Beginners' Guide

Let me begin this by officially welcoming you to CrazyQuest! As with any new game, CrazyQuest (henceforth referred to as CQ) can be intimidating to get to grips with if certain elements are new to you. So where do we begin? It's a warm, summer evening, circa 600 BC...

=The Build Up=

Downloading
In case you haven't already downloaded the app, you can do so here.

Configuring
There's actually one thing that's recommended for all players to do before they even start playing, and that's to tweak your game settings. To do this, you want to go to Settings app on your iDevice of choice, scroll to the bottom of it and find the listing for Crazy Quest.

Music
The term used her is slightly misleading. This is in fact the CrazyQuest Radio. By turning this on, you will be treated to an ever-growing selection of music and clips from the Round Table. As this is all streamed, you may want to leave it off if your data plan is tight. On wifi though, entirely your call. You might need to force-close and re-open the app to make this setting work if you have already run it once.

Sound Effects
This one is as it sounds. Adds sound effects to the various spells and actions in game. If you're using an older, slower device (like the 3GS, sadly), you might find this settings to cause a bit of combat slowdown. You might need to force-close and re-open the app to make this setting work if you have already run it once.

Fast Movement
On on on. This will make moving around the map so much faster, and even the creator advises that this is turned on by everyone.

Show Logins
As you'd expect, it shows whenever people log in. Each time you log in yourself, you will see the popup for everyone else due to the way in which the system monitors who is online. Note that as of build 3.0, you are considered as logging out of chat any time you open the background apps pane (double-tapping the home button), dragging down the notification bar, closing the app or just losing temporary server connection, meaning this can be spammy if you multi-task whilst playing.

Show Logouts
Also as expected, shows you any time someone leaves the game. Unless you enjoy lots of notification bars at the top or want to be aware at all times of who is available in chat, you might want to leave this disabled. Note that as of build 3.0, you are considered as logging out of chat any time you open the background apps pane (double-tapping the home button), dragging down the notification bar, closing the app or just losing temporary server connection, meaning this can be spammy if others are multi-tasking whilst playing.

Creating Your Account
Now that everything is set up as you'd like, it's time to create your account! This is so delightfully simple compared to some games, that it almost didn't need a section. Enter your desired username, enter a password (there is no password confirmation, so be careful that you enter it as desired) and that's it! You're in the game, ready to go. No need for e-mails, confirmations or trying to find appearance settings that don't make you look like some kind of deformed demon-spawn.

=Let's Play!=

Interface
So the first thing you're going to be seeing is the interface. I would highly recommend taking this chance to familiarise yourself with it before moving on, so that you can know what you're dealing with.

Profile


You can click almost anything on this screen to view a window with some information on what everything is. A great way to keep yourself refreshed on what those pesky stats have to offer you.

So, first things first is the Info button up at the top left. In here you can find the details for e-mailing the Admin should you need, as well as a reminder of the address for both the main site and here. Besides this we have your username and the logout button. The only time you actually need the login button is if you have more than one character you wish to swap between.

The first main pane for this page is your level (starting at 1, no current cap), your Health Points (when you reach 0, you die), Mana Points (used to cast spells), experience (displayed as a percentage of how far you have progressed from your current to next) and armor (your damage reduction, the number of which is present inside the shield).

The second pane has your skill xp (used when training your skills and spells), your money (in the format of gold, silver and then copper) and weight (The first number being your currently carried weight, the second being your current carrying capacity).

The third pane has your stats, in the order of strength (additional melee damage, carrying capacity), stamina (determines your maximum health and regeneration rate outside of combat), dexterity (provides bonus armor, attack speed and chance to flee in combat). You will see that these currently all have a big green circle with a + symbol in them, as well as the text below of "3 points to spend". You start the game with 3 points to spend as you please, and gain an additional 1 every time you level. You can find out more about what these do here.

Finally, you have the Inventory, Equipment, Skills and Quests buttons, all of which are incredibly important in your journey. Clicking on one will bring up the relevant windows.

Inventory


Your inventory will be empty to begin with, but for purposes of demonstration I have opted to use one from a few minutes into the game.

The top left button will take you back to your profile.

The top right button will alternate between the Drop option, allowing you to throw some items into the void should you need the space, and Sell when in the vicinity of a vendor, allowing you to then pick which items you want to sell and become rich off of.

Items are split into three categories;

Items will fill up with consumables and items whose sole purpose is to be sold. Items in this category will display in the following way; Weapons will contain all the weapons you are carrying but not currently using in the following manner; For the purposes of comparing weapon damage, the minimum damage is always the first number, and maximum is always the result of multiplying both numbers. To calculate the average damage, add the minimum and maximum together, then halve it.

Armour displays your collected but unused pieces of armour, for any of the available slots; Far simpler to compare items, just look at the stats and what you prefer, as well as the armor it provides. If you're concerned with how much armor it adds or removes, be sure to factor in any dexterity modifiers (4 armour per dexterity)

Equipment


The equipment screen allows you to see everything you have equipped. Clicking on any item slot will show you the stats of any item currently equipped and allow you to remove it without replacement if you wish. Should the slot be empty, you can click it to see everything you are carrying for that slot.

The item slots are as followed, from top to bottom, left to right;

Head, Back, Body, Hands, Offhand, Onhand, Right Finger, Left Finger, Feet.

Skills


The Skills window will show you the current level of each skill you have trained in. As you can see here, we have been given some basic points at creation to help get us started.

You can see the levels of skills here.

Quests


This window will show you your currently embarked upon quests. You can click on each one to see the full details of it.

Map


The map tab is pretty self explanatory; It shows you the area around you.

At the top we have the name of the area.

Our top left pane should feel similar to the Profile equivalent, letting you see at all times you current HP, MP and XP.

To the right of that is a very useful pane. When you're in the same place as an NPC (Non-Player Character. Anything that isn't played by a person), it'll show their image and name. You can click on their name here to automatically swap to the Room tab. When not in the same room as an NPC, you will be able to see a little image of your currently active spells and effects. When moving, this will also present you the text Attempting to move... to signify the movement has begun and, in the case of longer journeys, Skip movement, which you can press to skip the walking process should you wish to speed matters up. This will not allow you to bypass enemies however should they be in the way.

Just under this is a useful but situational little pane. This will always show you the current objective of one of your quests (I believe it will be your last updated quest, but I could be wrong). In the end of the game when you're no longer questing, this will just display "None", but prior to that it helps to remind you where to be heading.

The main window! Here's where some magic happens. You will generally be in the center of the screen, and the map will zoom in and out based upon the size of the area. The little white circles are the locations you can move to by pressing on them. In some areas, you'll only be able to select those directly adjacent to you. More open areas however will allow you to click anywhere you like, be it to a fight, friendly NPC or to an area marked with the 3 green arrows, indicating this circle will load you into a new area.

Note that you will not be able to see where enemies are ahead of time, though their locations always remain the same. Upon entering a circle with an aggressive NPC you will be engaged in combat. You will often be able to see interactable NPCs close to their circle.

Room


The room tab allows us to see a description of the current location, good offered by vendors, skills you can learn from a trainer or even contain links you must click to access certain items or areas.

Those coming from a MUDing background will find this main window to be a very familiar concept, only rather than typing in every possible command known to man, you can just click the relevant details. It will display in text a description of where you are, serving as flavour for those who wish to immerse themselves further into the game.

The blank area area between the text and buttons will display the name and icon of any NPCs in the room with you, as well as display text over them to signify when they have a quest to be completed or started.

Having the examine button selected means that you will look at whatever NPC you click on and see some details about them. The Attack button will result in you entering into combat with the NPC if this is allowed. Lastly you have interact, which will generally be your most used option here, used to turn in and pick up new quests.

Chat


The chat tab allows you to interact with the community as desired. For those who enjoy the social touch, helping others or asking questions when stuck, this will become one of your most oft-used windows. When there are unread messages in this window, it will display a little red icon on it to alert you to it.

For those using the CQ Radio feature, the top left will display the button Next Track, which allows you to skip the current music, advertisement or chat show segment as desired.

Up at the right we have the Online button, the numbers in parenthesis allowing you to see at all times how many people are currently actively logged into the game. You can click on this to see the full list of people, their levels in parenthesis and ordered from highest to lowest. It is also possible to then click on their name to see their stats and equipment. Extremely useful for getting an idea of what others are doing with their characters, or what items they're finding.

The main chat window itself is fairly simple. Names are displayed in colour (red for those under 30 or who chose not to change it), and in some cases will also have an icon at the start of it to signify a player over 50. This helps with differentiating between longer term players at a glance, as well as incentivising players themselves.

Clicking on the white Send a message box will bring up the keyboard to facilitate sending your own message, confirming it with the send button. The Return button on the keyboard currently serves no purpose, but this may be changed in the future to be a setting for those that prefer it.

By starting a message with the : symbol, your text will be displayed as a custom emote. Smiley faces with no subsequent text will be converted into emotes as well. Faces followed by a text will result in the : being removed from the smiley, and the text shown as a custom emote.