Hamburg is not only a hotspot for the development of computer games, but also for numerous vocational schools and universities that offer courses specifically for future professionals in the games industry. For students and career starters, the exchange with experts in the games industry is essential in order to know the requirements in the individual disciplines and to prepare for them. To intensify this exchange, Gamecity Hamburg offers the event format Game Starter.

For the sixteenth installment of Game Starter on November 23, we talked about Quest Design. 

Our guest experts were:

• Mascha Camino, Quest Designer at Guerrilla Games
• Mariia Vasylkovska, Quest Designer at Playground Games
• Dominika Kuczyńska, Quest Designer at CD Project Red

Thank you very much for sharing your experience and detailed insights into your job, we learned a lot and were able to take a number of things with us.

What we learned:

• Good side quests aren't just there to fill the quest log - they help to advance the story of the game and motivate the player by staying engaged to the world
• Useful skills for (aspiring) quest designers are: curiosity, the drive to broaden your horizon and empathy, but also communication skills are necessary to work closely with the different departments during the development of a game. To design interesting quests, Quest Designers should think outside the box, incorporate a lot of information from human culture, and history.
• It also helps to have a good technical understanding and basic knowledge of programming languages and game engines
• For portfolios, it can help to use ready-made quest tools (like creation kits or editors for games like Skyrim or Shadow Run) to show recruiters and companies how you would design quests. You can add short stories or game jam games to show how you would work on game quests.
• There is not one straight path to becoming a Quest Designer: All three of our experts came from very different fields and backgrounds.
• Making Games is not Rocket Science: you can learn it!