Introduction

Evil wizards stole the Elderstone and sundered it, creating a hundred Pebbles of Power. You have entered the wizards’ vast underground lair to recover the Pebbles and save the realm.





Welcome, hero, to PebbleQuest: a 3D action-RPG for your Pebble, the first of its kind ever developed for a smartwatch! Built on the foundation provided by MazeCrawler and SpaceMerc, this full-fledged dungeon crawler combines the random-level replay value and “permanent death” intensity of a classic roguelike with the immersion and real-time combat of a first-person action-RPG. The closest thing we have to playing an Elder Scrolls game on a watch, PebbleQuest is open source and available for free on GitHub and the official Pebble App Store (latest version available only on Pebble Time watches; for classic Pebble watches running Pebble OS 3.7 or lower, an older version is available).

Character Stats

There’s no need to choose a class for your character. Instead, simply choose how your character develops as you go along. All characters start with a value of “1” in three major attributes:

Agility: Speed, nimbleness, and skillful movement. Contributes primarily to physical defense and max. energy.

Speed, nimbleness, and skillful movement. Contributes primarily to physical defense and max. energy. Strength: Brawn and overall vim and vigor. Contributes primarily to physical power and max. health (hit points).

Brawn and overall vim and vigor. Contributes primarily to physical power and max. health (hit points). Intellect: Knowledge and mental fortitude. Contributes primarily to magical power (whether through spells or weapon enchantments), magical defense, and max. energy.

Energy is consumed each time you attack, whether by sword or spell, and is displayed in the lower right corner of the screen. Health, of course, decreases when others attack you and is displayed in the lower-left. Fortunately, both health and energy replenish gradually over time. They’re also fully restored each time you level up, at which point you can also increase one major attribute.

As alluded to earlier, death is permanent in PebbleQuest. When the health meter reaches zero, you must bid your old character farewell and start fresh with a new one. Nonetheless, with a little caution (and luck), an adventurer may enjoy a long career of monster-slaying and loot-gathering, even in the perilous underworld of PebbleQuest!

Weapons & Armor

Starting out, your character has naught but a robe. (Why, you might ask, would any adventurer embark on a dangerous quest so ill-equipped? Well, perhaps you’re a monk, or you’re terribly impoverished, or you just had an unfortunate run-in with a highwayman, or…I don’t know, stop asking questions!) Soon, however, you will come across various items left lying around or dropped by your felled foes. These show up in the game as small rectangles, or “treasure chests.”

Walking onto treasure chests brings up the “Loot Menu,” allowing you to claim items of interest (unclaimed items disappear forever). Only five of the heavier, bulkier items (i.e., everything except Pebbles) may be carried at one time, so if you’ve already reached the limit and then try to pick up another one you’ll be asked which item you wish to drop to make room for the new one. Dropped items disappear forever, so choose carefully! (And, yes, you can still press the “Back” button at that point if you decide you’d rather stick with your current belongings.)

So, which items should your character focus on? For starters, here’s some information on weapons:

Weapon Power Fatigue Special Effect Dagger +3 +1 Wound Sword +6 +2 Wound Axe +9 +3 Wound Staff +3 +1 Stun Mace +6 +2 Stun Flail +9 +3 Stun

As you can see, sharp weapons provide a chance of inflicting wounds (damaging enemies over time) whereas blunt weapons provide a chance of stunning your foes (briefly preventing them from moving or attacking). In addition, although heavier weapons deal more damage per hit, they also cause more fatigue, or energy loss per attack. Lighter weapons—or no weapon at all—may be preferable, especially at the beginning or anytime your character’s completely exhausted.

There is no ranged weaponry in PebbleQuest, but all spells are ranged, giving mages a distinct advantage in long-range combat. Spells are cast by wielding Pebbles of Power, as we’ll see shortly, but first, here are the details for clothing and armor:

Clothing/Armor Defense Fatigue Magical Power Robe +0 +0 -0 Light Armor +3 +1 -1 Heavy Armor +6 +2 -2 Shield +3 +1 -1

Once again, there are pros and cons to the heavier items. A high-level character needn’t worry too much about fatigue, but it can be a fatal hindrance at lower levels. Also, spellcasters may wish to stick with a robe rather than suffering penalties to their arcane power by donning armor.

Speaking of robes, don’t let the table above fool you: a robe doesn’t have to be useless. Like all other items, it can be infused with a Pebble of Power!

Pebbles of Power

Each Pebble of Power holds a tiny fraction of the incredible potency of the Elderstone. There are seven different types: fire, ice, thunder, light, shadow, life, and death.

Pebbles may be equipped, allowing you to cast spells. They can also be permanently infused into clothing, armor, shields, and weapons, imbuing them with magical properties. Just be aware that while enchanted weapons will inflict extra damage (and possibly status effects) on your enemies, they will also drain your energy slightly faster than mundane weapons.

The effects of each Pebble are as follows:

Pebble Spell/Weapon Effect Robe/Armor/Shield Effect Pebble of Fire Flame

(extra damage over time) Strength +1 Pebble of Ice Frost

(slows the enemy) Intellect +1 Pebble of Thunder Lightning

(weakens the enemy) Agility +1 Pebble of Light Holy Light

(chance to make enemies flee) Energy Regen. +1 Pebble of Shadow Darkness

(chance of paralyzation) Phys. Defense +1, Spell Abs. +1

(chance to absorb spells as health and energy) Pebble of Life Life Drain

(absorbs health) Health Regen. +1 Pebble of Death Disintegration

(chance of instant death) Backlash Damage +1

(when physically attacked)

All status effects are cumulative. In other words, (a) equipping both Heavy Armor of Thunder and a Shield of Thunder will result in a total boost of +2 to Agility, (b) a Sword of Fire may cause both “wounding” and “burning” damage over time, and (c) a Mace of Shadow will have two chances to apply a “stun/paralyze” effect (and if both are successful the effect will last longer than it would have by either alone).

Directly wielding a Pebble to cast spells has three advantages: (a) you can attack from a distance, (b) magical effects from spells are twice as potent as those from enchanted weapons, and (c) spells drain less energy than physical attacks. On the other hand, enchanted weapons inflict both magical and physical damage, and donning armor won’t decrease your physical power like it will your magical power. Just remember, even if you play more as a warrior than a wizard you may still want to invest some points in your Intellect attribute so as to better resist spells and more effectively channel your will through the magical enchantment of your favorite weapon.

Enemies

The dungeons of PebbleQuest are populated by power-hungry wizards, ruthless brigands, bloodthirsty goblins, and other nasty sorts. The deeper one delves, the stronger these foes become. Know their strengths and weaknesses well, brave adventurer, for your life depends on it!

Mages are the masters of this realm. Each of the dungeon’s 100 levels is ruled by a single mage wielding one of the coveted Pebbles of Power. They cast spells from a distance and are resistant (though not invulnerable) to spells cast on them. Little is known of their history, but these wizards have demonstrated an unscrupulous lust for power and must be stopped!

Warriors of various sorts and sizes have been hired by the mages as bodyguards. Well armed and armored, they are formidable opponents. Some are of human or elvish ancestry. Others are dwarves, gnomes, or members of other diminutive races. The largest and most fearsome are orcs, hobgoblins, and half-giants. Do not underestimate any of them!

The mages have allied themselves with other denizens of the deep as well: goblins, trolls, and ogres. These monsters look similar, differing only in size, and each come in pale-skinned and dark-skinned varieties. Originally all were dark-skinned, but some gradually lost pigmentation following many generations in the deep recesses of the earth, far from any trace of sun, moon, or stars. (That’s right, Dungeons & Dragons: subterranean races are more likely to be pale-skinned, not the other way around! But I digress.)

For reasons not fully understood, the pale-skinned goblins, trolls, and ogres are also more resistant to magic, whereas those of darker complexion are more resistant to physical attacks. The same correlation holds for the light and dark varieties of one-eyed floating monsters known to haunt these ancient, cavernous depths.

Be ever on your guard, brave champion, and you may prevail!

Actions & Controls

Your character is capable of three actions:

Move forward/backward. Turn left/right. Attack via weapon/spell.

Moving immediately places you one “cell” forward or back and turning abruptly shifts the point of view 90°, just like some of the old (okay, really old) CRPG classics.

Pro tip: You can move and attack much faster than your opponents. Take full advantage of this fact by backing away or escaping down a side tunnel when you need a little time to recover health or energy. Of course, this advice is useless if you’re already backed into a dead end, so avoid that scenario as much as possible!

Without further ado, here’s the button breakdown:

“Up” button: Press/hold to step forward. Press twice to turn left.

Press/hold to step forward. Press twice to turn left. “Select” button: Press to use your current weapon or spell.

Press to use your current weapon or spell. “Down” button: Press/hold to step back. Press twice to turn right.

Feedback

If you’d like to report an issue or have any other feedback, advice, or questions you’d like to share, please leave a comment below, post a comment on PebbleQuest‘s Google+ or Facebook page, or send me an email: david[at]davidcdrake[dot]com. Please also feel free to support my work by sending a contribution to my email address via PayPal.

Hungry for more Pebble games? Check out MazeCrawler and SpaceMerc. Want to create your own Pebble apps? Take a look at the official Develop for Pebble website and feel free to peruse PebbleQuest‘s source code on GitHub.