Queen's Wish 2: Whither Do I Wander?

I have completed my first fun full day of Queen's Wish. I confess that I'm still trying to figure out some of the basic gameplay stuff, such as how to cancel an action, but I have found out that indeed, you really can only acquire items from containers that you find. These mostly occur around enemies that you slay, so it's basically the same thing as looting the bodies in other RPGs. But it means that I will miss out on one of my favorite activities: searching all around for goodies to loot. Maybe Jeff just got tired of hiding stuff.

But: where to go? At first, of course, you encounter fairly easy combat, but there's a fairly large area in which to roam, and it's really just up to whim where I go. Most of these early enemies are pretty easy, but I have encountered two that I can't yet manage. 

What happens when you get killed (sort of)

I've cleared out a couple of mines and a couple of mansions. So far I'm playing the loyal, merciful princess. You can choose to be a brat, but that just isn't me, is it?

A monster in a mansion

However, I have, with a bit of difficulty, figured out how to build the shops that we need in our forts. These give you bonuses and are in themselves useful. You can get the smithy to attach helpful runes to armor and weapons, rather as in Avadon. You can buy weapons, and here's a major difference from other RPGs: you really do have to buy all your weapons and armor, apparently. You don't take it off the enemies you slaughter. I have found a few things in containers, however. 

I now have a smithy, an apothecary, a barracks (this gives us some kind of bonus in fighting) a weaver, a mill and a distillery, which will make me money. Eventually, as I move out into new lands I'll establish this stuff in the forts there too.

One of my shops

I have achieved level four! The skills trees in this game are really much easier to manage than in the Avadon and later Avernum games, so I appreciate that. I rather miss having both a healer and a sorcerer, but I gather that I might be able to make one of my characters into a healer. Must try that!

Anyway, it's a real Spiderweb game, and has some humor which is always appreciated. I think I've pretty much cleared out the beginning area except for those two enemies (might try those again now) and I'm ready to branch out into one of the three areas that I'm supposed to re-conquer. 

So! Onward!

Next Entry.