We did some live quest design with RPG developer Tanya Short

There’s a big disconnect between what it’s like to interview developers while they’re making games, and to see them working on them right in front of you. While we at Gamasutra do our best to convey what the process is like, it’s something else entirely to talk to a game developer while they’re working on a quest. 

Today, we took a moment to peek inside the creative brain of Tanya Short, creative director at Kitfox Games, and learn about how she builds choice-driven mechanics in the role-playing games she works on. Currently writing and producing The Shrouded Isle, Short took an hour with us to design a quest based on the game’s fiction, showing how she would introduce players to a new mechanic and help them gain a resource they were currently low on. 

Despite how short the quest turned out to be (only a few steps) it took a whole hour to get a working version going, as we discovered our own bugs along the way. If you’ve never dabbled your toes in quest design before, you should take a look at the full video above. 

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