Queen's Wish: The Conqueror
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Game Description
You are royalty of the mighty empire of Haven! Your mother the Queen rules, while you enjoy a life of sheltered luxury. Then, one morning, you wake up to find yourself banished to your Empire’s lost colony. You mother has declared your childhood at an end. Your mission? Prove yourself by reconquering Haven’s rebellious vassals, or don’t bother to come home.At last, you have been given wealth, magic, soldiers. The Queen thinks you will submit and join the family business. Now that you have freedom and power, you might have other ideas ...
Queen's Wish: The Conqueror is a epic, indie fantasy role-playing adventure. Wander free through an enormous world, sink into a fascinating story full of surprises and interesting decisions, and use your cunning to outwit a multitude of dungeons and foes. In this open-ended adventure, you can build an Empire or free the oppressed. Serve the Queen or rebel. Fight or use diplomacy. Build fortresses, smith enchanted blades and armor, and deal with nagging relatives!
Queen's Wish: The Conquerer features:
- Epic fantasy adventure with over 50 hours of gameplay.
- Open-ended story in a variety of mysterious lands, featuring many choices, paths and endings. Lots of replay value.
- Suspenseful tactical combat. Select from fifty different abilities. Build and rebuild your warriors to face rapidly changing foes.
- Explore (and conquer) an enormous outdoors and a huge variety of dungeons and enemy fortresses.
- Gain strength with a unique fortress system. Build and equip fortresses, making your warriors stronger in a wide variety of ways.
- Not just orcs and elves. Features the unforgettable races and characters that make Spiderweb Software adventures unique.
- Over 100 side quests and hundreds of magical artifacts to hunt for.
Enjoy a new adventure from Spiderweb Software, now celebrating 25 years of making fine indie fantasy role-playing goodness.
Announcements
Queen's Wish v1.0.2 Update Released!
Our new fantasy epic, Queen's Wish: The Conqueror, has been out several weeks, and the response has been fantastic! Sales and reviews have been great, and we are already starting to plan Queen's Wish
Queen's Wish v1.1 Major Update!
This major update completely reworks the creature graphics and makes them much nicer. There are also a number of minor tweaks and fixes.We just had a hugely successful Kickstarter for Queen's Wish 2:
Major Queen's Wish Update!
We have updated Queen's Wish: The Conqueror to v1.1. The new version has completely revamped creature graphics and lots of small improvements. They're great improvements for our retro indie adventure
Queen's Wish 2: The Tormentor Kickstarter!
We are ready to create Queen’s Wish 2: The Tormentor, the sequel to Queen's Wish: The Conqueror, and we’re asking for your help! In the second game in the Queen’s Wish series, you are still royalty o
Queen's Wish 2: The Tormentor Announced, New RPG From Spiderweb Software!
Queen's Wish 2: The Tormentor is the second chapter in the indie, epic Queen’s Wish Trilogy. You are royalty of the Empire of Haven. A routine diplomatic mission in a brutal, barbarian land has turne
Geneforge 1 - Mutagen Released!
Geneforge 1 - Mutagen is now out for Windows & Macintosh! It is the first game in a new epic series from Spiderweb Software. It's a unique, truly open-ended fantasy role-playing adventure in a strang
Queen's Wish v1.1.1 Quickfix
* Mire boars now draw correctly.
Queen's Wish: The Conqueror rallies the peasants for an autumn launch
So long as there exists a market for ’90s style party-managing RPGs, Spiderweb Software and its mostly-solo designer Jeff Vogel will be there. The studio’s next fantasy strategy RPG, Quee
No. of Reviews: 20
Review 1
Purchased!
I'm giving this game a thumbs-up, but it's a fairly tentative one with a few asterisks attached. First and foremost, this is a Spiderweb Software RPG. Those have a style of their own, and there are certain basic things you can always expect to find in them. Excellent writing, an engaging world which is interesting to explore and learn about, fleshed-out NPC's who feel 'real' and worth getting to know, tons of sidequests that feel genuinely worthwhile rather than just being busywork, and Giant Intelligent Friendly Talking Spiders. All of those are present in this title too... well, except the Giant Intelligent Friendly Talking Spiders. Or at least, I haven't met them yet. Maybe they're just hiding? However, aside from the things that are still the same (and still great), there are many things that have CHANGED. Queen's Wish uses a brand-new 'engine', distinct from past titles such as Avadon or Avernum. This means, for one thing, that the graphics have been significantly improved - notably, your character-models change based on what kind of weapons you wield, what armor you wear, what kind of shield you're holding, and so on and so forth. Surprisingly few RPG's go to that length, so it's nice! It even has tactical implications since it applies to ENEMIES, too - you can pick out priority targets in a group of foes just by looking at their character-models, telling plate-armor from hauberks and polearms from magical staves. Still, graphics have never really been a selling-point for Spiderweb, seeing as they've been consistently 'bout 20 years behind the curve on that count - which is fine. It's part of their charm - they were making retro-RPG's before it became mainstream! (Well... HE was making, etc. Spiderweb Software's really just one guy, by and large.) There are other nice changes too. 'Vendor-trash' has been disposed of entirely. You can't pick up random junk, be it valuable or otherwise, and it actually ties into the plot rather well - in this game, you are not some random adventurer scrambling to make a quick buck to pay for ale and inn, but a PRINCE! And a Prince doesn't carry around half a ton of assorted junk in the hopes of being able to sell it to some random merchant for 1 GP a piece. Meanwhile, genuinely valuable things you come across are simply converted directly into GP when you pick them up, which neatly removes a type of constant busywork that all too many RPG's are eager to put you to. There's also a brand new 'base-building' system, that has you constructing fortresses as you go and building facilities within them in order to access new equipment and get other bonuses - kind of reminiscent of something like XCOM, creating a sort of two-tiered gameplay-loop where you go adventuring in order to claim resource-deposits that you can use to build stuff in your fortresses which will get you new gear that you can use to do more adventuring and so on and so forth. Very nice! Still a bit basic, but fun - and with lots of potential for growth in future installments. But now, at last, after most of you have probably stopped reading and jumped to the 'TL;DR' bit at the bottom, we come to the reason for my reluctance to ultimately recommend it: The Combat. There's a lot to do in this game that isn't fighting - stuff like exploration, diplomacy, conversation, intrigue... but in the end, the vast majority of quests WILL involve combat. And the problem with that is that by the time you're maybe 25-33% of the way through the game, you've seen all the combat has to offer. The new 'skill-system' is gauze-thin - you've got a handful of warrior-skills, a handful of mage-skills and a handful of support-skills, along with three tiny subsets of 'cultural skills' that you unlock as you access new regions and recruit party-members from them. The skills are sorted into four tiers, and you can access each once you've put two skillpoints into the previous one. This means that once you hit level 7 - which doesn't take very long - you've got access to every skill the game has to offer. You can respec your characters freely whenever you're at one of your fortresses - which you'll be often, since that's also your main way to heal, regain MP, resurrect the fallen and much more. Nice, but it means that you can, in very short order, try out all the available skills, pick out the ones you like (or just the ones that WORK), and establish a skillset that will see you through the entire game. Further levels let you up your chosen skills to Level 2, making them slightly more effective, or pick up a few handy passives, or some tertiary skills that you're going to use once in a blue moon, but it won't really change anything. Previous games had expansive spell-libraries for you to unlock and access as you progressed through the game, constantly handing you new toys and tools to test out on your enemies. The original Exile-games were particularly generous in this regard, providing you with a LOT of options for dealing with your foes, and a lot of varied foes that required different approaches. Compared to this, the skill- and combat-system in Queen's Wish is CHILDISHLY simply. There's literally only FIVE damaging spells available to your mages, to give an example. There is no 'elemental' damage - attacks are solely sorted into 'physical' and 'magical'. Want to blast a bunch of icy, undead shades with an Ice Wave? Go ahead. While you're at it, hit that crowd of Fire Drakes with a Fireball, why don't you? Might as well - you'll be doing full damage regardless. This simplicity removes all sense of tactical depth from the game - every set of enemies you meet can be approached using roughly the same strategy, so once you've got it down, you never really need to change. Even the 'heavy' enemies all sport basically the same sets of strength and weaknesses. (Hint: Curses are usually the least-resisted thing for every serious foe. Hit 'em with Vulnerability, Slow and Weaken, then just keep chopping till they stop moving.) Hence, the last three-quarters of the game turn into a dull slog where you just want the combat to be OVER already so you can go back to the stuff that the game actually does WELL. I'm still recommending this title because, well, I'm still having FUN with it. But I won't be considering the sequel unless there are major changes to the skill- and/or combat-system. TL;DR - Great writing across the board, unique world that's fun to explore, but the skill-system is puddle-shallow and the combat rapidly turns dull and repetitive.
Review 2
Purchased!
I don't agree at all with most of the reasons why people put a negative review. The experience system is an awesome improvement. You don't get experience from killing monsters but only from quests and boss. At first I was sceptic, but after a while I realized that not only does it make you scale much better with the game because you can't grind, or avoid grinding, but also it feels much better when you level up, because it exclusively happens after some heroic exploit. The skill tree might seem at first very simple and maybe a bit poor, but it actually allows you to really personalize each of your character, either making them true combatants, balanced support/wizard, or hybrid that are polyvalent and reliable in almost any situation, or any other combinaison. You're not limited to fighter/cleric/wizard. The simplicity of the skill tree is actually what makes it so nice. There are cons though. The main one to me is the story. It's not as rich as in geneforge or avernum, and there doesn't seem to be as many choices that make you follow a path rather than another (compared to geneforge 5 for example). The story feels a bit too linear in consequence. Also, the "open world" is less open than in avernum, there are only a few places with nice or funny side quests that you have to discover by yourself. The town building system is nice, but after a few hours it seems that you've already exploited almost all the possibilities, and the rest of the game will only be about gaining more ressources. I definitely recommend it, it has the spiderweb flavor with some fresh and modern features. Thanks Jeff!
Review 3
Purchased!
I came looking to revisit the feeling of Avernum, but left disappointed after only a few hours. There is no sense of discovery in the character progression or equipment, since everything is plainly listed on menus from the get-go. The tactical choices are slimmed down to the point where they become dry and repetitive after only a few hours. Fort building leaves very little decision making. The plot is present, but not as engaging as previous spidweb games. They streamlined the fun right out of the game.
Review 4
Purchased!
I'm a big fan of Spiderweb games ever since Avernum but with this new one there are a few things just outright unpleasant: * You don't get any XP from killing anything except the boss of a dungeon or completing a quest (which may take many hours of investment if it's a multi-part quest). * Exploring is not fun due to previous statement. What is the point in going in a random direction if 99.9% of enemies you encounter doesn't count as XP ? * On Normal, it's very difficult to solve the main questline for each region one after the other. you -will- have to leave and go visit another region and then come back later when you're stronger. For each questline (of each region), there is a sudden difficulty spike that you won't be able to get through unless you go elsewhere and do other things at other regions. At the end, it will always be the same: You were almost finish with all 3 regions but couldn't finish any of them for good when you wanted to. You are forced to play in a specific pattern. * Unlike other games, stealing doesn't have any consequences. Just none. * Unlike other games, terrain is not examinable. Meaning you can no longer discover things here and there by feeling and curiosity. Everything is placed in obvious chests that sparkles. * The skill tree is dull and linear. It's filled with skills that you'd find in a RPG game sold for 1$ at walmart. * Every fort reclaimed will only allow you to build one building of each type, even though the building system is based on how many you can build. You are "free" to have 6 fort with each fort have one building of each type and that's it. You can't do anything else besides putting useless accessories for aesthetic purpose... in a single player game. * After a while, you'll just want to finish the game as quick as possible since battling enemies become more and more tedious for no XP. Brief, if you're looking to play a Spiderweb Software game, skip this one and go play any other title. This one is the absolute worst they have done. It's frankly disappointing.
Review 5
Purchased!
I am really starting to fear that these games are slowly going the way of other games these days: streamlining and stripping themselves down in order to appeal to a wider audience, while slowly changing from what the core fan base likes. As demonstrated with nearly every game that has attempted this, it doesn't usually end well. The old fans become more and more jaded as each change is made, and it is never quite what the new players really want in a game. Don't get me wrong, I had fun playing this game, enough fun to accumulate 38 hours and complete it and all the side quests I could find. However, it was not nearly as much fun as I had playing Avernum, Geneforge, or even Avadon. The Avadon series is what first started to worry me, the changes it made to mana/energy usage, the introduction of classes with skill trees, etc. But this isn't about those games. Those games were still a lot of fun, but an early warning. In Queen's Wish, I never really felt like I was playing my own character. 20 skill points over the entire game to put into either Combat, Support, or Magic, and they aren't even really skill trees. I was actually super confused when I first started playing, looking for where I could change the class of my main character. My stomach sank when I realized that there were only 9 skills/spells in each category, and that adding in an extra skill point only slightly improved it in terms of % to hit, % damage, etc. Also, around 3 of those in each category is a single point passive buff. I feel like this choice of character creation took away a lot from the game. With Avadon it was right at the edge, but with Queen's Wish I think it has gone a little bit too far. But then to remove finding items in anything other than chests, to remove XP from kills but not remove overland enemies that you normally farmed, to make dungeons constantly refill with enemies unless you defeat the boss. I dunno, it all felt annoying to deal with. It seems like a lot of this was done to help simplify and streamline combat. Yet some truly odd choices were made regarding combat. Arrows will at times fly super slow, you need to wait for your character to make an attack animation and for the enemy to make an 'I was hit' animation, for you to move onto the next turn. While the upgraded models and animations are nice, it slowed down what was seemingly supposed to be a sped up combat. Seems a bit odd, and again, I found it a bit annoying. There is also no way of knowing who is going when in combat, and no way to improve your odds of going first other than by wearing lighter armor. Well anyways, I finished the game and got most of the achievement when I realized you could save right at the end of each nation and just do what either side there asked you to do, getting both achievements super easy. It seemed like in the older games you made your sort of 'final choice' a lot earlier into the game, and had to live with it for several hours as you progressed. This created replay value to see what the other sides and endings had to offer. With this game nothing really changes until you reach the last main quest for each area. This was especially noticeable with the Arhiel area, where there isn't even really a faction with quests opposite the Trench Towns until you get to the final city. I know it is scummy to save and get the achievements like that, but I honestly have absolutely no inclination to replay this game over at all. I have played every Spiderweb game but Exile, I have given every game on Steam a positive review, until recently. This is my second negative review ever on a Spiderweb game. I am really hoping that this doesn't happen again. I really want to love these games like I did the older ones. tl'dr; The game is decently fun. Good characters, good world, great storytelling. However, game-play is stripped down and streamlined enough to be sub-par, and multiple annoyances have been added into the game. There is no reason to replay the game, as the main quests for each area only change right at the very end, and you can just save and pick a different choice to see what happens. Fort building was fun, but doesn't make up for the other areas the game is lacking in. If you want to read some more, I have written an extended review here: https://gameknightly.com/reviews/review-queens-wish-the-conqueror/
Review 6
Purchased!
If you are big fan of the original Avernum games, this is not just another one. It is a bare bones version of what those games offered. The character development is stripped down and bare bones. The xp system has been trivialized. You are heavily restricted with skill usage, since you only get xp by killing the boss of a dungeon area. If you leave after partially clearing it, it all resets. Because of that, you have to save all your spell points and over 90% of the actions you take in combat is just a basic auto attack. BORING. They've also stripped down the itemization removing all the flavor items that fleshed out the world. Nothing to loot on the things you kill either. Just fixed location chests here and there. The world feels very sterile and BORING. This is not the Spiderweb Software of 15 to 20 years ago. Sad to see such a downward turn in the design of their games.
Review 7
Purchased!
I hate to say this, being a giant fan of Spiderweb since the Exile days - but I just couldn't get into this one. If you were hoping for another Avernum/Geneforge/Avadon, before buying you should know: *If you leave a dungeon all progress is lost (no fighting your way out to reheal then finishing the job) *You get zero XP from killing creatures *Fallen enemies don't drop loot and you literally cannot pick things up from the ground *Character building seems to be hugely simplified. No perks, no stats, no searching for spells. The skills tree is very simple. *There is emphasis on building forts and managing resources. Some people love this kind of thing, but it's not my cup of tea. *The charm of talking to NPCs just isn't there. In Exile/Avadon/Avernum you could discuss rumors with the local blacksmith, who has a name and backstory. Here the blacksmith who moved into the smithy I made is called "Blacksmith" with no personality. It may be a great game (and I hope Jeff makes a fortune from it) but it's not a traditional Spiderweb game imo. I got frustrated to the point I let my party "die" because I was interested in seeing the traditional "your people are now doomed" etc message, only to get told my mother's magic saved my life and I got teleported back to the main fort. That little moment seemed to confirm I wasn't playing the kind of game I was looking for so I refunded it. Edit: Played the demo from Spiderweb's site, bought the full version from steam, so my playtime figure isn't accurate.
Review 8
Purchased!
QUEEN'S WISH STUMBLES First of all, I came to this game as something of a fan of Jeff Vogel from my experience with the Avernum series. I've played deep into all six of the main games in that series. I might not have been able to solve the final boss or last the ending gauntlet, but I generally enjoyed the ride. I am also a gamer who tends to concentrate on one game at a time. However, I have found myself getting easily distracted from Queen's Wish: The Conqueror and have been diving into my other pending games, to the point of spending enough time in them to compose reviews for a couple. A few gameplay hours after returning, I have reached ragequit frustration levels. My main problems with the game lie in the combat system and how characters level up. The game starts promising enough. You are the scion (prince or princess, your choice) of the land of Haven. Your mother the queen sends you off to the continent of Sacramentum to see why some former vassal states have broken off diplomatic relations, and, if at all possible, bring them back into the fold. Despite the subtitle of the game, you will not be a conqueror (or re-conqueror, in this case) in the traditional sense. Haven is not a land that can afford a huge army. It can, however, afford to send some battalions that can hold and reclaim forts throughout the land. But getting the vassals back will take skillful diplomacy from you as the envoy from Haven. And, of course, some killing. The first couple hours are slow, so that you can be introduced to the setting and get a bit of a tutorial on early concepts. There's also some helpful reminders available on the Journal tab. Part of re-establishing relations with the vassals of Sacramentum involves rebuilding several forts around the continent. The first one is a home base of sorts, and was Haven's foothold in neutral territory among the vassals. This makes Queen's Wish partly a base builder and resource gatherer. By flushing out enemies from various holdings, you will be able to claim new resources every two days. You then, of course, plow those resources back into rebuilding forts. You can put in only one of each type of shop into each fort. Shops include money makers such as bakeries, and the more common RPG ones such as smithys and apothecaries. Barracks are also an option, as well as a couple upgrades to each fort as a whole. Outside of the money makers, every shop or upgrade either unlocks better items, or grants you a small benefit in combat. The more of each standard shop you build, the better tier weapons you unlock. This becomes important because loot is scarce. Instead of poking in lots of containers and finding lots of "junk" such as broken pots and broken swords, only certain sparkly containers contain loot, and all loot is useful. Some of the loot is extra resources for building, and others are augments to buff your armor or weapons. The better equipment is always found with traders, mostly in your fort shops. Of course, combat is inevitable. A Jeff Vogel game does not have much gatekeeping, or bridges that need rebuilding. Hints from NPCs and the layered unlocking of quests are generally your only clues as to where to go when. I've long learned to keep notes that supplement the built-in quest system. This becomes a bit maddening and frustrating until you finally find the easiest encounters and begin to level up. It is also maddening when the difficulty level rises sharply in one area, and you have to hunt for another place to level up. Character builds are both simplified and restrictive. Each character gets three dozen skills. (Eventually, you get the ability to recruit from the vassal states, and each culture has unique added skills.) This is simplified in that there's no intricate skill tree beyond needing to unlock tiers in each skill category, but restrictive in that only one point is given per level and only either just one or two points can be allocated into each skills. Some of this is mitigated by the fact that you can reallocate skill points; and your party, including new recruits, will always be at your own level. It's combat that is the main source of my frustration. Each character has an energy pool to use for any skill or spell. This pool is limited to just a couple dozen energy points and does not seem to increase naturally with level. Of course, then, spells/skills are just one to three points. An annoyance here is that there are NO real mana potions to be had in this game. The closest thing I could find was a one-use potion that restored ... a mere TWO points. That then complicates combat. Conserving mana is one thing. But there are stretches of dungeons where the game is like a devious game master who keeps throwing enemies at you, and at the very least, you feel the need to keep spamming healing spells until you escape. Another problem is that, while the dungeon areas are smallish, in most you need to defeat a boss before the dungeon will stay cleared. Try the old trick of returning to heal up without slaying the boss (which worked in Avernum), and many enemies will respawn. One small mitigation is that party death is not game over. Die, respawn, and return, and while most enemies have returned, your knowledge of the layout remains and you often know the most direct route to that boss. The BIGGEST headache with combat is that you get ZERO XP from kills. You can only win XP through completing various quests. You won't be able to embark on a lengthy quest sequence and level up a couple times along the way. No, you'll need to complete the job and then come tell the NPC who sent you off to get anything. So, eventually, I found myself attempting several available areas, only to feel stymied everywhere. The final straw for me: Your holdings generate resources, but the shops in your forts consume resources, too. Each of the three vassal states specializes in certain resources. I rebuilt enough fort shops to hit break even on a certain recourse common to one of the states. But I had yet to enter that state ... and could not finish its initial battleground. One more thing: In a Jeff Vogel game, you trade fancy graphics engines and cinematic cutscenes for descriptions in lovely prose. Sounds are similarly minimalist, with no voice acting (but still decent characterizations in dialogues), a couple music tracks that become repetitious, and stock sounds. Queen's Wish mostly keeps to that. Your fort shops are stocked with generic, colorless shopkeepers, and most of the townsfolk are one-note extras. But quest-relevant NPCs have solid characterization. Graphics, on the other hand, are a downgrade from the Avernum series. That series had an old-school but still beautiful isometric tileset. Here, you have a weird top-down angle that elongates back walls. The worst sin is that tiles are painfully evident in some places. There are no edge tiles for coasts and cliffs, for crying out loud! I know there are Spiderweb Software fans who love trying the Torment difficulty. Unfortunately for me, Normal difficulty started to feel like a Torment. Combat and the energy resources used in combat just felt too unforgiving.
Review 9
Purchased!
A lot of innovative ideas, none really well implemented. Game was played on Easy, and honestly, compared to other Jeff Vogel games, it was equivalent in difficulty to Torment. 1. Outpost Building Problems: - You can only have one of each structure in a single Outpost. - There is more available spaces, than available structure types, so some space is always wasted. - There is upkeep, which can make progressing very difficult, as if upkeep is too high, and you no longer have that resource, you have to pay gold to make up the difference. It is very hard to acquire gold in the game. - There is a limit of 50 of each resource stored. So if you grab more wood, when at 50 wood, its wasted. - You generate some resources every 2 days, depending on which places you've conquered. But every two days upkeep is also taken away. - It can take weeks to fully upgrade an Outpost, due to various costs and upkeep, slowing game progression, considerably. 2. Player Progression: - You earn XP only by completing quests. You do not earn it by killing monsters or exploring areas. Can be very difficult to earn levels. - When you level up, you earn 1 skill point, to spend in something. Most abilities are total crap. I cheated, and gave myself a ton of skill points, and even the best spells and abilities in the game, do not one-shot early game foes. Get ready for a long, tedious, slog. - You do not loot items off the ground, only items found in chests. You rarely get gold off kills. There is sometimes 1 item in a chest, and maybe 1-2 building resources of 1 each. - You can acquire new items primarily from shops you construct. But, the item variety is based on how many of that shop you have in total, across all your Outposts. As you can only build one structure of a kind per Outpost, it is very hard to progress by items alone. Assuming you can afford to buy the items that is. - You never have enough gold and everything costs too damn much. All structures require gold to build, running out of resources from upkeep costs gold, and every item costs as much gold as earning gold bonuses from having both the brewery and baker active. - It is not clear which area you should go to first. - The game is very stingy with player resources (energy for spells, potions, and upgrade items) but yet often forces you to waste them friviliously, or die constantly. 3. Dungeons: - If you leave a dungeon before completing it, by killing the boss, it fully respawns when you come back. Can no longer do half the dungeon, retreat, recuperate and return. Now you have to do it all in one go. I'm not sure how you can do a lot of these places without cheating. - There are no secret areas anymore. No secret buttons or hidden switches. - There are a ton of icons scattered about, that looks like useful items, but you cannot grab any of them. - The reward for completing a dungeon, is usually 1 or 2 increased production of a specific resource, every 2 days. Maybe if lucky a new item or a smatterring of coins (ie between 30 to 50, wherein things cost between 50 to 150 gold) - There is very little loot or interactable objects. There is like maybe 5-6 chests in a largish dungeon. - There is generally no value in exploring all the nooks and crannies in a map now. 4. Combat: - Item progression is locked behind number of outposts, number of a specific structure, and a shit ton of gold needed. Makes combat a massive chore, for any melee or ranged spells. - You do not find weapons or artifacts in the field. - With three outposts, and the best available melee weapon, you cannot 1-hit kill the most basic of enemies. - You have very little Energy and all abilities cost Energy. Energy doesn't recharge over time, and can only be refilled by entering an outpost or sleeping. There are no Energy Potions. - Combat is a chore, and makes this game a living hell. I'd avoid it if I could, but its constantly forced on you, with no options for diplomacy or surrendering or yielding (unlike previous games). - Your characters have so few action points and thus your frontline melee fighters, take like 2-4 turns just to get to the frontline. Too many items, that improve their survival, severely cuts down on the number of points they have. Of all Jeff Vogel's recent games, Avernum 1-3, and Avadon 1-3, this game is by far the hardest on Easy difficulty, and lacks a ton of polish and obvious gametesting. Some people might find this tedious slog, fun, but I don't. I only bought it because it was on sale for 60% off, so unless you can get it for that price or less, I wouldn't touch it. If you cheat excessively, it might be fun. Hard to say. This will be the first Jeff Vogel game that I won't be finishing. I play games to unwind, and this just winds me up. Its just so tedious and so heartbreaking to see the state of his games now.
Review 10
Purchased!
Queen's Wish is a straightforward party-based RPG that tests no boundaries and pushes no innovative features. It's by-the-numbers and streamlined design results in a game with no personality, challenge, or interest. In general, RPGs operate on three vectors -- writing and story, character development, and combat. Queen's Wish has all of these, but they all lack any panache. Combat is a straightforward turn-based slog. There isn't any positional encouragement (for example, flanking), being adjacent to a melee unit hinders movement (it costs more points to move) but otherwise you can freely walk away from anything, and the in-combat abilities are very basic. You can stun or bleed an enemy, but it is all so difficult as to click a button and click on the target. There is exactly enough abilities to cover all the status effects and no more. This leads to a very stale and static combat experience. Everyone gets into places, then we all trade blows until someone has won. If you're low on health, you heal. Straightforward, clinical, and boring. Character development has the same problem. There are three trees (and a few special abilities per race) and they do what they need to. Combat lets you hit things harder, magic lets you hit things at range, and support lets you heal and buff people. The problem here is the abilities are all so simple. Bleeding Strike bleeds people, Stunning Blow stuns them. Lightning blast deals damage, and Fireball deals it to an area! There are no abilities that really encourage you to interact with the battlefield. You can't create walls to force chokepoints, your fighters won't get +1 to damage for each adjacent enemy, encouraging you to get into a mix. Bows just hit things, there's no need to avoid shooting into melee, and everything properly takes the damage it's supposed to. Skeletons and slimes are as vulnerable to your arrows as flesh and blood. Further, the game has a design that encourages creative solutions to combat (you only need to kill the "boss" of a dungeon to reap all it's rewards) but you're not given any tools to avoid combat, so you end up killing everything anyway. You can't sneak by. You can't teleport across a gap or create a wall blocking off a fight. You will go through each fight, as expected, and then face off against the boss. Once you kill them the game will inform you the rest of the enemy has fled (you couldn't really avoid them, so I suppose their corpses shuffled off) and you repeat on the next place. This would all be well and fine if the higher level of the game was engaging. You're a prince(ss) and must rebuild the continent! Diplomacy! Build your structures! Customize your keep! This all sounds very exciting, except you have no leeway in how you do any of it, really. Diplomacy settles down to "be a dick/don't be a dick", you can choose if this building is a smithy or an apothecary, but you'll get all of them and there is no system rewarding you for doubling down or pairing things up. If you build a mill and a bakery you get 36 gold/turn! That's because a mill makes 18 gold/turn and a bakery makes 18 gold/turn. Pairing them up means nothing. You need multiple smithies to unlock better gear, but you can only build 1 per town, so again there is no choice. You can't decide to skip a weaver in favor of two blacksmiths. You will build exactly one of everything and that's just how it works, okay? At least you get to pick the order you click the buttons, I suppose. Finally, dealing with other lands lacks interest as well. The slaves in the south want to be free! Sadly, that barely matters. You're given the entirely binary choice of "Slavery is fine!/Free the slaves!" and as soon as you dismiss the dialog window it has no impact on anything. Slaves or no, the same mines produce the same ore. Your mother might chastise you for being too nice/mean, but she lacks the level of writing a game like Knights of the Old Republic 2 puts into Kreia. Kreia might make you think twice about being nice/mean, but the Queen will throw a line of dialogue at you that you will immediately forget, and then get back to liberating another mine to get +1 ore/turn. Overall, Queen's Wish is the tapwater of RPGs. Nothing is offensive. Combat isn't fidly, you don't just lose to the dice outright. The dialogue isn't awkward and no social barriers are challenged. You'll never make a "mistake" when leveling your characters. That's because Spiderweb took no risks in design, and have created a perfect glass of lukewarm water. It'll quench your thirst for a time, and you don't need to worry about the contents, but you're also never going to want to tell your friends about it.
Review 11
Purchased!
I have to say, compared to the Avernum series, Geneforge series, and to a lesser extent the Avadon series, I find this game to be rather underwhelming. There is central disconnect about this game that just constantly bothered me throughout the entire playthrough, but as I tried to turn into words, I found myself singling out individual annoyances, while being unable to put my finger on the problem as a whole, then I went into the forum section, and found this statement by the developer: "I wanted Queen's Wish to have a new approach to power and what it means. I wanted it to feel like you're not a lone wolf warrior but the head of an Empire, with workers and machinery and resources and industry backing you and your armies up." And that's when it hit me. That's when I realized what my problem with this game really was. It wasn't the consequence free character building, where nothing feels personal about your character, or the underwhelming skills that go with it. It wasn't the shallow story, or the morally ambiguous plot line. It wasn't the base building that seemed to serve very little actual purpose. It was the fact that you are a prince, you are a leader of one of the most powerful empires in the world, and yet, despite what the developer says, you are STILL the lone wolf, slogging around in the swamps, and the caves, and the deserts, doing everything yourself, because you can't actually give orders to anyone. You have no support, other than what the story gives you. You have one servant, who does nothing. You have three soldiers that travel by your side who give you no reason to care about them, and are basically just robots whose faces you can change at practically any given time. Even your army, three legions of the finest soldiers, use you to do their jobs for them. It made me ask, what's the point? Why should I care? I'm a prince in name only. I'm an adventurer without a call to adventure. I'm a gofer for powers I should be in control of. It made no sense. It was an adventure game that didn't want to call itself an adventure game, and a base builder that wanted to be an empire simulator. In trying to become all of these things, it did each to a lesser degree of itself, and made each aspect of gameplay so insultingly simple, it's no wonder I hear others calling it 'childish' TLDR: I respect the developers attempt to make something different, but Queen's Wish needs to be rethought from the ground up. There is nothing wrong with trying to combine genres, but to do it well requires an understanding of what the players role is actually going to be. The general should not be out on the front lines fighting like a grunt. The architect should not be trading in jewelry to get doorknobs, and a prince should not be taking orders from his soldiers, while doing random errands for complete strangers. I feel there are ways to make Queen's Wish work, but as it is, I have no interest in getting the next one.
Review 12
Purchased!
I'm torn on this game. Graphics & sound are comically bad, basically no improvement of the games Spiderweb software made 20 years ago. But that was expected, so no points off for that. The first 10 hours or so were pretty good & I'll got my value for money. But then it ends up being a grind. The problems are various. But the main ones are: There is nearly no variety to the encounters. Yes, there are some different monsters, but it doesn't matter. Basically cast a couple of fireballs and shot some arrows and that is enough for 90% of the battles. Wolf, snake, bandit, slime, skeletons, ... doesn't matter. From mid game onward it is just, Haste / Fireball / Arrows / Heal / repeat. The skill tree rapidly maxes out and most of the skills / spells aren't required or of any use. Teleport being a classic example, You can only teleport a few squares away and only to a location you can walk to. So no teleporting across the chasm, or through a door. So there is nothing to play for once you reach mid game (no new spells or abilities) The combat order makes no sense. A character that is 10% faster might have double the attack rate of another character. Haste doesn't seem to make you move any faster. Never figured out how that works. Would have also been nice to have an option to drop down the initiative order (i.e. take your action after the action of another character). Instead it seems like you have to skip your entire turn. Melee weapons are all a waste of time. You still need one, but you won't use it very often. Just give everyone a bow. And at each tier there is really only 1 bow. So every member of the party gets the same weapon. If you need to use a bow in melee, just take a step back. Likely you'll never get past tier 2 weapons. So you'll only have two weapons for the game. Yes, you can use others, but why would you? As a lot of the combat is done with range weapons none of the armor is as important as it might have otherwise been. The UI is just dumb a lot of the time. Especially while trying to swap gear between characters while in stores or swapping people in and out of the party. It is like they didn't play test it (I know they did play test it, but not well enough). There is no automatic labeling of stores on the maps (which you need to construct). So you quickly forget which one is which in each town. You don't seem to get experience or treasure for most random encounters. So they are a waste of time. Terrain means nothing, Environment means nothing. Night and day have no effect on anything as far as I can see. Pathing algorithm needs more work and bugs out some of the time causing characters to walk to the wrong position in battle. Some weapons and armor have augmentation slots, but there is really only a few augments that make any sense. Again, lack of variety. There are basically only 3 character classes. Fighter, Mage & Cleric. Yes you can be a figher / cleric. But why? And by mid game all classes can use all weapons (or at least all the weapons you are likely to get). There is no encumbrance systems. So 6 sets of plate armor weight the same as 6 daggers. You can buy food and drink, but it seems to do nothing. You can sleep as well, but there is no need. There was no real traps, puzzles (a good thing in my opinion however), secret passages So it is basically a dumbed down RPG. No replayability. Minimal strategy by mid game. Despite all of the above, it was fun as a casual game for a 10 to 15 hours.
Review 13
Purchased!
This is one of those times where an up or down vote just doesn't capture how I feel. I do recommend this game, but I'm not entirely sure who I'm recommending it to. To fans of previous SW games, I will say that if you've enjoyed Jeff Vogel's writing in past games, it's a safe bet you will enjoy it here as well. This is first and foremost for me personally, so despite the gameplay critiques that are going to follow, I have definitely enjoyed my time with the game. Playing the Prince(ss) of Haven is genuinely fun, with lots of options for how you want to characterize him or her. The role-playing opportunities here are delicious and will only be more so as the series continues. (Unlike past SW sequels that canonized various choices from the earlier games, the results of your choices are planned to carry over in future titles.) The other major plus is the meat and potatoes of QW's gameplay, rebuilding the forts. The mechanics are fairly simple, but fun: find resources such as wood and iron, then use them to build shops (and some limited decorations). Each fort will generate resources every two days depending on what mines and such you control in the area, which you will need to pay for the upkeep of the fort's amenities. Thieves however can plunder your hard-earned resources (!), making significant dents in your stockpile. (My sheltered, naive Princess Amalia recently discovered that "bandits" are people who steal things, and while she is generally a kind-hearted soul, she feels decidedly less kindly toward people who steal from her. She worked hard for that iron! She traipsed through the mud for it! Monsters tried to kill her! And you just TOOK it?!) Fortunately, you can lower the chances of theft by clearing out local bandit lairs and building barracks or towers. (But alas, that iron still ain't coming back, no matter how many bandits an infuriated Princess might slaughter.) In short, these two aspects are enjoyable enough that they outweigh the things I dislike. I definitely appreciate Jeff Vogel's willingness to take a gamble on trying new things, but some of the changes just don't work. To put it succinctly, Queen's Wish plays like Baby's First CRPG. It's not linear, thank goodness (you can accomplish the major goals in any order). But anything else that might possibly confuse the poor baby, like stats, elemental attacks, a variety of items, or too many buttons to press, has been meticulously pruned from the game. You have just enough gear, just enough items, just enough buttons to get you through the game and nothing more. If you're looking for a game that lets you experiment with lots of different options, or the classic dopamine rush from getting a cool new spell or looting an awesome new sword, you won't find any of that in Queen's Wish. Let's start with the gear problem. In lieu of scavenging items from dungeons, the best gear is largely bought from your forts. This makes sense as a design choice, since the entire point of the game is building them up. But the classic lure of dungeons since the days of pen & paper RPGs has been XP and loot, both of which are absent here. Instead, you will be clearing dungeons to score resources and complete quests (which is how you earn experience in Queen's Wish). While this is sufficient motivation to entice you to dungeon crawl, the lack of cool loot to find is definitely a letdown. Then there's the fact that dungeons now respawn all their enemies if you leave before the boss is dead. The end result is that if you go into a dungeon and don't manage to beat the boss, you will get a big fat nothing (no XP, no cool loot) and you will have to clear everything again from the beginning. Though dungeons are mercifully on the shorter side, redoing them still isn't fun, and this mechanic massively conflicts with the design choices around abilities and energy. As I mentioned before, there are very few buttons to press in Queen's Wish. You don't need to worry about investing in the wrong skills anymore, because all the "wrong" choices have been taken away from you. This results in skill trees being short and basic, which means you will be pressing the same buttons you learned at level 4-5 for the entire game. Not only are there few skills, the energy to use them is extremely, painfully limited. Using MP wisely is SOP for an RPG, but the game design creates perverse incentives for you to hoard it far more than necessary. Normally the consequences of failing to pace your resources is that you simply have to return to town to heal. You'll have to come back, sure, but you'll come back at a higher level than before, maybe with some new gear. You know your way around now, and you're fairly confident you'll finish it this time. The first run wasn't a waste of time because it prepared you to succeed next time. But in Queen's Wish, you don't get experience from dungeons, you don't get much in the way of loot, and you will have to clear everything from the beginning again. If you have to come back, you will be doing it at exactly the same strength you had when you failed the first time. You don't know what's waiting for you at the end of the dungeon; you just know that you have to clear it in one shot, or you'll get nothing and waste your time. Gaming time is precious and limited for most of us. No one likes to waste their time. So you will generally want to stay at ranged as much as possible, using your basic attacks over and over and over and over and over and over again, to avoid pressing your scant few buttons unless you absolutely have to. That is not compelling gameplay. It is Boring with a capital B, and ending a dungeon with lots of energy you could have used to clear faster if only you'd known it wouldn't be needed is a sucky feeling. Gaming time is precious. You wasted that gaming time by holding onto resources you could have used to make it go faster, because you didn't want to risk wasting more time clearing it again. Starving the player of energy and options to corral them into playing the game the way the creator wants it to be played is only fun for the people who were already playing it that way from the start. I really hope this changes in QW2. Another change I hope to see is with party members. The skill system's flexibility is nice, but I'm hard-pressed to think of a game where your party members felt like mutable, disposable dolls to the degree they are in QW. Everyone is always the same level as the Prince(ss), so a fresh recruit is exactly the same as someone you've had with you the whole time. Everything about them except their nationality, including their combat specialization, is changeable with a few clicks. Their utter lack of identity or personality is something of a letdown after the Avadon series' colorful cast of party members (Mr. grumpypants Alcander, your snark is dearly missed). It doesn't help that you, your team, and most NPCs draw from the same limited portrait options. It would be nice if the player had different options from the NPCs, and each nationality had their own unique options. Maybe in QW2, perhaps. If I could say something directly to Jeff Vogel, it would be this. Once upon a time, the Zelda development team made the very linear Skyward Sword to prevent players from getting lost and frustrated. After that, the development team realized something very important. It's okay if the player gets lost. The real problem was they weren't having any fun. Then they made the critically acclaimed masterpiece known as Breath of the Wild. In that vein, I would like to tell Mr. Vogel that it's okay if people play the game wrong. The real problem is not having any fun. I don't know if he'll ever read these words (but if you are HI JEFF I LOVE YOUR GAMES I'VE BEEN PLAYING THEM SINCE EXILE AND I OWN EVERY SINGLE ONE). Regardless, I'll still be picking up Queen's Wish 2 for sure. The adventures of Princess Amalia will continue!
Review 14
Purchased!
Spiderweb Games is back, baby! MAJOR improvement over the previous series, which I thought was really lackluster and just not fun. So if you loved Avernum but hated Avadon, I would strongly recommend trying out this game. The Good: Really well done on the story, world, characters and dialogue. Decent combat mechanics and questlines. The introduction of base building and resource management is very interesting. I like it, but I think it needs more development as it's a bit primitive at the moment. Hopefully we see more games in this series that will build on that. The Not-So-Good: The XP/Levelling system continues to be "dumbed down" much to the chagrin of oldschool RPG fans, but that's just the way it is these days. The biggest downside though is the serious lack of secrets! One of the best parts of spiderweb games has always been bashing into every wall and clicking on every square to open up hidden pathways and find that extra loot, not to mention positioning your party just right so you can steal that high level gear right under some NPC's nose. Looting in general is much more limited in this game, you can't even pick stuff up off the ground! Overall, this is a definite buy for fans of the genre. I am hooked and will definitely play all the way through to the end! Note: If you've never played a Spiderweb game, just know that if you're the type to skip through dialogue and just hack and slash, you will NOT enjoy this game. These games are for players who enjoy reading as much as playing.
Review 15
Purchased!
Wow, Spiderweb Games has really outdone themselves with Queen's Wish. As a long time fan and owner of every game by Jeff and team I am always interested to see what he puts out next and so far Queen's Wish hasn't let me down. I have just started playing but in my 40 minutes of playtime the game ran super smooth and starts off with a good plot. I like the rebuilding of forts as well. Adds a very nice element to the game. Don't have a lot of time to play yet but I wanted to hurry up and give a huge thumbs up for the game. *Well I had a fairly long update I was typing in regards to my reaching the two hour point but I lost it. So going to just do a quick recap. Two+ hours in and the game is still amazingly fun. It continues to run smooth as silk and I haven't ran into any technical errors. The game has taken the already great ideas Jeff has used in the past and really enhanced them. I love being able to free a mine of bandits and have it directly affect my main base of operations. I love selecting which shops to build and in which order. I have over 50 hours into the latest Fire Emblem game and while Queen's Wish certainly has a different graphics style and isn't quite as strategic based, it in many ways is just as fun, if not more so than an AAA game. Don't let the graphics sway you away from this or any other game by Spiderweb. The store and game play itself far makes up for the simple art assets. The only real complaint I have (and it is very minor) is that sometimes interactive objects are hard to tell apart from background art assets. Sure chest are easy enough to spot, but there are interactive objects like a wheel for a draw bridge that I almost didn't even click on because I thought it was just background ambient art. That said this is a very minor complaint and all in all as of my 2+ hours so far I rate this game as a strong 9.5 out of 10. It is the best Spiderweb game to date, and that is saying a lot as Jeff Vogel knows and pretty well has written the book on fun, deep CRPGs where gameplay and lore trumps all. I am proud to own every game Jeff has released, however either way I can't recommend the game highly enough. As long as you aren't expecting AAA graphics and sounds, you will not be let down. The game runs smooth as silk and without any technical issues. Will update again once I hit the 10 hour mark or so.
Review 16
Purchased!
Well, I am only two hours into Spiderweb Software's new game, "The Queen's Wish: The Conqueror" and I love it. Jeff Vogel took all the best parts from Avernum, Avadon, and the other series, refined them and gave us this new game. The interface, while still keeping in line with what we know from the other games, has been greatly improved. It's easier to manipulate, streamlined, and looks great too. The graphics are still classic Spiderweb style, but they have been improved upon. There is more detail in the portraits, a tad more customization, a solid effort! The sound effects and music are top notch. They fit the world that has been crafted for us and give a good ambience. The combat mechanics are built off of the old games and function relatively the same. However, there have been a minor adjustment or two. I love the new features such as upgrading your forts and bases of operation. That's a really cool feature and a big draw for me! I can see myself investing a lot of time into this game. The storyline, from what I know so far, is a good one. I only have a few scant hours invested into the game so I am very excited to see where it leads. But already there have been some nice moral dilemmas presented to the player. All in all the wait was certainly worth it. I am very glad and excited to finally be able to play. If Jeff Vogel does indeed make this a three part series, I can truly see it rivaling his other big series! Avernum and Avadon may be in trouble, ha! If you like old school RPGs, don't mind reading and a fair amount of brain work, this game is for you. I say to definitely give it a go! EDIT: From the negative reviews I've read, I think people are making a big mistake! There are some legitimate criticisms - I understand those. However, I think too many people were expecting the game to be exactly like Avernum and are approaching it the same exact way, therefore getting very disappointed. I suggest trying to look at it as its own entity, give it another shot, and see if your mind changes. If not - so be it. Happy gaming regardless!
Review 17
Purchased!
AN ARCHAIC ADVENTURE This is not your usual Spiderweb game. Its an old school style RPG game for sure. However, its more of a Kingdom builder. What I really liked about this game is that there in no XP grind. You only get XP from doing quests. There are no respawns and the enemies give you nothing. The quests are basically related to building your empire. For instance, clearing out a mine in order get a steady supply of resources. As far as the story you are a prince or princess sent on a quest to reclaim your kingdom. You get to decide how that is done. There are plenty of critical choices that you must make to get to your own ending. You can become the tyrant, benevolent ruler, or somewhere in between. As I said it’s a kingdom builder, but just when you think you know what’s going on the lore of the game kicks in. You suddenly find yourself in a cataclysm caused by mystical forces. I really enjoyed the story and kingdom building aspects. The combat however is something to be desired. Its dull, repetitive, and there is not even any combat, music. There is also no real interesting NPCs. You have a squad that goes with you and you get to build different characters, but they are lifeless. However, these minor setbacks do not detract from the story and kingdom building aspects of the game. To me this was like Greedfall 1988. A political story that you determine the outcome. Be sure to hang on to your code they give you at the end that will continue your choices for Queens wish 2. As far as the cost, it’s a stretch to make it 20$. Its definitely worth its Steam sale price at 10$ for about 30-40 of gameplay.
Review 18
Purchased!
Queen's Wish is Jeff Vogel's Dragon Age 2. There, I said it. As a Spiderweb fan of two decades, Queen's Wish makes me long for Jeff's 'old style' of CRPG. Although his storytelling and world-building have improved game on game (I especially enjoy the writing in this game), his mechanics have become more and more 'streamlined' and 'gamey'. This, in turn, makes his worlds less immersive, less believable, and less fun to play in. Gone are the vast and eccentric spellbooks of yore, replaced with meager skill trees that do very little for the imagination. Gone are inventory and supply management systems, crunched into tiny backpacks that makes the world feel built just for you. Nearly gone are side-quests and special encounters, almost exclusively serving the game's fort system as a means to gain more resources. Vanishing is any sense that I'm not just playing a computer game. Think back to Balder's Gate and Dragon Age, two genre-defining RPGs. One was vast, unwieldy, often unbalanced, but huge fun. The other trimmed so much fat from the genre that it left itself a skeleton. This game, with its insistence on sending me into tiny dungeons against interchangeable foes for samey rewards, reminds me a lot of that lamentable Dragon Age sequel. There, I said it again. But I didn't want to.
Review 19
Purchased!
If you enjoy Spiderweb games, you'll enjoy this one. If you're new to Vogel's games, from the screenshots you can probably tell if it's for you. Early 90s graphics, solid writing, solid mechanics, and enough content to keep you busy for weeks. The UI is clear and simple, with the hotkeys it doesn't feel too janky and slow.
Review 20
Purchased!
I rarely write reviews, but i played most CRPGs out there since early 90s. This game is though simple, but fun. It is tactical, have removed busywork (selling those iron daggers in avernum), choices do matter, also you can respec. +++ respect. Enjoying this on Veteran.
