Gemstone Warrior

There are three difficulty levels, determining various factors such as the rate at which magic items change their effects and the rate at which more dangerous monsters start appearing.

The game is viewed in a 2D screen displaying the playing area, health, and inventory. The player controls an armored figure that wields a crossbow with a limited supply of bolts that can be replenished by finding more within the dungeon areas. Special "fireballs" can also be launched against foes, although these are limited and are not as common. There are also magical tools and other items that can be collected to provide a variety of benefits such as goblets that can restore health to crystal balls that can annihilate everything on the screen.

The dungeons are filled with a variety of dangers and secret doors. Many brutal monsters fill the caverns ranging from skeletal warriors, exploding gas plants, to nearly invulnerable demons. The player is also able to search the corpses of monsters that remain behind, chests, and coffins for supplies. Monsters do not always respawn in zones, leaving behind only their corpse as a reminder that the player had been there, although some do return to life, such as the skeletons and ghosts.

The goal is to traverse the maze to locate the Labyrinth, find the five pieces of Gemstone within its randomly generated layout, and return to the entrance cavern to escape.

The title screen in the Atari 8-bit and Commodore C64 versions uses a variation of J.S. Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, Prelude 6 in D Minor BWV 851.

• Gemstone Warrior at MobyGames
• Images of Gemstone Warrior package, manual, and screen shots
• Peter.Lount.com (at the Wayback Machine @ Archive.org, version from 2015)
• Audio interview with Peter Lount
• From the pages of the past, games of yesteryear – Gemstone Warrior