Puzzle Quest was a massive hit as a unique blend between tile-swapping puzzles and classic RPG adventuring. As a result, the game has been released on several platforms, and D3 released another similar game called Galactrix that took the gameplay into space. So it shouldn’t be a surprise to hear about Puzzle Quest 2 coming out soon.

A lot of work went into Puzzle Quest 2 in order to keep the depth of the first game’s story, but also to keep the players on the game board as much as possible. When the developers approached both casual and hardcore gamers about their perceptions of the original game, they found that the two groups saw the title in different ways. Casual gamers see it as a puzzle game with RPG elements, while the hardcore audiences saw the RPG aspect as more prominent. As a result, the developers have done a lot of revamping to help both perspectives.

In order to increase the RPG feel of the game, the birds-eye-view map has been replaced with a top-down view of your avatar as you walk through cities and locations and actually approach characters to talk to them and receive their quests. Along the same lines, the enemies you will fight will appear on the screen as well.

In order to not alienate the casual gamers though, several changes to the gameplay itself have been made. One major change is the lack of currency or experience tiles on the board. Previously, you would collect these items while in a fight in order to buy new items or increase your character’s abilities, but since casual gamers didn’t really care about that, those items are tallied behind the scenes and simply shown to the player after the match is done.

Another element that was added to help both audiences was a more visual equipment screen. Instead of simply listing what armor is where, there is a screen that shows the various items in equipment slots. Not only does this layout make more sense, but it adds to the visual overhaul Puzzle Quest 2 went through.

Look for the new Puzzle Quest 2 game on Nintendo DS by the end of June, and on Xbox Live Arcade not long after that.