Wait, listen. Do you hear that sound? It’s like… a rusty crowbar scraping along the side of an old, wooden barn. It’s desperate, or agonized, perhaps, as if we’re reaching the end state of some position…

Yeah, no, we’re starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel on topics. There’s only so much to write about with a Vertical Slice demo that’s basically in its final stages, especially when there’s some stuff that’s best left a secret for the time being. But, nonetheless, I will sooner rip up the bottoms of any barrel than let a week pass without a blog post. So let us tear.

So, yes, we’re writing about the incredibly innocuous feature, the Quest Log; or, the thing that tells the player what they’re supposed to do. But, believe it or not, there is some stuff to talk about regarding it. A surprise, to be sure.

There’s more stuff to do; the characters just don’t know what it is yet.

The Quest Log is a feature that rose to prominence after receiving feedback from playtesters on the various builds for the project. The original nature of the Vertical Slice was to drop the player in and have them just explore around to find the next task, but we didn’t take into account the fact that we know every facet main location of the demo, the Abandoned Factory, and the poor players don’t. Thus, it’s much easier for them to get lost, so we thought they needed at least some guidance.

With this Quest Log, and because of our adamance to add character wherever we can, we also had to write some descriptions for each individual quest—in Astraia’s voice, of course. You may think this an easy task, but it really was quite the opposite. Not because the contents were difficult, but because they were always changing, like trying to finish a task for which the goal decides to become something different right at the end.

In game development, it’s often much faster to change some writing than it is to change programming or art. Thus, when changes are made, the writers often take the full hip rotation of the punch. So, when changes get made to objectives, or goals, or locations, the description has to change to accommodate that.

This is not to absolve us writers of guilt, though, since we made some changes to the overall Vertical Slice narrative, leading to ripple effects where the character’s goals changed, necessitating some more changes to account for what they do and don’t know. A truly despondent balancing act, where your wire is a piece of worn yarn, and your balancing pole a slippery, wet fish.

But also, I’m just complaining. Here’s the first quest log for your viewing pleasure:

That’s all I’ve got for the Quest Log! Wait, no, I lied:

Your current task appears overhead. If I had to pick a word to describe this, it would probably be “legendary.”

Dang, What Was I Doing?: The Quest Log Blog