Quests
Learning paths through this topic
Pay a quest reward exactly once, even with full bags and reloads
Turn in the quest, the game crashes, load again and turn it in a second time, or the bag was full and the sword vanished. Both are reward bugs. Here is a way to record claims so a reward arrives once and nothing is lost.
Accept typed riddle answers in many spellings without accepting wrong ones
A player types the right answer with a capital letter, an article, a digit instead of a word or a missing accent, and the game says no. The opposite error is worse: a typo rule that lets a different wrong word pass. Here is the matching that gets both right.
Let a stuck player skip a riddle after wrong tries, for less and with a way back
A riddle nobody can solve ends the story for that player, yet a free skip makes every riddle pointless. Here is a middle road: the way out opens after a number of different wrong tries, pays less, and can be made good later by solving it after all.
Let quest completions beyond a page's need count toward the next page
A season book opens a page each week, and a keen player finishes quests before the next page exists, so their effort vanishes or sits at a full bar that pays nothing. Here is a single running count that fills pages in order and banks the surplus.
Track which levels a secret exit opens and which exits the player has not found
Some levels have two ways out, and each leads to a different next level. The map must show only what the player earned, nudge them about the exit they missed, and the designer must be sure that no level is cut off for good. Here is how to keep track.
Set the "beat the target time" number from what testers really did
A designer plays their own level in a minute and sets that as the target. Nobody else gets near it. Another level has a target so loose it means nothing, because one tester walked away and left the game open. Here is a way to choose it from real times.
Check that every chapter's star gate can be passed by a normal player
The next chapter asks for a number of stars, and somewhere a gate has been set higher than all earlier levels can give, or so high that only perfect players pass. Here is the check that finds both, with a share of stars each gate really demands.
Check that a "need 30 stars to continue" gate can be passed by a normal player
A gate asks for a number of stars, and the levels before it add up to exactly that number if the player is perfect. Everyone else is stuck on a wall. Here is how to test gates against a realistic player, not a perfect one, and see by how much they miss.
Give the star goal "finish with moves to spare" a threshold that is always fair
A level with few moves can end up with a three-star goal nobody can reach, and a percentage threshold sometimes lands one move off from what the card says. Here is how to turn the share into whole moves and spot levels where the best rating is impossible.
Make a collection quest's last missing items still arrive in reasonable time
Collecting a set sounds simple until the last two pieces take hundreds of packs because everything else keeps repeating. Here is a pack opening that stays random yet never hands out a pack of pure duplicates while something is missing, and what leftovers turn into.
Decide who gets the reward of a shared team goal when players join late or leave
Four players aim for one hundred defeats. One does nearly everything, one joins for the last minute, and one has to leave early. Handing the reward to everyone present is unfair, and only to the best player feels bad. Here is a rule that rewards real help.
Tell the player why a kill did not count for a quest, without nagging
The player is sure they did everything right, but the counter did not move. Maybe the wrong weapon, maybe the wrong area. Silence feels like a bug, while a message on every kill is noise. Here is how to name the reason once, and only when it matters.