Spiderweb Queen's Wish 2: The Tormentor - Jeff Vogel's new series continues

[Kruno]

One thing everyone has to credit Jeff for is the lack of bugs in his games. Bugs have existed in his games but they were minor and I could count them on a single hand.

 

[0sacred]

convenient cuz you can't count beyond 5

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spiderwebsoftware/queens-wish-2-the-tormentor/posts/3572243

Queen’s Wish 2 Release Date!​

Greetings, backers! We have announced the release date for Queen’s Wish 2: The Tormentor. The game will be released on August 24, 2022 for Windows and Macintosh, with the iOS version soon to follow.

When the game comes out, you will receive a download link to the DRM-free game by email. You will also get a Steam key. When the day comes, if you don’t get our message, check your spam filter. We will not rest until all of you get the game you so generously backed.

All physical rewards have been mailed. If something has gone wrong, drop us a message.

It’s been a long, tiring journey, and I wish I had more to say. Yet, you’re going to have the game in your hands in just a few weeks, and it is capable of speaking for itself. We’re very happy with the adventures within, we hope you are too, and we’re looking forward to completely the series someday. You’ll hear from us soon. Have a nice few weeks!

- Jeff Vogel

A quick screenshot from one of the many cities of the Rokaj. It is a land ravaged by centuries of war and rebellion.

 

[nlfortier]

Queen’s Wish 2: The Tormentor is now out for Windows and Macintosh. I couldn't get past the inconsistent art style of the previous game, but I will probably at least give the demo for this one a shot.


https://af.gog.com/game/queens_wish_2_the_tormentor?as=1649904300

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I take it you can't transer your char/gear from QW1?

 

[Contagium]

Looking forward to firing this up tonight. I've been in a severe RPG drought for months it seems.

 

[Infinitron]

https://bottomfeeder.substack.com/p/we-released-queens-wish-2-the-tormentor

We Released Queen's Wish 2: The Tormentor!​

Our 18th Full Length Game. Yikes.​

Two years of my life.

We have released Queen's Wish 2: The Tormentor for Windows & Mac! It’s out on Steam, Epic, and GOG.com.

It's our 18th all-new full-length title. An iOS version is coming soon. It's an indie, epic, turn-based, story-heavy, et cetera, et cetera. Writing PR text is getting exhausting.

We've been in the business for 28 years, a record for the longest period of continuous professional indie development. If you think you can prove this wrong, feel free.

I've spent a lot of time playing this game. It's quite fun, it has a cool world, and I really like the story and characters. I say, give it a try. We even provide a generous demo on our web site.

For the blog, I wanted to just provide a little commentary about the game. Design, business, all that stuff that has no place in actual PR.


We got a lot of nice new icons.

It Won't Be a Hit

We'll never write a hit. We don't write hits. We satisfy a small dedicated fan base to maintain a pleasant, middle-class existence. It's pretty nice, actually.

Our retro, text-heavy games don't sell massive piles, which is fine, Sadly, though, these days it's pretty much impossible for us to get media attention. At least we're on page 6 (as I write this) of Steam's Upcoming RPGs list, behind about 73 porn games.

Sometimes, our fans say they worry about us. Please don't. We're fine. We're professional bottom feeders, and we're very lucky to have the gig.

We Raised Our Prices

Our new games are now $25, exactly the same as our first game, Exile: Escape From the Pit, back in 1994.

Inflation has taken its bite, and we're keeping up. Indies started charging $25 a few months ago, doing the hard work of normalizing it.

Plus, honestly, we make a rare, bespoke sort of product. It's hard to make this sort of game, and this genre has a small but very dedicated fan base. It's exactly the sort of game that should charge a little more.

Of course, our customers will now get a vote on how true this is.


Power politics alternating with sprawling dungeons.

Tough Choices

This trilogy is heavily into politics and tough choices. You enter a rebellious land, and you have to whip it into shape. You have many options. Not many of them are good.

I recently got an email from someone who got stuck playing Queen's Wish. They reached a point where they didn't like any of the choices they had, so they quit.

That's their right. It's their leisure time, after all. However, I am standing by this decision. I want this series to engage with politics and power and empire in an honest way. This is a necessary part of it.

Suppose you're some major official in Ancient Rome, and one of your provincial governors dies. You have to pick a replacement.

But here's the thing. You have to choose among the people who are available. You can't open a vat and pull out the perfect leader. You have to choose among existing humans, all of whom, being human, are high flawed.

Yet, you still have to make a choice. Generally, the most important thing is to not make the right choice but to make sure some choice gets made.

That's how life works, and I want the Queen's Wish trilogy to have little reflections of life in it. I hope the realness (to the extent that it is real) makes up for the frustration.

Video games are a big industry. There's room for all sorts of games.


A huge variety of elaborate battles. Customize your builds and strategies to deal with the foes in each region.

Improvements Over Queen's Wish

Queen's Wish: The Conqueror is a very innovative game. It tries a lot of new things, and it mixes them together in unusual ways. Some people liked it. Some people didn't.

However, I made mistakes. I made a lot of changes in Queen's Wish 2 that I really think improve the game.

There are far more abilities. You get experience more often, providing a more even flow of dopamine hits. You have more customization options for building your empire, some of which affect the story.

Yet, it's still basically the same engine. Of course. The weird new parts of the game engine are all still in there. So if you were mad at me, before, you still be. Whenever you change anything in your games, you inevitably lose people. Your job is then to add new customers to replace them.

The only alternative is writing the same game again and again. If you try to do this for 18 games, you will go mad.

It's About Family

One of the most unusual things about the Queen's Wish games is that so much of it is about dealing with your family. This is not something games have a lot of, and family is a huge part of human experience.

I have had a lot of fun writing your mother, brother, and sister. They are complicated, demanding, and occasionally infuriating. I also have a great deal of affection for all of them, even your brother. They are my favorite part of the series.

If you find yourself hating any of them, keep an open mind. They have a lot going on. You learn a lot in the ending. (I really like this game's ending.)


Over fifty abilities, all of which are useful.

It's Also About Empire

I've always been fascinated with history and politics, and my games reflect that. Perhaps to a fault. I wanted this trilogy to focus on that dominant force in the history of humanity: The building of Empire.

I was a little worried about this, because the Internet is a very politically touchy place, and empire is a bad word. Yet, how can I engage in politics in any real way and avoid this most powerful of political and military techniques.

I live in an Empire, which projects its power in a huge variety of ways. Not just military, but financial, philosophical, cultural. My Empire competes with other Empires.

Empire is not just a white person game. The biggest Empire-building project in the world right now is China in Africa, and white people aren't even involved.

Honestly, when the series is done, I'll probably wish I'd been more bloody-minded and less cowardly about how I touched the topic. Then again, I still have one game to go, and politics in the world of Haven is getting ugly.


Time to move on to a long, long overdue remaster.

What Is Coming?

Queen's Wish will probably be my last all-new series.

Most of the rest of my career will be remasters.

I've written a lot of really good games that are old now. They don't run properly on newer machines. They look bad even by my standards. Each of them took around 1.5 years, and each needs at least a year to bring them up to the level I want to leave them at. Three years worth of work seems a real sweet spot for indie games.

I don't feel bad about this. Most creators reach a point where they have to say, "I had a finite number of ideas, and I've expressed them. I'm going to close out my career going on tour and playing the hits." There's no dishonor in it. It's a decent life.

Quentin Tarantino has said he plans to make ten films and retire. He's going to make one more. He never wants to crash and fail. He has honestly evaluated what he is capable of, and he's acting on it. I admire that a lot.

Similarly, I'm getting old. It's getting harder to churn out these huge games mostly by myself, and, honestly, my bag of tricks is getting empty. I may write other new games, but they won't be RPGs. I'd love to do a twin-stick shooter.

And That's Another One In the Bag

I've been doing this a long time, and I've learned a lot. I think I've gotten pretty good as designing games. I hope you try Queen's Wish 2. There's a big demo on our site, and Steam will give you a refund if you play less than 2 hours.

We hope you give it a try! Thanks!

 

[Mortmal]

I take it you can't transer your char/gear from QW1?

No but you enter the code you gained when you finished queen wish. So pretty much starting from zero. As expected it runs flawlessly without any problems at all.

 

[Contagium]

This is just brutal. Hope I'm never in a position in my life where I need to whack it to a video game.

 

[Contagium]

Aaaand the first negative review is out talking about how there's no music in the game.

Someone obviously hasn't played a Vogel game before, and they decided to start with Queen's Wish 2?

 

[Grauken]

Aaaand the first negative review is out talking about how there's no music in the game.

Someone obviously hasn't played a Vogel game before, and they decided to start with Queen's Wish 2?

doesn't invalidate their criticism

 

[Terra]

Geneforge 2 remaster next! Nice, didn't care for the first QW, so yeah, not fussed about this one.

 

[Rean]

This is just brutal. Hope I'm never in a position in my life where I need to whack it to a video game.

What's brutal is Vogel's own words; his admission of aspiring to mediocrity and contradiction about how 'it's nice he doesn't write hits' but 'sad that he doesn't get media attention'.

 

[Grauken]

This is just brutal. Hope I'm never in a position in my life where I need to whack it to a video game.

What's brutal is Vogel's own words; his admission of aspiring to mediocrity and contradiction about how 'it's nice he doesn't write hits' but 'sad that he doesn't get media attention'.

well, imagine if he tried to write a porn RPG, that would really be painful for us

 

[Mortmal]

Aaaand the first negative review is out talking about how there's no music in the game.

Someone obviously hasn't played a Vogel game before, and they decided to start with Queen's Wish 2?

He also in his review says "Skilltree is a joke its so minimalistic", i can only agree with him, same as queen wish with a few more extra options. Doesnt mean the combat is bad but you wont discuss many character builds there. It's quite possible some of the 73 porn games have a deeper character creation system.

 

[notpl]

This is just brutal. Hope I'm never in a position in my life where I need to whack it to a video game.

What's brutal is Vogel's own words; his admission of aspiring to mediocrity and contradiction about how 'it's nice he doesn't write hits' but 'sad that he doesn't get media attention'.

The article he wrote about how everybody but him needs to stop making indie games and start fixing potholes was one of the most infuriating things I've ever read.

 

[fantadomat]

LoL imagine people biting in to that garbage after the first game.....buahahaha you are fucking moron if you bought that shit. Won't even bother pirating it lol,i will go back to playing ghostwire,at least it have a skill tree.

 

[Mortmal]

Really good so far , combat is surprisingly more challenging and ressources starved than queen wish or his previous games, unless i am wrong and wandered in the areas in the wrong order.

 

[Contagium]

Really good so far , combat is surprisingly more challenging and ressources starved than queen wish or his previous games, unless i am wrong and wandered in the areas in the wrong order.

I've only played for about 90 minutes, but I like the flow to this point. You can definitely get wiped easy in combat if you're not careful. In some ways the game is way more narrow (less skills) but overall DEEPER because there's a lot more to manage and think about compared to his other titles.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

This is just brutal. Hope I'm never in a position in my life where I need to whack it to a video game.

What's brutal is Vogel's own words; his admission of aspiring to mediocrity and contradiction about how 'it's nice he doesn't write hits' but 'sad that he doesn't get media attention'.

Even after he included a black woman in the cover art. *tsk tsk*

 

[Mortmal]

Really good so far , combat is surprisingly more challenging and ressources starved than queen wish or his previous games, unless i am wrong and wandered in the areas in the wrong order.

I've only played for about 90 minutes, but I like the flow to this point. You can definitely get wiped easy in combat if you're not careful. In some ways the game is way more narrow (less skills) but overall DEEPER because there's a lot more to manage and think about compared to his other titles.

You are always on the edge of the razor , i played a few hours, it gets tough. The fact you have to do the dungeon crawls in one step without rest is a great idea as you really need to be careful with spellcasting potions, and the skills you pick a bit like a deck of cards. So there's no stats allocation at character creation but the combat is indeed deep and complex , anyway if it's to put max str in your fighter and max int in the wizard as usual we are not missing much. All in all it feels like playing a true tabletop rpg with a DM leaning on the wargamer side.

 

[nlfortier]

Really good so far , combat is surprisingly more challenging and ressources starved than queen wish or his previous games, unless i am wrong and wandered in the areas in the wrong order.

I've only played for about 90 minutes, but I like the flow to this point. You can definitely get wiped easy in combat if you're not careful. In some ways the game is way more narrow (less skills) but overall DEEPER because there's a lot more to manage and think about compared to his other titles.

You are always on the edge of the razor , i played a few hours, it gets tough. The fact you have to do the dungeon crawls in one step without rest is a great idea as you really need to be careful with spellcasting potions, and the skills you pick a bit like a deck of cards. So there's no stats allocation at character creation but the combat is indeed deep and complex , anyway if it's to put max str in your fighter and max int in the wizard as usual we are not missing much. All in all it feels like playing a true tabletop rpg with a DM leaning on the wargamer side.

I will say this about Vogel's games. They bring me back to that feeling of playing an old-school tabletop RPG. I think the simple art style and writing really help with that. I just wish we could replace the derpy character portraits. I don't know why he didn't just reuse the Avadon portraits for this series, as they looked fine.

 

[Mortmal]

Really good so far , combat is surprisingly more challenging and ressources starved than queen wish or his previous games, unless i am wrong and wandered in the areas in the wrong order.

I've only played for about 90 minutes, but I like the flow to this point. You can definitely get wiped easy in combat if you're not careful. In some ways the game is way more narrow (less skills) but overall DEEPER because there's a lot more to manage and think about compared to his other titles.

You are always on the edge of the razor , i played a few hours, it gets tough. The fact you have to do the dungeon crawls in one step without rest is a great idea as you really need to be careful with spellcasting potions, and the skills you pick a bit like a deck of cards. So there's no stats allocation at character creation but the combat is indeed deep and complex , anyway if it's to put max str in your fighter and max int in the wizard as usual we are not missing much. All in all it feels like playing a true tabletop rpg with a DM leaning on the wargamer side.

I will say this about Vogel's games. They bring me back to that feeling of playing an old-school tabletop RPG. I think the simple art style and writing really help with that. I just wish we could replace the derpy character portraits. I don't know why he didn't just reuse the Avadon portraits for this series, as they looked fine.

Portraits are all generic presets , i suppose it was a less costly way to do them like many design choices in his games it's probably a matter of price. Still nothing to rage about really, seen lot worse.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Portraits are all generic presets , i suppose it was a less costly way to do them like many design choices in his games it's probably a matter of price. Still nothing to rage about really, seen lot worse.

Either he's getting ripped off for his art, or he's doing it himself or having someone he knows do it. I suspect the latter, since art is dirt cheap these days. Some character portraits look ok, but some...

The man really needs to expand his team and use some decent looking art if he wants to compete in today's market.

 

[talan]

No front page news for this Infinitron ?