Advert: This preview version was gifted by Grumpy Spider Games. Components are subject to change.

It’s time to find out if the pen really is mightier than the sword in the up-and-coming puzzle book meets choose-your-own-adventure, Pencil Book Quest – coming to Kickstarter next week!

👥 1 players
⌛ 5+ minutes 
🧠 14+ years

Gameplay overview:

Pencil Book Quest is a solo, pen-and-paper dungeon-crawling adventure where the player navigates through campaign areas slaying monsters, acquiring potions and finding treasure chests and gold. 

Learning how to play the game is simple. You can only move 4 spaces at a time, in a direction you choose but you can’t change direction unless you hit an obstacle. If you hit a wall or rock you can choose which direction to continue along, but if you hit a monster your movement ends and you have to fight, fight, FIGHT! 

Enemies will also ‘spot’ you if you end your movement in any of the eight spaces around them. And if they do spot you, you guessed it, you have to fight, fight, FIGHT!

In Pencil Book Quest fighting isn’t resolved with dice rolls, but instead through a dexterity challenge. You have to place your pencil point onto a starting line, then lift and move your pencil to hit the monster’s target – but without looking at the paper! The player always defeats the monster, but where and what they hit on the target determines the damage the monster does back. The centre (the bullseye) means you take no damage, the inner ring gives you 1 hp damage and the outer ring gives you 2 hp damage. But that’s just the beginning! The targets also have light zones and dark zones; if you hit a dark zone on a target the monster’s special effect kicks in. This can be good or bad – but mainly bad!

Once you’ve finished exploring an area to your heart’s content, walk on the exit arrow to leave and move on to the next page. You then continue your journey through the many pages of the book, completing quests and side quests, and visiting settlements where you can heal, play minigames, stock up on items and weapons, and select your next quest.

Our thoughts:

With simple rules and mechanics, but puzzly gameplay, Pencil Book Quest delivers a satisfying experience in a small package. On one hand, you’re puzzling out how to navigate the campaign area and gain the most rewards and limit taking damage. Whilst on the other hand, your combat and minigame success rely on more lighthearted dexterity challenges. This unique juxtaposition of thinky puzzling and lighthearted pencil throwing seems like it wouldn’t work, but in reality we felt that it made for a rewarding gaming experience that we both enjoyed playing. 

Between quests you arrive at different settlements, and this is your opportunity to splash the cash that you’ve been collecting – well, if you didn’t lose it all on your way. You can gamble your gold in minigames, hoping you win a better reward. Or spend the gold you’ve earned at the shop or inn to heal up, gain resources or equip weapons for your next quest. Talking about your next quest, at each settlement you’re given a choice of two new quests; which one becomes the next part of your story is your choice. This felt like a really thematic way to progress your character and their adventure, and I really enjoyed playing the little mini-games. 

[Pencil Book Quest’s] unique juxtaposition of thinky puzzling and lighthearted pencil throwing seems like it wouldn’t work, but in reality we felt that it made for a rewarding gaming experience that we both enjoyed playing.

Due to the style of gameplay you can sit down for a quick page (~10 mins) or you can play a whole quest (~10 mins per page). The game easily adapts to the time you have available as you don’t need to complete a whole quest in one sitting as you can easily pause and pick it up again where you left off. 

Another really nice addition in Pencil Book Quest is that most quests have their own special rules  on top of the standard gameplay. These additions often make narrative sense and help solidify the theme in the game, as well as making each quest feel fresh. 

Pencil Book Quest is a great companion to your own real world adventures, its compact size and elimination of dice rolling makes it perfect for train or plane travel where you have limited table space. As a result, Pencil Book Quest might rival alternatives, like game books (e.g. Fighting Fantasy, Lone Wolf) as the best travel companion, because it doesn’t need dice for skill checks. 

Components include the book, the pencil and the bookmark, which are all of a good quality. The book and the bookmark both survived rubbing out pencil marks… and I pressed overly hard with my pencil! 

Pencil Book Quest is a great companion to your own real world adventures, its compact size and elimination of dice rolling makes it perfect for train or plane travel where you have limited table space.

What we like:

• After the initial learning curve the game mechanics are super simple but the gameplay presents a satisfying challenge in puzzling out the movement through the level.

• Pencil Book Quest feels unique by combining a pen and paper dungeon crawl with dexterity challenges (e.g., fighting with pencil targets).

• Creative and thematic new rules for new quests keeps the game fresh and left me wanting to come back for more. 

• The minigames and side quests build the game thematically. I really enjoyed the light hearted minigames, they are very fun.
• Components are all of good quality. The book and the book mark both survived rubbing out pencil marks… and I pressed overly hard with my pencil!

• Easily played whilst travelling, Pencil Book Quest can be the perfect companion to your own adventures, on a train or in a cafe.

What to consider:

• I would have liked a couple of additional ‘tracker’ bookmarks so I didn’t have to erase it quite as often.

• You have to buy into the dexterity element of this game because it’s a very common mechanic throughout the game. I personally found the dexterity element worked very well and was enjoyable.

• Like any puzzle book, once you’ve completed Pencil Book Quest you’re unlikely to work back through it a second time.

Final verdict:

I’ve slowly been exploring game books (gamified choose-your-own-adventures) like Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf, but I’ve recently found it difficult to give them the time they need. But Pencil Book Quest’s pick-up-and-put-down approach has made it easier for me to enjoy adventuring in the bite size nuggets of time I have available.

If you like the sound of Pencil Book Quest, you should check out the tutorial page online which gives a nice taster of how the game plays and works. And you should also check out the Kickstarter here!

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This game was kindly gifted by Grumpy Spider Games. All opinions are ours and our reviews are always honest.