Quest Design - Test Quest

Summary

A discoverable side quest in an open world action game where the players plays as a free-wheeling mercenary in a science fiction setting. The side quest covers rescuing a group of war correspondents whose transport was shot down.

Design Objectives

  • Small self-contained story with an introduction, midway twist, and variety of outcomes.

    • Tie into the rest of the world in a non-dependent way that makes everything feel bigger

  • Multiple kinds of gameplay in one quest

  • Multiple solutions to as many challenges as possible

The Game

This hypothetical game has several design constraints that have to be considered while designing content for it.

  • Open World: The game is an open world game with a large map. After the ‘discovery’ sequence, the player could come to this mission at any time. Outside of the main quest, side quest missions can be completed in any order.

    • The player will often be able to enter the area of side quests from multiple avenues of approach. Quests cannot depend on the player coming only from one particular angle.

    • This also means that the player can ‘abandon’ a side quest at any time by walking away, at any time. They’ll fail the mission, but it still needs to be possible.

  • First Person View: The game is mainly played in first person. The game can never seize control of the player’s camera. Encounters must be designed with the player’s limited peripheral vision in mind. Everything must be designed with the possibility that the player is turned in ‘the wrong direction’ at the time.

  • Silent Protagonist: The player character doesn’t speak. While they can interact with other characters, listen to the radio and issue orders, nothing can depend on them ‘saying something’.

  • Day/Night Cycle: The game has an active day/night cycle, and all missions must be able to work in both day and night. Visibility may change due to day/night or even due to weather.

Characters

The NPC characters that appear in this mission.

Character: Janet Kelter

An independent journalist covering the war, Janet is a middle aged black woman with medium length hair tied back in a pony tail. Her clothes are utilitarian but clearly civilian. She’s wearing a light blue armored jacket that says ‘Press’ on the back of it in white letters, and wears a shoulder bag full of equipment. Her blue flak helmet has a small camera mounted on it.

Determined, principled, and independent. Lightly armored and completely unarmed.

Locations

The major locations that appear in this quest, all of these locations are part of the open world map. The general environment of the world is a mountainous forest similar to the American Pacific Northwest.

Location: The Crash Site

  • The site where Janet’s press transport has crash landed after being shot down. Several parts have broken off of the burning wreckage, and parts of the vehicle are still on fire, sending a pillar of black smoke high into the sky. The crash landing has gouged a long furrow in the ground, and destroyed several trees.

  • This location must be combat metric compliant.

  • It is impossible for the player to reach this location without triggering the ‘Discovery’ section of the side quest, detailed later in this document.

The Crash Site Layout

Enemies

Types of NPC enemies that appear in this quest. These are all standard game enemies, none of them are custom for this mission.

Beasts

Basic low level, non-human enemies. Beasts are local wildlife that’s been mutated by the chemical and radioactive contamination brought on by the war.

  • Scavenger Beasts: Low difficulty, pack hunting mutants the size of wolves. Close combat focused with no armor.

Revanchist Army

The main enemies of the game, the Revanchists are a human, authoritarian army with advanced equipment. The descendants of a far-reaching but fallen empire, they consider all independent territory to be theirs by right as they ‘restore themselves to glory’.

  • Revanchist Raider: Light infantry armed with a carbine and a jump pack that lets them hop to advantageous positions. Focuses on flanking the player.

    • Special Ability (Fire grenades) : Grenades that leave behind a persistent flame effect. Used to flush the player out of cover, forcing them to reposition.

  • Revanchist Officer: Medium infantry armed with a pistol and close combat baton. Acts as a force multiplier for their fellow soldiers.

    • Special Ability (Support Shield): Grants up to three allies a shield that will negate damage from any five attacks before it disappears. Best defeated with low damage rapid fire weapons.

  • Revanchist Gun Drone: Heavy floating gun drone armed with a pair of rapid firing cannons with a light AoE. Heavily armored but has a weak spot on the back. Vulnerable to EMP grenades.

    • Special Ability (Barrage): The drone locks into place and charges up for a few seconds before unleashing a barrage of cannon attacks on a specific location. This gives the player some time to evacuate the area. Canny players can use this pause to get an angle on the drone’s weak spot.

The Quest

Discovery

While exploring the open world, the player will be able to spot the quest through a variety of ways. This part doesn’t initiate the quest, but acts as a lure, which draws the player in more organically than a simple nav marker. It also helps the world feel more alive.

Part 1: Transport Entrance

When the player gets within a reasonable distance of the quest, the transport entrance plays. This includes the following components:

  • Transport Entrance Animation: When the player gets within a certain distance of the quest the transport appears, flying far overhead.

    • Upon entry the transport’s initial flight path will include a long banking turn in order to maximize visibility depending on where the player is looking.

    • Light from the transport’s engines and active running lights will help draw the eye, even at night.

  • Radio Alert: The player gets an alert for a new radio transmission. If they choose to tune in, they’ll hear navigation chatter from the NPC Janet Kelter, requesting clearance to land at their intended port. She clearly states that they’re a transport filled with members of the press and other non-combatants.

  • Transport Shot Down Animation:‍ ‍A bright red beam of laser light from a military anti-air battery suddenly shoots up from the ground, destroying one of the transport’s engines, sending it spiraling to the ground out of the player’s direct line of sight.

    • The red laser will appear as a sudden pillar of light, far more visually noticeable than a cannon or missile.

    • Audio and screen shake will be helpful here, as appropriate.

    • If the player is tuned to the transport’s radio, they’ll hear Janet panicking as the transport goes down. It’ll be abruptly cut short at the time of the crash.

Part 2: Crash Site Markers

When the transport has finished crashing, the following will draw the player to the crash site.

  • Smoke from the Crash Site: Black smoke will rise from the crash site, high into the sky visible above mountains and tree tops. It should be very easy for the player to spot and orient themselves by.

  • Distress Radio Chatter: When the player gets within a certain distance of the side quest site, they’ll hear an intermittent distress call on their radio, requesting immediate help for a shot down press transport.

  • Side Quest Nav Marker: Finally, as the player gets even closer to the side quest, a traditional side quest nav marker appears.

    • Playtesting may reveal that some players need the nav marker to further out, but we should err on the side of less reliance on nav markers when possible. When all else fails, use the standards set out by the other side quests.

Part 1 - Scavenger Attack

The quest will initiate when the player arrives at the Crash Site. Janet Kelter and several survivors are on top of the ruins of the transport while a pack of scavenger beasts patrol the Crash Site and otherwise menace them. One of the scavenger beasts is eating a dead body.

  • New Objective Added: TestQuest01

    • “Rescue the crash landing survivors from the scavenger beasts.”

    • Nav marker placed on the area where Janet Kelter and the other survivors are sheltering.

Combat Solution - Fight the Scavenger Beasts

A short, direct combat encounter with the Scavenger Beasts.

  • Killing more than half of the scavenger beasts in the pack will make them flee to despawn somewhere out of sight.

  • Objective Completed: TestQuest01

    • Move on to Part 2

Stealth Solution - Scare Off The Scavenger Beasts

A short stealth sequence focused on using the environment to drive off the scavenger beasts.

  • The player can easily sneak up closer to Janet Kelter and the other survivors, as most of the scavenger beasts are busy menacing them. Only a few beasts from the pack are patrolling the area.

  • Once they’re close enough, Janet will call out the player that it might be possible to scare the scavenger beasts off by turning on the engine.

    • New Objective Added: TestQuest01a

      • “(Optional) Restart the engine to scare off the scavenger beasts”

      • Nav marker placed on the engine

      • Entering combat with the scavenger beasts will cause this optional objective to fail.

  • If the player successfully sneaks over to the engine and performs the repair action on it, the engine will start up with a loud roar and scare off the startled Scavenger Beasts.

  • Objectives Completed: TestQuest01 and TestQuest01a

    • Move on to Part 2

Special Solution - Pheromone Grenades

A rare but satisfying solution that allows the player to use items from a previous side quest to quickly and peacefully accomplish the objective.

  • If the player has already completed the side quest ‘Beast Research’, they’ll have the pheromone grenades item that temporarily turns beast NPCs into allies.

  • If the player hits the scavenger beasts with the pheromone grenade item, they’ll be able to order the scavenger beasts to leave using the existing UI for giving orders to allies.

  • Objective Completed: TestQuest01

    • Move on to Part 2

Part 2 - Get The Call Out Medical Help

  • Intro to all the characters, what the hell, those bastards shot down a press transport?!?! Key info:

    • The Revanchist Army shot down a press transport full of non-combatants, which is very illegal

    • We must have gotten a visual on something they didn’t want us to see… or want anyone else to see.

    • Scavenger beasts were probably drawn to the crash site by the smell of corpses.”

    • New Objective Added: TestQuest02a

      • “(Optional) Help the wounded survivors.”

      • Nav markers placed on each of the survivors

    • Several of these people are very dead.

  • Performing the optional objective gives a clue hinting to the twist

Part 3 - Evacuation

  • Calling in a ground transport to take them away, but it can’t reach them here. Got to get everyone evacuated.

  • Oh no, bad guys coming to finish the job!

  • Stealth or outright violence.

  • If stealth, blowing them up at the end with rigging the transport to blow. Fuck these guys!

Part 4 - Twist and Choice

  • Some kind of revelation that reframes how you see the situation in front of you.

    • Something wasn’t how it seems.

Resolution

  • This opens up a different quest elsewhere on the map with the reporter where you can see what her crew got shot down looking at.

Art Assets

A list of some of the custom art assets this quest will require.

  • Vehicle - Press Transport (Flying): A civilian flying transport craft. It’s painted in light blue with the words ‘PRESS’ stenciled visibly on the outside in white letters. It has no weapons. It’s engines give off a visible glow and it has running lights due to be a non-combat craft.

    • If we can’t get a new model it could be a reskin of an existing enemy or player transport painted in more innocuous colors with all of the weapons removed.

  • Environment Art - Press Transport (Wreckage): A wrecked version of the press transport in multiple pieces so they can be spread around the mission area.