"Tasks are simple, but open-ended," he explains. The Witcher 3's lead quest designer Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz thinks that Fallout 2 has particularly good quest designs. TAKEAWAY: Even the most ordinary, uneventful, routine quests can be memorable and affecting you just have to make the effort to design them so.įallout 2's open-ended quest and skill systems It also subtly informs both the lore of the area and the story at large, and both its goal (find a crappy old frying pan) and its rewards (baked apples and apple juice) reflect the nature of the town and its inhabitants, which is exactly what Avellone says a good side quest should do. But it's presented with such respect, empathy, and sincerity that you can't help but feel warmed to Geralt - the big, tough witcher who holds the simple folk of the world in the highest regard. Such a mundane, menial task could easily be seen as beneath a great and respected hero like Geralt. Take one of the very earliest side quests as an example: in A Frying Pan, Spick and Span, the player is tasked with finding an old woman's soot-covered frying pan, which she'd been lent to a stranger who seemingly then nicked off with it (turns out it's just inside the house she's standing outside of, and the man had had more important things to worry about than returning the pan after using the soot to make ink for writing letters). This was a conscious decision by developer CD Projekt, which wanted every quest - even the little ones about fetching or delivering something for somebody - to be memorable. There were always twists, trying to throw off expectations." I expected to skip through some boring dialog and do some simple fetch quests but each one kept drawing me in and kept my interest. "Their side quests are more involved from both a gameplay and story perspective than most games' main quests. "The best side quests in the business are in The Witcher 3," says Deep Silver Volition senior designer Brad Johnson, who did mission design on the past three Saints Row games. The Witcher 3 - a masterclass in side quest design This includes having the same range of reactivity, choices, and consequences as a normal quest in the main plot, although the scope of the reactivity, etc. Side quests should use the core gameplay mechanics and avoid special case new functionality (or be careful with it).Side quests should be quick and fun to complete (15 min is the range I shoot for).A bad side quest is a quest that upstages the main quest in terms of stakes, enemies, or even the lore.A good side quest informs the main plot or the area it’s located in in all respects - lore, NPCs, even through the rewards you get.Their responses are summarized below, but first, courtesy of former Black Isle writer, designer, and Obsidian creative director Chris Avellone, here are four general guidelines to evaluate everything against: To that end, we reached out to several game writers and designers for their thoughts and recommendations on great side quests - or games with generally-strong side quests - that every developer should study. Side quests can make or break your game - good ones draw players further into your world bad ones may sour players on the entire experience. Death has come for you.Designing side quests? Study these 7 games (and some Chris Avellone pointers) He looks directly at the camera and speaks.įeany Five. The Silver Shroud stands next to the table, machinegun smoking. In the flashes, the different gangsters can be seen falling over, almost as if it's stop motion. He appeared, as if by nowhere, and has sprayed the room with bullets. Suddenly, the room is illuminated only by the fire from the barrel of a machinegun. But they recognize the voice as being from the Silver Shroud. This is clearly a high-stakes backroom card game.īald Beatty pushes all of his chips into the middle of the table, making the pile even larger.Įveryone at the table looks around in a panic. A pile of chips sits in the middle of the table. Three men and two women - all gangsters - sit quietly, contemplating their cards. Cars, people, etc.Ī ceiling fan spins over a small card table. Pan down to street level - the hustle and bustle of Boston at night. The Mass Fusion building and Trinity Tower are clearly visible. Newly shot footage of the Boston skyline at night. TITLE CARD "ADVENTURES OF THE SILVER SHROUD"
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