and the entire galaxy. D3 Publisher

D3 Publisher

D3Publisher is a Japanese video game publisher founded on February 5, 1992. Current CEO and president is Yuji Ito, and It is known for its Simple series of low-priced console games. Their games have been released for the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 2,...

has stated that there will be a diplomacy system and commodity system as well as the ability to collect, customize and build ships.

Tiles

There are currently two basic forms of tiles:

Colored tiles (red, yellow, green, blue, purple, and silver); Red tiles relate to the player's weapons gauge, yellow tiles correspond to the player's engine gauge, blue tiles recharge your ship's shields and green tiles represents the ship's computer. The purple tiles represent your psi power while silver tiles are intel tiles.
Numbered attack tiles have replaced skull tiles: Now whenever you match one of these numbered tiles the amount of damage done will be the sum of all the numbers on any attack tile you complete.

Puzzle Types

All the puzzles use the tiles with small changes in the rules and large differences in the goals.

Combat This represents combat between space ships. Ships have equipment (the equivalent of spells in Puzzle Quest
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords is a game developed by Australian company Infinite Interactive and published by D3 Publisher. The game combines role-playing with strategy and puzzle elements...

) which use gunnery, engineering, and science energy corresponding with red, yellow, and green tiles respectively. The health of a ship is composed of shield and hull strength. Direct damage dealt to a ship must eliminate the shields before reducing the hull strength. When a ship's hull strength is reduced to 0, the ship is destroyed and the battle is over. Shields can be replenished by matching blue tiles or using certain pieces of ship equipment. Damage is caused either by matching numbered attack tiles or by using certain pieces of ship equipment. Grey tiles produce intel and purple tiles produce psi power. Both intel and psi power are persistent between battles. Intel is used to increase the level of your character, giving the player bonuses to starting energy, max energy, and when matching red, yellow, green, or blue gems. Psi power is used to skip battles with the enemy ships. Psi power can only be used against the weakest ships early in the game, but late in the game can be used for stronger and stronger enemies.
Hacking Leapgates To proceed from one star system to another one must use a leapgate. At the beginning of the game, all leapgates are locked. The hacking puzzle is used to open the leappgates. Hacked leapgates generally stay open once hacked, but randomly over time, some leapgates will close and require hacking again to be used. There are no attack tiles in this puzzle. There is a list of tiles that need to be matched in order within a specified time limit. When a tile color at the front of the player's list, other color tiles can be matched, they will just not count towards the list of tiles.
Mining To acquire raw materials needed to craft spaceships and parts, the player must mine asteroids. The goal of mining is to extract raw materials by matching gems that represent them. When there are no more legal moves left, the puzzle ends and the player gets all the materials that was extracted. If the player manages to extract and maximum output of the asteroid before legal moves run out, then the player gets a bonus to the amount of materials extracted.
Crafting The player can craft parts and ships at any shop, providing that the required raw materials are in the hold. Crafting requires the player to match red, yellow, and green gems together, creating a new token of the same color. The goal of crafting is to clear a specific number of the new tokens, which can be matched together regardless of color. Crafting also features an unmovable gem that can still be cleared if matched.
Haggling Haggling can be performed from the purchase menu of shops. The player is given a board and the task of clearing as many gems as possible. Inactive black tokens fall to fill gaps instead of new gems. The percentage advantage earned from haggling can be used as a discount on a single purchase or a bonus on a sale of a single part or ship. This puzzle becomes available after Pezt joins the player's crew.
Gathering Rumours This puzzle becomes available after Elgara joins the player's crew. The goal of the puzzle is to survive a certain number of turns without matching special nuke tokens. Chain combos do not affect the turn counter. Rumours generally provide background to the setting of Galactrix and do not seem to provide any readily usable in-game advantage to the player, except for imparting an Intel bonus, useful for increasing the level of the player's character.

Human factions

The four main Human factions all grew from the four Megacorporations that created the LeapGate system.

MRI: The Multinational Resource & Investment Group initiated the leapgate project. Its entire staff is composed of telepaths who are involved with selective-breeding programs to enhance their telepathic powers.
Lumina: A militaristic, religious group that provisions information pertinent to the advancement of whatever quantum technology comprises the foundation of the leapgates. They remain on Earth and safeguard valuable information that has been compiled over the course of many millennia.
CyTech: This faction provided the software and AI needed to operate the leapgates. They began as a simple software company, but after the invention of their clever drones, they were able to take a bigger role in the leapgate program.
Trident: The Trident Corporation provided the ships and engines that were needed to move the leapgates through space and was the first organization to get unmanned ships to travel faster than light. It focuses primarily on military ships and has the biggest fleet in the galaxy. Other megacorporations are keeping a close eye on Trident because of its growing presence.

Alien factions

Jahrwoxi: Hairy little creatures that are dishonest and annoying, and they'll take anything that's not theirs.
Vortraag: Lizardlike creatures that put up quite a resistance against the humans. A ferocious and powerful race, many actually flee their home planet and turn to piracy.
Krystalli: The MRI group is set on eliminating the few Krystalli that are left. They are silicon-based life-forms that are similar to slow-moving telepathic rocks.
Elysians: The empire moved in on the Elysians' planet because it was like paradise. It subsequently enslaved the small and frail Elysians and treated their planet like a tourist hot spot.
Quesada: The Quesadans are a deeply religious group and one of the few who have their religion officially sanctioned by the empire. Their planet is full of ancient secrets and treasures, which could also be why the empire has such a keen interest in them.
Degani: The Degani are known for their hospitality and the quality of their food.
Plasmids: These creatures are composed of small living crystals that move through water. They communicate using strange gurgling sounds and are almost invisible to humans.
Keck: Birdlike and nomadic in nature, Kecks are a merchant race that can be persistent and annoying.

Enemy factions

Pirates: Pirates are usually found in the outermost star systems and in the Gomorrah system. They enjoy attacking transports and travelers passing through their territory.
The Soulless: These creatures are the product of the MRI's twisted experiments and happen to be faster and smarter than humans. They have no morals or inhibitions, yet they strive to become the perfect being.

Plot

Thousands of years in the future, mankind expands their domains beyond the limits of the solar system, assuming control of dozens of other systems connected by a network of jump gates that allow fast travel between them. Each system is controlled by one of the four megacorporations who compete against each other for supremacy over the human empire. The player starts the game as a novice pilot at service of one of these megacorporations, the MRI. As the game progresses, more characters are added to the player's crew, each one possessing special abilities helping to improve the player's arsenal and resources, while interacting with each one of the megacorporations and even some alien races and uncovering the secret of a mysterious threat that may endanger the entire galaxy.

Critical Reception

Hyper

Hyper (magazine)

Hyper is a multi-platform Australian video game magazine. Australia's longest running gaming magazine, it has been in publication since 1993, and was released the same month as the better known UK magazine Edge...

s Daniel Wilks commends the game for being "very bloody challenging [and] a good amount of variety in gameplay". However, he criticises the game for relying "on luck as much as skill [and the] controls are a bit iffy".