Quest Design Doc: Reboot Survey Station J
This practice quest document is an assignment from Pixelles’s game writing program. The idea was to create a roughly two-page quest design document that other members of the design team could use to create the quest described within.
I was inspired to create a concept for a kaiju ecosystem game which included exploration, photography, and simulation management ideas. It drew inspiration from games like Horizon Zero Dawn, Pokemon Snap, Zoo Tycoon, Shadow of the Colossus, Jurassic World Evolution, and Breath of the Wild as well as John Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society and all manner of Godzilla films (especially Godzilla Minus One just from a recency metric).
Summary:
Game- Open world exploration and photography game where you study and care for kaiju on a nature preserve. To care for these large monsters will include dangers from the kaiju themselves and those looking to exploit the creatures.
Quest- You may be new, but we’re a small team so it’s trial by fire. So to speak. None of these are fire monsters. One of our survey stations has been offline for nearly a month now. We need you to reboot it and activate the remote observation sites. Be careful!
Objective: This is a relatively early quest to help players get the feel of the major game elements:
Utilize stealth to avoid smaller monsters in the kaiju’s environment as you approach the station and explore the station itself.
Solve a puzzle, which here reactivating the station requires a classic energy shifting puzzle.
Action based exploration will force the player to dodge the invading kaiju while activating the remote observation sites.
Reward: Map of region revealed, along with the ability for trackable quests within the region; Exp
Characters:
Tegan - She’s your “guy in the chair.” The primary character with whom the player character converses and gets updates of the goings on in the wildlife preserve.
“Edith” - Smaller, aggressive kaiju invading the other’s territory. Initial design is a creature that looks like a centipede/alligator hybrid. It uses mostly sightlines and movement to track the PC.
“Janice” - Unseen alpha kaiju of the region. The player will pass many signals of her passage, like large claw marks on the mountains and divots in the forested areas. She is actually a central mountain in the region, like a massive snapping turtle.
Location(s):
Region of overmap: Janice’s forested mountains (generally temperate forest “fenced in” by mountains).
Survey Station J: Small outpost carved into the mountainside. It’s beginning to fall to disrepair as some of the creatures have moved in. It’s very sci-fi, sciency-wiency future tech looking.
Narrative Beats:
Explore: The player needs to approach the survey site without being killed by any of the wildlife. The player will use mostly traversal techniques to evade pursuit. This is near the player’s starting point as this is an early mission.
As the player explores, Tegan will give up to three tips. These will be based on which creatures or environments encountered.
Sneak: The player must stealthily navigate the survey station, avoiding the nesting predator that is housed within. Patience and distraction tools (of which they only have 1-2 basic ones) will be key.
Tegan will drop lore bits on the nesting monster.
Solve: The player must complete an energy allocation puzzle to reactivate the station. The puzzle is one where the player must balance the energy amount among a set of three batteries (Note: each survey station will utilize their regional geography to design future puzzles).
Dialogue from Tegan on completion - “Good work! The station’s back online! Now you just need to reactivate our observation nodes and… wait. There’s an incoming kaiju! You need to get moving!”
Escape: The player will need to avoid “Edith” as the kaiju pursues them actively around the region. The player must activate three observation devices that help map the area and can be used to temporarily disorient Edith.
As the player completes each device, Tegan will provide encouraging remarks of growing excitement.
