Previews: Neopets Puzzle Adventure

Background: A "two great tastes that taste great together" sort of combination, Neopets Puzzle Adventure takes the license for Neopets, the popular online virtual pets, and sets it in an adventure world of Puzzle Quest. But rather than making the game simply a re-skinning of the popular Puzzle Quest game, developer Infinite Interactive set out to make Neopets Puzzle Adventure an evolution -- if not a sequel in name -- of the first game. Most of Puzzle Quest's core elements have been completely overhauled. For starters, the classic game of Reversi (aka Go) now forms the basic rules around which everything gets built. The magic system has also been completely revamped with a more sensible arrangement, where controlling specific gem squares on the board will provide you the power needed to use Petpets for help.

What We Saw: We got to check out an oriental-themed map called Shenkuu. As it did in Puzzle Quest, moving from one point on the map to another offers a new chance to play a match at each stop. Once into the battles, you get down to playing Reversi, which works quite well. You take turns placing your color's markers onto a checkerboard-like grid, with the simple rule that putting a chip on either end of your opponent's chips turns all of his in between to your color. When the board gets filled up, the side with the most squares turned its color wins.

Good to Go: The changes made since the original Puzzle Quest make some welcome additions and improvements to the game. The new core mechanic built on Reversi offers a nice balance of being easy to learn while leaving plenty of complexity to master. And its simple nature makes the game flexible to being manipulated by the 150 Petpets (which take the place of magic from the first game) you can tame to help you out. Calling on these aides comes with a score penalty, helping to balance out their ability to change the tide of a game in a heartbeat. The developer also took some liberties with the playing board's design, mixing things up with irregular grid shapes instead of the usual square setup.

Warning Sign: No matter how you slice it, this is still a Neopets game. However strong the appeal to fans of the original may be, some will find that license too off-putting to get over. The cute characters and overall image of the brand might be hard to connect with for gamers past the usual demographic target for Neopets.

Lukewarm Afterglow: Finding and connecting with its audience poses the biggest threat to Neopets Puzzle Adventure. For many Neopets fans, its significance as a Puzzle Quest spin-off will carry little to no import. For them it will likely be all about the connection back to the Neopets world, which looks to be in good shape with the DS, PC, and Wii games offering unique unlockable items via in-game codes to use on the Neopets website. Puzzle Quest fans may find it a little more difficult to get into the new world. The cutsie Neopets play to a fairly young audience, but the actual game underneath it refines every rough edge of the original Puzzle Quest. Whether that is enough to attract those fans will be an interesting situation to watch as it develop.