As this was a solo project, I handled all aspects of game content creation related to the quest. The main focus was on:

• Designing the narrative context for the adventure and writing the storyline.

• Creating the level design using RedKit, Maya, and Photoshop.

• Designing the quests featured in the adventure, with a particular focus on allowing player actions to impact the narrative.

• Implementing the quests in RedKit, including Dandelion’s journal entries and quest tracking features.

• Writing all dialogues, ensuring that choices could influence the story and that the base game’s dialogue-related skills were properly integrated.

• Implementing the dialogues in RedKit.

I decided to create this mod right after playing 'The Witcher 2', during the 2020 lockdown caused by the pandemic.

The main objectives of the project were:

• To practice creating a small, self-contained quest that offered meaningful choices and multiple endings.

• To improve my skills in level design and in building a coherent setting for the adventure.

• To experiment with the RedKit and become familiar with new tools for creating game content.

• To have fun and keep myself engaged with something stimulating during the lockdown.

For each of the roles I fullfilled during this project, I will try to explain the creation proces and the reasoning behind the decisions I made. 

The story is set during the period between the events of The Witcher and The Witcher 2.

Geralt is traveling on personal business, which requires him to meet none other than Radovid V.

However, when he stops in the riverside village of Proces, he is halted by royal soldiers enforcing a quarantine, sanctioned by the village mayor.

After speaking with the soldiers and their captain, Edsgher, Geralt realizes that something is off and begins to investigate by talking to the villagers.

Everything comes at a price, of course, but Geralt eventually uncovers the truth: Edsgher and his men are deserters, and the sorcerer serving him is keeping the mayor in a state of confusion, allowing the group to control the village unopposed.

In the final act, Geralt must choose whether to try to bring the mayor back to his senses, confront and defeat Edsgher, or seek help from the regular army.

For this adventure, I have written five different endings, all based on the choices made during gameplay and dialogue.

Below, you'll find a chart summarizing the five possible outcomes.

Some paths encourage a more aggressive playstyle, others reward stealth, while the best ending still requires demonstrating strong negotiation skills. 

To set the stage for this quest, I had to create the environment for the village of Proces.

After experimenting with various blockouts and RedKit tools, I defined a few key pillars for my level design:

1. The River
   For narrative reasons, a river had to be part of the map. It also served multiple design purposes: dividing different areas of the map, filling space with a dynamic and visually interesting element that didn’t require excessive detail, and offering an open area from which players could get a distant view of the entire map right from the start.

2. Free  Roaming Area
   I wanted at least one area where players could interact with characters and objects in a non-linear way, offering multiple paths and encouraging exploration.

3. Boundaries
   While the river helped contain the playable area, I still needed additional boundaries to prevent the player from leaving the map. I decided to implement both physical (natural and artificial) barriers, as well as narrative ones, such as soldiers blocking the village entrances and exits with a valid story reason.

4. Backtracking
   To make the most of the space I had created, I planned from the beginning to incorporate a certain amount of backtracking, encouraging players to revisit areas of the map as the quest progressed.

Beyond the inherent challenge of writing dialogue, I focused on refining several key aspects in each conversation:

1. Giving proper weight to dialogue outcomes
   Whenever possible, I made sure that the result of a conversation could influence future actions by NPCs. Examples include dialogues with Edsgher and the mayor, both of which help shape the final outcome of the quest.

2. Incorporating gameplay mechanics
   In particular, I often integrated the use of Axii (which can either resolve a situation or cause it to escalate) and the option to offer bribes to gain the favor of certain NPCs.

3. Improving user experience as much as possible
   I highlighted critical choices in yellow and followed the original game’s formatting to ensure consistency and clarity.

4. Choosing appropriate camera angles, gestures, and facial expressions
   This required learning and using RedKit’s timeline system to properly direct cutscenes and convey emotional nuance.

Excluding the final section, the overall gameplay flow is mostly linear.

However, exploring certain areas and talking to secondary characters allows the player to uncover bits of lore, which can potentially help in making better dialogue choices.

As mentioned earlier in the level design section, the gameplay involves a fair amount of backtracking.

In hindsight, I probably should have looked for ways to make this aspect more engaging, but I'll touch on that later.

Working on this project allowed me to put several of my skills to the test and develop new ones:

• I quickly became familiar with a system I had no prior knowledge of, managing to get up to speed in just a few days despite having limited resources. In particular, I experimented with a wide range of RedKit editors: Terrain editor, quest logic editor, dialogue editor, AI, combat and reward management, and more.

• I gained a deeper understanding of how content creation tools can be used for projects designed to involve large teams of collaborators.

• I improved my awareness of quest management, narrative design, and dialogue writing (particularly after receiving feedback on this project).

If I were to revisit this project, there are a few points I believe would need immediate attention:

• Making the fetching missions less boring
  There are two missions that involve killing a certain number of monsters and collecting their trophies, and one of them involves quite a bit of backtracking. I would look for ways to allow the objective to be achieved through different approaches, or possibly adding more interesting dynamics, such as tracking footprints or investigating a crime scene.

• Enhancing the environment and populating it with more lively NPCs

• Improving the cinematics for the opening and for the different endings

• Adding voice acting to the entire experience