Quests. Quests are what drive us through a game. They are everywhere. Hardly any game, especially story-heavy ones like RPGs, can live without them. They can have all kinds of different functions. From simply progressing through the main story to gifting the player valuable items that would make his life easier… They can even have multiple endings so writing them can be especially tricky. We’re going to show you, how to write quests for games and how to build complicated quest trees using simple tools.
Quests – What They Are & How They Function
Players easily become overwhelmed if you throw them into a huge virtual world with tons of content. This is why quests are so important. Quests are specific tasks that a player receives from the game that provide them with rewards upon completion. They have different kinds of purposes, from teaching the audience how to play to breaking down the main plot into simpler steps.
Quests not only make it easier for players to understand what they are supposed to do but they also give you an overview while also acting as a reminder throughout different play sessions. If you complete a quest you usually get rewarded with money, experience, equipment or other things you need to progress through the story. They contain a single mission or multiple tasks that need to be done in order to advance the narrative.
There are many different types of quests. For this article we’re going to focus on the two main categories: main and side quests. Main quests, as the name suggests, are the tasks you need to do in order to progress with the main purpose or story of a game. Side quests on the other hand aren’t mandatory to beat the game but often add value to the story with extra lore and rewards.
A Hero’s Journey – Write Your Own Quest Line
Now that we know what a quest is, we can start to learn how to write it. We’re going to teach you a simple system that you can use to start writing your own quests that you can expand on as much as you like. The way we build our quests is easy to set up and also easy to understand for anyone who has to work with this system after you’ve finished it. The program we use to set up our story is Arcweave, which is a free-to-use software that you can upgrade to a professional version later on.
1. Come Up With An Idea
Before you can even think of writing your first quest, you need to have a rough idea of where you’re going with it so make sure to do a lot of research. To simplify things we’re going to take a look at a simple management game. Think of the steps your players have to take to slowly grow their business. Buy a building, get furniture, get employees… Maybe you have to give them some smaller goals in between if the jump gets too big like “Earn 20 000$” before they can move on to “Expand Your Workshop” which maybe costs 50 000$.
This is a very linear approach and the same goes for any RPG. Write out the rough story points at first, before you go into depth. The princess gets captured, and the prince sets out to rescue her while also having to defeat four different dragons before he can defeat the final boss who is an evil wizard. Breaking the story down into simpler terms gives you a great overview of the whole picture and lets you easily adjust things if necessary.
2. Structure Your Quests
After you’ve decided on the initial steps, it’s time to structure them. For example maybe you want the player to choose between multiple outcomes like what type of factory they want to build or which dragon they want to fight first. Either way this would split the initial linear path up into multiple directions so you need to make sure that this is shown in your document.
Don’t forget to add some side quests to the mix to give the player some more options on where to go. Maybe you even want to add a quest that your player can repeat multiple times to earn some extra cash on the way? Is it timed or not? Write all those things down and even color them for a better readability. The more branches you create, the more complex your story is going to get so keep that in mind while building your quests.
3. Write The Content Of Your Quest
Now that you’ve composed your basic structure, you can finally get into the fun part and write out the narrative of your quests. Depending on the scope of your game this becomes rather detailed and complicated fast. In that case we recommend writing lengthy details like dialogues or descriptions etc. in a Google Doc and simply linking the file to the corresponding part of the quest. That way you have all the information in one place and you can easily look up or edit things. You can also consider putting your research materials into your quest structures in case you want to read up on something.
4. Design Your Rewards
When all is said and done it’s time to design the rewards your player receives after completing the task. It could be money, experience or items. It all depends on the game. While designing both your quest and the rewards for it, you should always consider your players and their needs. Balancing the rewards is one of the most important things. If a quest is long and hard then it can be very frustrating for the player if the reward is something that wasn’t worth all the hard work. On the other hand if the rewards make them overpowered really fast, they might get bored of your game. While you don’t have to go into the technical details of how to balance something properly, it’s worth keeping it in mind while writing them.
5. Implement, Test & Iterate Your Quest
After the first draft is done, it’s time to implement them into the game and test them out. Let different kinds of players test your game, from beginners to experts, young and old. No script is ever going to be perfect, especially when it comes to video games. Players have a mind of their own, so don’t be frustrated if you have to re-write things a few times. Sometimes things that sound good on paper, won’t work during development. It’s even possible that things need to be cut out completely though to a lack of resources. Design is all about iterations and the writing is no exception but the more you iterate, the better it gets.
With these five simple steps you can write any quest you want and make it as complex as you like. If you’re just starting out, we recommend to start simple. Once you get the hang of it you can expand your story and write more complex quests as you please. If you’re working in a team it’s especially important to organize your structure in a way everyone can understand it. Of course this isn’t the only way to write a quest. Every studio has a different method. Though everyone has to start somewhere and if you’ve understood one system, I’m sure you will also understand the rest.
If you’re curious about how quests are written you might also be interested in how a video game script is created:
When Stories Come To Life – How To Write A Video Game Script
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