The Witcher 3 – RED KIT

1) Medic in distress – Witcher 1 Quest Remake

Overview:

When CDPR announced the Witcher 3 REDkit, I knew that this is what I want to use for building a small portfolio to transfer into Quest Design.
The Witcher 3 is one of my favorite games of all time after all. But instead of aimlessly playing around with the engine, I decided to attempt a remake of an existing quest in the Witcher universe. Having a tangible goal motivates me more and I knew that I would run into obstacles that urge me to learn and adapt to overcome them. The main purpose for creating this quest was familiarize myself with the REDkit and to demonstrate that I can quickly adapt to new toolsets and create new content. I chose the ‘Medic in distress’ quest from the Witcher 1, because it has the right amount of complexity to act as a starting point and still goes beyond the scope of a boring fetch quest.

Plot synopsis:

A frustrated nurse asks Geralt to look into her grandmother’s recent hostile behavior. Geralt visit’s the old woman’s home but is met with aggression and no way inside during the day, so he returns at night to investigate. Searching the house, he finds his way down into the basement where he discovers a Fleder creature that has been influencing the mind of the grandmother. He kills the creature but wakes the old woman in the process who furiously accuses him of murdering her son. Geralt tries to reason with her but gets kicked out of the house. The next day he reports back to the nurse, who thanks him for his services and confirms that her grandmother is back to her usual self.

Playthrough video:

Quest design:

The first step was to analyze the flow of the quest and break it down into its components, both from a perspective of gameplay as well as dialogue.

After the breakdown I had enough details to jump into REDkit and get my hands dirty.
I laid out the tasks ahead of me as follows:

• Scripting the quest mission and objective logic for the linear and branching parts
• Setting up the interactive dialogue scenes with camera cuts, animations, VO, lip-sync
• Conditional scripting for the day and night phases via the Time-Of-Day system
• Building a small custom world to support the design and narrative 
• Setting up new entity templates for the NPC characters and enemies
• Spawning of the NPCs and enemies
• Creating and controlling a daily routine for the NPCs
• Hooking logic into events to further trigger progression(e.g. when enemy killed)
• Setting up and triggering journal entries
• Setting up and triggering minimap markers
• Getting it all together into a cohesive 5-minute gameplay experience

A few work in progress shots:

Getting started:

Dialogue scene editor:

Quest graph:

Nearly finished:

In-game shot:

Closing thoughts:

While evaluating the quest I realized that there is a lot of room for improvement. My job as a Quest Designer would also entail to spot when a design falls and attempt to make the necessary adjustments early, before the whole team goes into full production.

A bit of feedback and improvement suggestions:

• The writing is mediocre by modern standards. It lacks any emotional impact and feels quite unnatural to me. The nurse should come across a lot more desperate after seemingly having tried already everything that she can.
• The grandmother’s character feels quite flat. She just comes across confused and I believe the developers missed an opportunity to really show what kind of impact the creature has on her. The creature could have manipulated her into doings things for its own benefit, such as luring in victims for nutrition. It could also make the grandmother say things that would be rather uncommon for an old lady, further hinting at a malicious presence in her head. Using the Axii sign to no effect could help Geralt realizing that something is off.
• The quest does not explore the question whether the Fleder really might have been her son once. It could have introduced an interesting dilemma that forces Geralt to decide between finding a way to bring the son back or having to kill it after all.
• The original is hinting at the wine consumption of the grandma. She could be an alcoholic and that could create some interesting gameplay mechanics that involve drinking or traversal challenges in order to getting access to the basement. For example the basement could be locked with a key, so Geralt has to sneak a path through some bottles and steal the key from the Grandma without waking her up. Or the Grandma does not go to bed sober and Geralt has to invite her to the inn to get drunk with him so that he can bring her home and then cease the opportunity.

2) The Caravan – A custom made quest

Overview:

After getting some experience with the Witcher 3 REDkit I wanted to challenge myself to create a custom quest from scratch. Something that does not take place in the Witcher universe with a narrative written entirely by myself, completely detached from the world of Geralt. On a technical level I also wanted to go beyond what I achieved with the Medic in Distress quest and explore new features and concepts from the REDkit as well as going even deeper into a branching quest structure with multiple endings. So I sat down and put on my writer hat.

Plot synopsis:

Kristian is summoned by his stepfather, who tells of a letter from Lord Vinter of Vitfäld. The letter mentions a merchant caravan attack but Lord Vinter can spare no resources to investigate. The stepfather sends Kristian to the site, who quickly finds evidence of the attack and picks up a trail to a nearby survivor camp. The guard captain on site retells the ambush and describes the survivor’s worsening condition of illness and reports of nearby monsters. Kristian is unable to find proof of poisoning or unusual creatures. When questioned how Kristian knew about the ambush, the captain is visibly confused, stating that they never sent a call for help.

Kristian decides to travel to Vitfäld, eager to learn more. Lord Vinter denies knowledge of the letter and suspects a plot is in play. In conversation he reveals a magical artifact he ordered from the far east, with properties so powerful it is capable of manifesting one’s worst fears. Suspecting that the merchant caravan was delivering the item, he implores Kristian to retrieve the artifact as he intends to turn the tides of war with it. Kristian hurries back to warn the camp, where he is interrupted by looting bandits at the site of the attack. After disposing of them and catching up with the captain, he learns of a female prisoner who witnessed some bandits scuffle over a suspicious chest. The woman explains in more detail about the bandits seeking shelter with her family, but they were chased away, injuring her brother in the process. One of the bandits, wounded by the scuffle and disguised as a merchant, returned to the camp to recover.

The woman points Kristian to a potential hideout at the chapel, where he soon finds the remnants of the artifact’s power. Before he can take the artifact of the bandit’s corpses, he is confronted by the disguised bandit, who reveals Kristian’s stepfather’s involvement in the plot. The bandit, now aware of the artifact’s true power, is not willing to let Kristian return with it and fights him to the death. Kristian faces a difficult decision now: Return the artifact to Lord Vinter or confront his stepfather about his role in the conspiracy.

Playthrough video:

Quest design

The quest is divided into six distinct parts.

Part 1 – Intro

The first part serves as the introduction to the quest. It is designed to provide players with just enough information about the narrative background, some of the key characters as well as the protagonist, Kristian. I chose to keep this part linear so that players can ease into the experience and soak in the atmosphere. Furthermore I wanted to provide an opportunity for the players to familiarize themselves with some of the game mechanics needed later for the quest, such as opening containers, retrieving quest items, and mounting the horse. The only options the players have in this section therefore are grabbing the equipment, mount the horse and ride out.

Part 2 – Ambush Site

The second part starts to break a little with the linearity, but converges towards a single outcome at the end. The players arrive at the aftermath of the attack and discover evidence of its legitimacy. There are multiple objects for the players to interact with in any order and the protagonist narrates each of them individually. When all clues have been found, the quest points towards following the footsteps and discovering what’s at the end of them. I did not want to require the players to tick all boxes before the quest continues, therefore I designed this part to be mostly optional and implemented fail-saves so that if they choose to follow the tracks immediately, the quest progresses as well.

Part 3 – Survivor Camp

The survivor camp the most non-linear section of the quest. I wanted to provide the players with several investigation elements that they can tackle in any order. After being briefed by the guard captain, the players are tasked with finding out what’s exactly going on in the camp. The two main paths for the players to take are the conversation with the paranoid woman, who suspects the food being poisoned and a schizophrenic man, who is terrified by alleged monsters nearby. The players can freely choose which one to tackle first, and they are also designed in a way so that you can switch to a different objective during an ongoing investigation or run them in parallel.

The main intent was to provide two different gameplay experiences for the players, where one branch leads to the discovery of suspicious items, interesting conversations with the alchemist and an optional interrogation with the cook. The other branch emphasizes tracking animals that result in combat. There are two fully optional dialogues, one being a foreshadowing of the traitor bandit in disguise, and the aforementioned one with the cook that unlocks as soon as you have found the suspicious activity around the food sources.

Part 4 – Journey to Vitfäld

After concluding the camp investigation, the players are funneled back into a linear section of the quest. The guard captain reveals a shocking twist, with the intent to make the players question their received mission and eager to find out more immediately. The players are free to explore the camp further, but with no interactions left, they are urged to ride north where they are greeted by the gate guards through mandatory dialogue.

After stating their business, the players are let through in order to approach Lord Vinter for conversation. Lord Vinter reveals more devastating news, as all the troubles at camp are potentially caused by a magical artifact he had delivered to him through the merchant caravan. He gives the players a new mission, who are also determined to head back to camp immediately to warn the survivors.

Just before arriving at camp, the players are interrupted by straggling bandits, who seized the opportunity to loot the remnants of the attack site and are not willing to share whatever they may find. Here I wanted to provide another opportunity for combat as well as an interruption and obstacle for the narrative to proceed at the worst possible timing, as everything just seems to have gotten an explanation, when the players have to resort back to meddling with seemingly unrelated bandits.

Part 5 – Back at Camp

Another linear section that is meant to reduce the pacing a little with additional duties at camp. The guard captain reveals a female prisoner, who got apprehended while Kristian was away, and asks the players to speak with her. With no further leads at the moment this appears to be only sensible option.
The inclusion of the prisoner is vehicle designed to provide the players with further narrative context about the events at the day of the attack as well as giving them a sensible lead as to where to look next for the artifact.

Part 6 – Abandoned chapel

The abandoned chapel acts as the showdown of the quest with a non-linear conclusion. When the players head out to follow the prisoners lead, they find the corpses of the bandits responsible for the attack. Before the players are able to look for the artifact, they are interrupted by the bandit who had infiltrated the camp. He reveals the conspiracy that also involved the protagonist’s stepfather, but explains that the plans slightly differed. The bandit cannot allow the players to have the artifact. The players have no choice, but to fight him for it and retrieve the artifact from the corpses afterwards. The players are now faced with a difficult decision. Bring the artifact back to Lord Vinter, as requested, and contribute to horrible means of warfare, or go home and confront the protagonist’s stepfather about the conspiracy. I wanted to learn how to implement to different endings to a quest, each with their own cutscenes and dialogue.

Supportive material

A few extra documents I have created during the making of this quest.

Pacing/Timing graph

Before starting to implementing the quest in engine I decided to draw up a graph for how I visualized the pacing/timing in my head. I knew early on that I wanted to reach roughly 25 minutes of gameplay and the graph helped me to determine whether the design makes sense and if my target can be reached. Some parts I definitely over/underestimated a little bit, but all in all I am happy with the average outcome.