Puzzle Quest is at heart a clone of the popular puzzle game Bejewelled, but to write it off because of that alone would be missing the fantastic RPG gameplay that is wrapped around the jewel puzzle core. Your character, selected from one of multiple standard fantasy classes, gains experience and treasure for beating opponents on the puzzle battle field. Clearing off matched sets of gems gives you different types of mana which can be used to cast spells, bonus experience points, gold for purchasing new equipment, or a basic attack against your opponent.

The game is scheduled for an upcoming PSP and Nintendo DS release but the demo is available for free for the PC today. I’ve been playing it for a couple of hours and feel like I’ve just barely scratched the surface. (Game previews talk about starting your own kingdoms, gathering a party of adventures, a branching storyline, etc.) Sadly, there’s no way to unlock the demo on the PC today. If there were they’d have my money right now. (I’m not even sure they plan to release a PC version, strangely.)

Because the graphics are simple (but gorgeous) 2D sprites, this demo should run on almost every PC, even the crappy one you’ve got at work. Grab the 38MB demo and sock it away for a slow day at work. Even though your characters will be limited to 7th level (of 50) in the demo, there’s still plenty of gameplay to keep you entertained for hours.

Download: Puzzle Quest Demo [GameDaily]

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