Quest brainstorming thread

#1

Because actual story-based quests are nicer than finding a random treasure chest with a thing in it.

[06:53am] zookeeper: there'd be another kind of a "collect bugs" quest: have a big... funnel, or something, into which you must lure some bugs, like the hopping things, without killing them. [06:53am] Jetrel: that sounds... complicated. [06:55am] Jetrel: The tracking of luring them in? Easyish. The question of putting the funnel somewhere, awkward. [06:55am] zookeeper: really? i mean that you'd simply have a big'ish area with a lot of bugs, and there'd be essentially just a pit somewhere, and you'd have to lure the bugs there and have them drop in [06:55am] zookeeper: (without eating-and-spitting them, i guess, since that'd be way too easy) [06:55am] Jetrel: Yeah, that's the easy part. [06:55am] Jetrel: It's the setup that's the hard part. [06:56am] zookeeper: well, okay, something else then [06:56am] zookeeper: let's see... [06:56am] Jetrel: Since presumably mortimer would take you there and point out what he wants to do. [06:56am] Jetrel: I mean, maybe I'm being a pussy - it's doable.

…

[07:09am] zookeeper: how about having to capture a very elusive enemy from a maze or something? the enemy would do its best to get as far away from you as possible (or similar), meaning that it’d be a puzzle to herd it into a net or out from the maze or whatever
[07:10am] Jetrel: Another good idea. Requires a maze, but a solid idea.
[07:10am] Jetrel: I’m gonna start a thread to track these.
[07:10am] zookeeper: like, say someone’s got a problem with their plumbing because there’s this elusive bug in there, and you have to go in and get it out
[07:15am] zookeeper: uh, this will be a bit silly, but…
[07:15am] Jetrel: silly is something advantageous about our setting. :3
[07:16am] zookeeper: someone’s balloons escaped, and you can find them somewhere high, maybe stuck in a tree. you gotta jump on the balloons to bring them back down, except that there’s a lot of birds with sharp beaks flying left and right on the way. :>
[07:16am] Jetrel: hahaha
[07:16am] Jetrel: nice.
[07:18am] zookeeper: so you have to occasionally jump off the balloons to stop their falling momentarily, etc
[07:19am] zookeeper: of course there’s also the possibility of a platformer escort quest
[07:20am] ? Jetrel hisses and makes the sign of the cross
[07:20am] zookeeper: meaning that you’re escorting an npc who walks forward at a steady pace, but can’t jump; whenever they’re at the edge of a pit, you gotta give them a push with your tongue to help them across
[07:21am] Jetrel: Or get all vore on this shit and make it an NPC you have to swallow and carry for the whole trip.
[07:22am] Jetrel: (could actually be pretty funny, played right)
[07:23am] zookeeper: well, yeah. the swallowable npc could be lighter-than-air so you have to be really careful that he won’t float away if you need to spit them out to fight some enemies
[07:23am] Jetrel: ooh
[07:32am] zookeeper: i think that’s all i’ve got to offer this time

#2
[1:11pm] Jetrel: Yeah - it's totally fine to not involve swallow->carry [1:11pm] Jetrel: To mine WoW, obvious ideas include: [1:11pm] DDR: When you actually sit down and say, 'ok, so a major game will take me about two to four years to make, properly, and given false starts and whatnot consuming two years for every successful project, that comes out to... under ten games I can make in my lifetime. [1:11pm] DDR: One of which is Frogatto. [1:12pm] Jetrel: - extermination quests, - fetch quests, - go-to-place quests [1:12pm] DDR: I was just thinking we could not have a carry quest, because we'd done that already for the golden ant. [1:12pm] Jetrel: Yeah. [1:13pm] DDR: I think the carry thing could easily become 'not another damn carry-quest'. [1:13pm] Jetrel: Yeah. [1:13pm] marcavis: otoh, the fact that Mortimer wants to study stuff suggests that we could give him something else... we don't have *too many* carry quests, though [1:14pm] Jetrel: There are a lot of possibilities there besides just fetch quests, though. [1:14pm] DDR: Yeah. We might put one into the forest, somewhere. Mortimer can make a second appearance. [1:14pm] marcavis: I totally get why you want to think of something else, of course, just that we aren't even close to be tiresome about fetch+carry quests [1:15pm] Jetrel: Right [1:15pm] DDR: OK. So, Frogatto can fetch stuff. He can go places. [1:15pm] DDR: He can eat stuff. [1:15pm] marcavis: Something we do *too little* is backtracking, so having to take a cave/forest enemy to Mortimer would also be good. Still, I'm getting fixated on that point, so let's get back to the brainstorming... [1:17pm] Jetrel: Frogatto can also move stuff, besides fetching. Cf nutty factory [1:17pm] DDR: How about this... we make a quest that involves frogatto purchasing some expensive mcguffin, expensive enough that the average player will have to go back to the quest after he encounters it. Assuming he emptied his bank account when he hit the teleporters. [1:17pm] Jetrel: Sorting there is one obvious idea [1:18pm] Jetrel: There is also a cleanup quest [1:18pm] Jetrel: Throw all the x, but save all the y [1:18pm] DDR: So, basically, half-way through the forest sequence we award this request, the player has to go on to collect more money, and then spend it *somewhere*, talk to the quest-giver who will give the reward + reimbursement. [1:19pm] DDR: Perhaps someone who in uncomfortable with carrying a small fortune through the woods. [1:19pm] marcavis: DDR, well, a bycicle costs $1,000,000 in the first generation Pok?mon games, it's an example xD incompatible encoding [1:19pm] DDR: Bonus points if we make this character sonic the hedgehog. :P [1:19pm] DDR: marcavis: Your wallet is capped at $999,999. [1:19pm] marcavis: ahh, yeah [1:19pm] Jetrel: Like maybe chopple has a bunch of crates of food, some good, some spoiled, and you need to sort them out. [1:20pm] Jetrel: DDR I see what you did there [1:20pm] Jetrel: :D [1:21pm] DDR: Something about 'they were in our forest holding facility, but this business with Milgram has caused some of the crates to spoil due to shipping delays'. [1:21pm] Jetrel: The above differing from the factory idea in that it's not a constant stream. [1:24pm] Jetrel: Another idea is relying on frogatto's agility [1:24pm] DDR: Oh? [1:25pm] DDR: Wall-jump puzzle? [1:25pm] Jetrel: Maybe someone needs something installed and can't do it themselves [1:25pm] Jetrel: Because they can't jump like he can. [1:25pm] DDR: Oh, I see. [1:25pm] DDR: What reward are we offering for this request, anyway? [1:26pm] Jetrel: Like a satellite dish or an antenna [1:26pm] Jetrel: We're awarding one of his primary attack abilities [1:27pm] DDR: Ah. [1:27pm] Jetrel: Which story wise is silly, I know. [1:28pm] Jetrel: But - not giving a shit. Can't afford to. [1:28pm] DDR: Well, we can change it if we want to. It's easy to, when we have a boss to award the ability, change the reward for the satellite dish to 'ten gold'. [1:28pm] Jetrel: Exactly [1:29pm] DDR: Oh, Jetrel, if it's OK, I'm going to change the number keys 1-5 (or whatever) to switch attacks. [1:29pm] DDR: 1 being 'tongue'. [1:30pm] Jetrel: No, not now. [1:30pm] Jetrel: I need to think about that. [1:30pm] Jetrel: Might be a good idea. [1:31pm] DDR: Anyway, getting back to the shipping delays idea, how about if we have a series of three wooden palettes with glass jars on them. Some jars are green, some are yellowish-green. [1:31pm] Jetrel: Actually, what the hell. Do it [1:31pm] DDR: Jetrel: Well, we could give it a day. [1:32pm] DDR: I'm in no hurry. [1:32pm] Jetrel: Hm [1:32pm] DDR: You're suppose to leave the green jars on the pallets, and the yellow jars you're suppose to throw away. [1:33pm] DDR: The jars break on impact from any throw which lands not on the wooden pallets or another glass jar, and you're allowed to break /a few/ OK jars in the process. [1:34pm] DDR: Mostly, you get to break a lot of stuff. :P (Gives you a chance to use the gun powerup, too.) [1:35pm] DDR: Reasons why this is a bad idea: Frogatto kind of sucks at putting stuff down gently, and he kind of sucks for precision pickup as well. [1:36pm] DDR: Ah. [1:36pm] DDR: OK. [1:38pm] DDR: Hm, so what if we exploited Frogatto's ability to swim? [1:39pm] marcavis: DDR, 1-5 (or 1-4, so far) sounds good to switch attacks - we may end up using something like that in mobile, instead of pressing a button to cycle through the options [1:39pm] DDR: Say, we have a bit of a small sewer he needs to navigate, which has brambles and whatnot in it, to find a door which needs to be unlocked from the inside? [1:39pm] zookeeper: so, umm, could you do some basic form of machinery? like platform wheels that you need to put some weight (yourself or an enemy) on to get it spinning, which in turn would move something else, etc. just thought that you could have a quest where you have to figure out a way to fix a big machine, let's say some sort of a mining conveyor belt thing. [1:39pm] DDR: hm [1:39pm] Jetrel: zookeeper: we could. [1:40pm] zookeeper: and on a related note, can frogatto push things? [1:40pm] munin_ (~seijuro@ip-178-202-29-29.unitymediagroup.de) joined the chat room. [1:40pm] DDR: We could, but I'm not sure how easy that would be. [1:40pm] Jetrel: zookeeper: no, not yet. [1:40pm] DDR: And, 'no'. [1:40pm] zookeeper: okay [1:40pm] Jetrel: zookeeper: don't be conservative about ideas - your good ideas may take work, but that doesn't diminish their quality and they -are- useful. [1:40pm] DDR: Yes. [1:41pm] zookeeper: yeah don't worry about that [1:41pm] Jetrel: I'm often too conservative. [1:42pm] DDR: I've had in mind to create a general gear framework, which would handle things like gear teeth, size, moving, and so on and so forth. [1:42pm] DDR: Basically, when you dragged a gear out in the editor, it'd 'just work'. [1:42pm] zookeeper: i'll just keep spewing ideas in here if i come up with any... [1:42pm] zookeeper: DDR, ah, cool [1:42pm] DDR: I just haven't got around to it yet. :P [1:43pm] zookeeper: ok, there'd be a quest where you have to navigate a small obstacle course of sorts without... without doing something very common. like, you're not allowed to turn around and look to the left; if you do, you immediately lose. i'm not sure what kind of a story justification i can come up with for that though. :P [1:43pm] zookeeper: or you're not allowed to jump, at all [1:44pm] DDR: 'But no jumping, because we can't all jump like you can and you'd throw the stats off.' [1:44pm] DDR: Dun. :P [1:44pm] marcavis: re: looking to the left, well, we're not going to put a Sodom into the game :P [1:46pm] marcavis: hmm... how to justify constraints like that... [1:48pm] DDR: I think it's fairly easy... make shit up. [1:49pm] DDR: For jumping, give the little frog a big backpack. :P [1:49pm] marcavis: yeah... or a big anvil, though... that takes us back to carry quests [1:50pm] DDR: I think it'd be OK if we didn't have him... swallow it. [1:50pm] DDR: That's the main thing with the carry quests, no swallowing.
#3

What if there is someone/something that is scared of heights and frogatto needs to make him go to the top of a mountain or hill. He could “scare” it, like it continuously walks away from him or inversely he has to lead it. Or maybe he could even lure it by having to drop candies in a line to the top of the hill.

#4

That’s an interesting idea - escort quests that aren’t about defending something, but are about “enabling something to travel”. Whether in the form of laying infrastructure for an intelligent creature to pass (say, frogatto jumping up and tying a rope for something that can’t jump well), or doing what you said, which seemed to involve “herding” something less intelligent through behavioral tools - pushing or pulling it in a given direction with certain cues.