SpaceMerc

Introduction

Humankind is at war with a hostile alien race known as the Fim. As an elite interstellar mercenary, your skills are in high demand. Fame and fortune await as you risk life and limb for humanity’s future!

 

Welcome to SpaceMerc for Pebble: the first FPS game ever developed for a smartwatch! Built on the foundation provided by MazeCrawler, this unique 3D action game is open source and available for free on GitHub and the official Pebble App Store.

Missions

You are well-trained, highly experienced, and in possession of a high-tech armored space suit and a laser rifle powerful enough to blast through solid rock. Until this war is ended, there will be a constant demand for your services. An endless series of procedurally-generated missions await you, each falling into one of five categories:

• Retaliate: When the Fim invade a human city, colony, or other structure in your sector, we’ll send you to take them out. Eliminate all hostiles to receive your reward.
• Obliterate: From time to time we’ll send you deep into Fim territory. Annihilate every enemy at your target location and you’ll be handsomely rewarded.
• Expropriate: Our intel on the Fim is extremely limited, so we’ll often task you with retrieving a data storage device. Locate the device, walk onto it to pick it up, then return it to us.

• Extricate: The Fim have no regard for human life, but they occasionally take one of our officers alive as a trophy. When this happens, we’ll call on you to rescue the poor soul. Locate and pick up the prisoner, then make your escape as quickly as possible.

• Assassinate: Fim officers are our highest-priority targets, but they rarely show their faces. When we pinpoint a location where one is known to reside, we’ll count on you to infiltrate that location and hunt this prized quarry down. They’re easily recognized by the red shirts they wear (or “grey” on black-and-white devices), but difficult to defeat. Approach with caution!

During each mission, you’ll face anywhere from 5 to 20 enemies. The more enemies there are, the more you’re paid for successfully completing the mission. When you’re ready to end a mission, simply exit the way you entered: walk through the door that was behind you at the beginning of the mission.

Upgrades

Between missions, what’s a mercenary to do with all that hard-earned cash? Invest in some upgraded stats, of course!

• Armor: Better armor means you take less damage. Simple, right?
• Max. Health: Cybernetic surgery, chemical supplements, biohacking…there are many ways to boost your overall vitality, making you harder to take down in the field.
• Laser Power: Make a few “special modifications” to your trusty laser rifle and you’ll be blasting through walls and enemies faster than ever!
• Max. Energy: Your laser gun’s energy supply (“ammo”) diminishes with each shot fired and takes a while to recharge, so it’s a good idea to increase your maximum energy supply to ensure you can outlast large groups of opponents.

As each stat increases, so does the cost of upgrading that stat yet again. Also, bear in mind that the Fim are constantly working just as hard as we are to improve their technology, training programs, etc., so don’t expect to reach a point where every battle is a breeze. Finally, please note that character data may be lost if you unload (i.e., uninstall) SpaceMerc from your Pebble.

Enemies

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt.”
—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Fim Soldier: Although these low-level recruits are no match for you one-on-one, they may pose a threat by catching you in a weakened state or overwhelming you with large numbers.

Fim Elite: Specially trained and armed to the teeth, elites are far more deadly than typical Fim soldiers.

Fim Officer: Highly experienced and well armed and armored, Fim officers are not to be mistaken for mere pencil pushers. They’ve proven notoriously difficult to assassinate and are responsible for the deaths of many of our most seasoned soldiers and mercenaries. Neutralize them when the opportunity arises, but treat with extreme caution.

Robot: Thick armor plating makes these machines of war difficult, but not impossible, to destroy.

Beast: These animals are large, strong, and trained to attack humans on sight. Dispatch them quickly or they may overwhelm you!

Mysterious Ooze: The physiology of these strange creatures baffles human scientists. Composed of a mostly heterogeneous “ooze,” these life forms nonetheless exhibit a fairly well-defined (and enormous!) head region dominated by two large eyes. Lacking mouths, they consume their prey by spraying corrosive compounds and digestive enzymes directly on them and then absorbing the remains. Needless to say, you don’t want one of these dissolving through your armor!

Floating Monstrosity: Apparently composed entirely of plasma, it is unknown whether the Fim discovered these bizarre entities or created them. What is known is that they’re highly powerful and difficult to destroy. Avoid whenever possible!

Controls

• “Up” button: Press once to step forward, twice to turn left.
• “Select” button: Fire your laser rifle to demolish walls and kill enemies!
• “Down” button: Press once to step back, twice to turn right.
• “Back” button: Press to return to the main menu, effectively pausing the game. Press again from the main menu to exit the game.

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