A Masterclass assignment in which I co-developed a side quest alongside a classmate! Set in an outlaw world, our protagonist gets themselves into some trouble, and must win a deadly duel with their life on the line!
My Process
For the purposes of the assignment, my classmate and I took specific roles. I took on the role of Quest Designer while my classmate took on the role of Quest Writer!
Getting into a meeting, the two of us started by working out the world and game genre we would design the quest in, and we settled on a Fantasy Wild West with spells and gunslinging, which could make for a thrilling setting for a Shooter.
We then set out to craft a side quest that would tutorialize a hypothetical game mechanic. In this case, I made the suggestion of gun duels, and given the fantasy aspect I also suggested we factor magic into the mix, specifically the use of curses that the player could use to cheat.
Working with that in mind, we developed a set of objectives together, throwing ideas at the wall until something stuck. The result was a list of seven objectives to be completed in order, making sure to keep the amount of objectives low in order to keep the quest’s length at a good pace for the player.
Alongside these objectives, the Quest Writer hooked these objectives together, creating a narrative that explains why the duel is happening and why the player should be interested in doing it and learning how to duel.
We collaborated on quest rewards, wherupon I determined their gameplay elements while the quest writer determined the story consequence of the rewards.