One Last Drink

Side Quest in the Shatterscarp Region

The Context

One Last Drink was originally conceived as a very simple side quest to show the player around a new region, and what I pitched as the only optimistic quest in the game. The player would meet a sea captain in the local tavern, who was wanting to get his crew back together for cheerful reunion toast.

Later, this quest took a dramatic shift, where we were asked to flesh out the quest, add reactivity, and change the ending to bring it in line with the tone of the rest of the game. This was partly due to some changes to the region story, where the town had recently gone under attack by our version of zombies.

I worked with Kate Dollarhyde to completely revamp the quest, where Captain Ngunu was trying to get his crew back together to poison two of them due to a long-harbored grudge. This also allowed the player to pull a Princess Bride cup switcheroo and poison different people if they discovered the poisoning plot ahead of time.

Even though the quest differed drastically from my initial pitch, Kate and I jumped in with both feet and it turned out to be my favorite quest in the entire game.

Tauwe

The crewmembers can be found in any order, but we found through playtesting that most players found Tauwe first. He's found in a peaceful oasis, and meant to be the most straightforward to recruit to the reunion toast, but since it's most likely the first one visited, the player does get a few interesting details about the interpersonal relationships between the four characters, which will aid the player in recruiting the other two.

We wanted to lean into the chill and naive vibe of this character, so there's no large combat nearby, but there are some fun little secrets and rewards scattered around the oasis.

Kowha

Since splitting up with the rest of the crew, Kowha tried to live a peaceful life as well, but that was before his entire village turned to the dreamscourge (essentially zombified).

I spent careful attention to making sure this area looked like a village in much need of repair, even before the outbreak, by placing a little crop farm at the top, and a little village square which is now swarming with zombies. The player talks to Kowha at the spot above, and can assess the fighting arena, including some helpful oil hazards, before jumping in.

I also added a lot of cover and half cover, because this fight was meant to be intense. More zombies spawn from the houses on the outskirts of the arena during combat, and the player has to be constantly aware of their surroundings, so I provided a lot of kiting opportunities.

Ruanga

Meant to be the most difficult to find, since she is also the most closed off. She has separated herself physically from the rest of the region. We marked the entrance to this cave with a large fossil to draw some attention to it.

Ruanga is hiding out in an old abandoned mine, which has been overrun with beetles. It's a ring-shaped encounter, with an option to duck inside the lower tunnel to lose aggro.

Ruanga is difficult to recruit. The player has to be aware of the captain's poisoning plot in order to convince her to come. In which case, the player can end up betraying her. I like that her hideout mirrors her prickly disposition.

If the player wants to recruit Ruanga, they get hints from Ruanga about Captain Ngunu scheming in the lighthouse in Thirdborn.

If the player goes into Captain Ngunu's sleeping quarters, they find a checked-out library book about poisons, along with various herbs and equipment to concoct them. Ngunu might be conniving, but he's not very bright, leaving this all out in the open.

Players can pick a lock to find a vial of poison, which acts as the "smoking gun" piece of evidence for Ngunu's plot.

Once the player knows the plot, they can poison whomever they choose, including an extra crafty option to poison everybody using Ngunu's very own poison.

Despite this ending being a big departure from my initial quest pitch, I was very pleased with the ending. There were many times along the way that we weren't sure it would come together, and there was a lot of bugs to figure out because of the sheer number of ending states for the quest, but it turned out to be my favorite quest in the whole game.