Game News Queen's Wish 2: The Tormentor now on Kickstarter

[Infinitron]

Tags: Jeff Vogel; Queen's Wish 2: The Tormentor; Spiderweb Software

The Codex may not have liked Queen's Wish much, but apparently the game sold well enough. Today Jeff Vogel launched a Kickstarter campaign for Queen's Wish 2: The Tormentor, whose subtitle he revealed in a blog post back in May. In Queen's Wish 2, the titular queen has fallen ill and your character finds himself having to deal with a rebellion in a remote province. Jeff seems to be aware that the first game had some problems which he promises to address in the sequel, although it sounds like the core experience will remain largely the same. The pitch has more details:

We are Spiderweb Software. We have been happily creating fantasy adventures since 1994, and we have a new story to tell!

You are the youngest child of Queen Sharyn, the absolute leader of the Empire of Haven. While your older siblings have grabbed fame and power, you have slid by in a life of quiet luxury. Until now.

Your mother, the Queen, is ill. Haven is in a panic, struggling to keep up with her endless list of final wishes. You are the youngest of the family. Not entirely trusted with the serious work of Empire, you're given the tedious royal errands.

So you are sent to tour the Rokaj, one of your more remote and ferocious vassal states. Your father's homeland. When you arrive, you expect the usual tedium of welcoming banquets and speeches, but get an assassination attempt instead. Now you must search the mountains of the Ro and put down a violent rebellion, while obeying (or not) the constant commands of your Royal family.

Reclaim land. Build forts. Abuse your butler. Be diplomatic or do battle. History is happening quickly ... Try to survive it.​

What Is Queen's Wish?​

The Queen's Wish games are indie, old-school, turn-based fantasy role-playing adventures. Queen's Wish 2 will be out for Windows, Macintosh, and hopefully iPhone, iPad, and other portables.

Queen's Wish is a truly innovative series, full of new twists on the old role-playing formula.

You are royalty, and your power comes not just from violence but industry and diplomacy. You will rebuild your fortresses and their workshops, and much of your power comes from those who work for you. You will deal with mighty leaders, both of Haven and the Rokaj, and make the decisions that reshape the world. Punish wrongdoers. Take bribes. Be righteous or corrupt, merciful or vengeful.

You also bear the mighty magic of Haven, whose royals are expected to fight with the commoners. Show your strength in dozens of dungeons, caves, and fortresses. Create a team of warriors, equip them with a huge variety of useful abilities, and grapple with Queen's Wish's tense tactical combat.

Queen's Wish is an experimental system. We tried a lot of things in the first game. Lots of them worked and a few didn't. In the second game, we have reworked and improved the game system to give you more ways to do cool weird awesome stuff. We've written a blog post about what we are happy with and what we plan to improve.
​

Jeff is looking to raise $40,000 to develop Queen's Wish 2, with several stretch goals already lined up including a new questline at $80,000. A basic copy of the game will cost you $20 and Spiderweb superfans can get beta access for $200. The estimated release date is June 2022.

 

[Zeriel]

I really liked The Witcher 3. In that game, every foe gave you a tiny bit of experience, but the only way to get actual levels was to finish quests. Queen's Wish is almost the same. Your experience comes in big lumps when you finish quests, but killing monsters gives you nothing.

Vogel's history of aping thoughtlessly whatever is the current AAA wonder continues. You know, thinking about it, maybe the reason Exile 1-3 were good was at the time he was just copying the then relevant Ultima. I guess maybe he was always this way, it's just that what he's shamelessly copying is now so much more degenerated.

 

[A horse of course]

Is that the Pillars of Eternity logo?

 

[Luzur]

Hope he fix the settlement building thing and the shallow, watered down feeling you get when playing Queens Wish 1

 

[Galdred]

Choice 1: You Have To Do Dungeons In One Run

In our earlier games, you could whittle away at a dungeon in multiple trips. You could bust in, kill half of the enemies, return to town to rest, and then return to finish the dungeon off. When you got back, the foes you already killed would be (mostly) gone.

In Queen's Wish, all enemies respawn when you return to a dungeon. You have to use tactics and planning and conserve your power to finish the adventure in one run. The dungeons are very carefully balanced to make each run close and exciting. (But a lot of players don't like "exciting." "Exciting" is stressful.)

I haven't played Queen's Wish. Does that mean there are no more trash encounters that serve no purpose?
Endless purposeless trivial trash encounters is what made me stop playing Avadon (and it was already present in his former games I tried), so is QW better than the Avadon series?

 

[oldmanpaco]

1st stretch goal is an iPhone port.

 

[Contagium]

$200 to replay the same game again early? Sign me up!

 

[Luzur]

Choice 1: You Have To Do Dungeons In One Run

In our earlier games, you could whittle away at a dungeon in multiple trips. You could bust in, kill half of the enemies, return to town to rest, and then return to finish the dungeon off. When you got back, the foes you already killed would be (mostly) gone.

In Queen's Wish, all enemies respawn when you return to a dungeon. You have to use tactics and planning and conserve your power to finish the adventure in one run. The dungeons are very carefully balanced to make each run close and exciting. (But a lot of players don't like "exciting." "Exciting" is stressful.)

I haven't played Queen's Wish. Does that mean there are no more trash encounters that serve no purpose?
Endless purposeless trivial trash encounters is what made me stop playing Avadon (and it was already present in his former games I tried), so is QW better than the Avadon series?

No, not really, QW 1 had lots of trash encounters, they even respawned if you left the map

 

[Galdred]

Choice 1: You Have To Do Dungeons In One Run

In our earlier games, you could whittle away at a dungeon in multiple trips. You could bust in, kill half of the enemies, return to town to rest, and then return to finish the dungeon off. When you got back, the foes you already killed would be (mostly) gone.

In Queen's Wish, all enemies respawn when you return to a dungeon. You have to use tactics and planning and conserve your power to finish the adventure in one run. The dungeons are very carefully balanced to make each run close and exciting. (But a lot of players don't like "exciting." "Exciting" is stressful.)

I haven't played Queen's Wish. Does that mean there are no more trash encounters that serve no purpose?
Endless purposeless trivial trash encounters is what made me stop playing Avadon (and it was already present in his former games I tried), so is QW better than the Avadon series?

No, not really, QW 1 had lots of trash encounters, they even respawned if you left the map

But don't they wear your resources down while you take them out, or do they just waste your time?

 

[Zeriel]

The problem with that approach is it doesn't communicate to the player, "Stay in the map, do it all in one go, this is a strategic experience, enjoy it." It communicates, "Hey everything respawned, this is a game about grinding the same place over and over again!" The proper way to do a design like what Vogel is describing is making the dungeons one-way. i.e, you literally can't leave until you finish them, or finish a threshold. Not complicated, many better games did this.

 

[Luzur]

Choice 1: You Have To Do Dungeons In One Run

In our earlier games, you could whittle away at a dungeon in multiple trips. You could bust in, kill half of the enemies, return to town to rest, and then return to finish the dungeon off. When you got back, the foes you already killed would be (mostly) gone.

In Queen's Wish, all enemies respawn when you return to a dungeon. You have to use tactics and planning and conserve your power to finish the adventure in one run. The dungeons are very carefully balanced to make each run close and exciting. (But a lot of players don't like "exciting." "Exciting" is stressful.)

I haven't played Queen's Wish. Does that mean there are no more trash encounters that serve no purpose?
Endless purposeless trivial trash encounters is what made me stop playing Avadon (and it was already present in his former games I tried), so is QW better than the Avadon series?

No, not really, QW 1 had lots of trash encounters, they even respawned if you left the map

But don't they wear your resources down while you take them out, or do they just waste your time?

Both, IIRC, been awhile since i played QW1, (i left at the first "bunker" thing you find down south, the point where you start seeing evidence of the major villain)

 

[Moaning_Clock]

This logo animation is likely the priciest graphical thing that Jeff bought for his games.

I'm honestly a bit sad that this will be likely be his last original series. Always hoped he would make one giant isometric RPG in the end of his career, splurging on better art, etc. that would be mindblowing innovative but I'm just hopelessly optimistic. He is more or less the same age as Vince D. Weller or Jonathan Blow and these guys are still going strong.
When Queen's Wish 3 is released it will be likely 2025/26 which means he isn't even sixty then but I can certainly see the appeal of retiring early.

Maybe he makes a game when he's retired just for the fun of it. Would be great.

 

[Mortmal]

Choice 1: You Have To Do Dungeons In One Run

In our earlier games, you could whittle away at a dungeon in multiple trips. You could bust in, kill half of the enemies, return to town to rest, and then return to finish the dungeon off. When you got back, the foes you already killed would be (mostly) gone.

In Queen's Wish, all enemies respawn when you return to a dungeon. You have to use tactics and planning and conserve your power to finish the adventure in one run. The dungeons are very carefully balanced to make each run close and exciting. (But a lot of players don't like "exciting." "Exciting" is stressful.)

I haven't played Queen's Wish. Does that mean there are no more trash encounters that serve no purpose?
Endless purposeless trivial trash encounters is what made me stop playing Avadon (and it was already present in his former games I tried), so is QW better than the Avadon series?

No, not really, QW 1 had lots of trash encounters, they even respawned if you left the map

But don't they wear your resources down while you take them out, or do they just waste your time?

Classic wearing down of resources, there's not as many trash encounters than in avadon , but those games are very similar tbh.

 

[Mortmal]

Reading the post mortem ...
"So Queen's Wish 2 will have 12 more abilities. It'll be a bit of work to make them both unique and balanced, but I think that number will feel more satisfying to players.'

Jeff is all feeling daring suddenly 12 brands new abilties ! I am looking at another indie game at the moment conquest of elysium 5 , there's 500 new units 2 more factions 3 classes , 100 more rituals, the list is quite long. That's the right approach to indie games when you are recyling assets, you are not expecting stellar graphics but lot more depth.

 

[OSK]

You know, thinking about it, maybe the reason Exile 1-3 were good was at the time he was just copying the then relevant Ultima.

Where did he copy Geneforge from?

 

[Zeriel]

You know, thinking about it, maybe the reason Exile 1-3 were good was at the time he was just copying the then relevant Ultima.

Where did he copy Geneforge from?

Pokemon? I'll give him credit, the story is fairly unique.

 

[V_K]

Is it just me or the art looks a bit less shitty than QW1?

 

[Haba]

You know, thinking about it, maybe the reason Exile 1-3 were good was at the time he was just copying the then relevant Ultima.

Where did he copy Geneforge from?

Japanese breeding games.

 

[Contagium]

Is it just me or the art looks a bit less shitty than QW1?

The animations are better at the very least

 

[Elwro]

Interestingly (?), the guy says this trilogy will be his last original work (in his sense of 'original', that is, he will keep making remasters)...

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Where did he copy Geneforge from?

Japanese breeding games.

???

Spoiler

 

[almondblight]

Vogel's history of aping thoughtlessly whatever is the current AAA wonder continues. You know, thinking about it, maybe the reason Exile 1-3 were good was at the time he was just copying the then relevant Ultima. I guess maybe he was always this way, it's just that what he's shamelessly copying is now so much more degenerated.

I agree that Vogel takes liberally from good ideas in other games, and that the difference in his more recent games have been a reflection of that. Taking good ideas from other games is what developers should be doing, though, and I disagree that he did so "thoughtlessly" or that he was "just copying." The combat in Exile is much better, the exploration is much better, the world is more packed and makes more sense (you don't tend to just have cities in the middle of the wilderness), the setting is actually interesting and not just a Garriott powerlarp (and no "Ye olde English" garbage), and there's thankfully no first person dungeon exploration. Though it was clearly inspired by Ultima, the Exile series is quite different and I'd argue better than the Ultima's (at least the Ultimas I've played).

 

[Elwro]

I agree, but also, I'd say even Avernums are a lot better from the Ultimas that I've tried...

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

What ultimas did you try?

 

[Elwro]

IV, V, VI, and VII. (VIII too but the jumping was just ridiculous). In each case someone was saying that the game in question was a masterpiece, and in each case I was greatly underwhelmed.