Materia Prima

I was a narrative designer for a series of quests internally labeled as the “Miller line”. Early in the game, the player can visit the miller Kreyzl and begin the first of the quests, Materia Prima. His task is to help the peculiar miller in retrieving an obscure document.

My goal was to create a quest that would utilize stealth and crime mechanics with little custom scripting, leaving most of the gameplay as systemic as possible. Since the player may encounter the quest after only a few hours of play, it functions as one big tutorial for immersive simulation of our crime and stealth features like lockpicking, pickpocketing, takedowns, burglary, guard patrols, and distraction tools.

Story-wise, it is a partial meta-narrative that explores the topic of underground intellectuals, incorporating medieval explanations of phenomena such as perception, light, shadow, optics, and sound propagation - thus thematically tying into the mechanics of stealth gameplay.

For the quest, I created the basic concept, designed the gameplay, wrote all the dialogue, journal logs, and objectives. I worked closely with a group of quest scripters, cutscene artists, and sound designers to implement individual story beats. In quest-important locations, I contributed to level design.

When lead character Henry finds suspicious contraband in a sack of flour, there is not much else for miller Kreyzl to do than to let him in on a secret.

Forbidden Fruit

Gravedigging isn’t a prestigious profession, but these sacks won’t carry themselves.

Forbidden Fruit immediately follows Materia Prima. This time, the player is tasked with worming his way into the good graces of a local gravedigger to learn the location of his saltpeter pit - which will be used for miller Kreyzl’s mysterious plan.

As one of the most unique quests in the game, Forbidden Fruit combines the initially open-world mechanics of horse-drawn wagons with the gameplay of sack carrying. The player travels with the gravedigger through several stops, helping him haul carcasses and solve various problems along the way. The stops themselves were the biggest challenge of the entire quest, as they required complex coordination of quest behaviors, gameplay simulation, and wagon tech.

Featuring only small amounts of stealth and combat gameplay, the quest immerses players in the world of medieval citizens on the fringes of society and features a wealth of historical facts about the period's understanding of death and burial, which I have researched at length.

This time, I not only designed all gameplay, contributed to level design, wrote dialogues, quest objectives, and journal logs, but also scripted minor lively events players can encounter on the road and created open-world behaviors and daycycles for quest NPCs.

Magnum Opus

Magnum Opus, the final quest of the “Miller Line”, consists of two sections; in the first, players try to access an important story event, the wedding celebration at Semine. During the wedding, this quest is essentially paused and only starts up again after players reach Trosky Castle. Here they search for the so-called Feuerwerkbuch, which the miller wants to use to make black powder.

Magnum Opus crosses important narrative milestones, and it required a large amount of design and scripting work to arrange for many possible playthroughs, especially considering the sheer number of open-ended game opportunities we provided for the players in each section of the quest. Although the quest has only two main outcomes, its variability lies in the decisions the players have made throughout Materia Prima and Forbidden Fruit - what they have said, promised, concealed, which characters they have kept alive, and which they have not. Even after completing the quest, additional dialogue and hidden gameplay await the player.

The main and pervasive theme of Magnum Opus is a medieval form of progressive thought, represented by the miller's quest to create black powder. The black powder itself here symbolizes both the coming changes in the field of warfare and the unintended advances medieval alchemists made through trial and error.

For the quest, I designed the gameplay, wrote all the dialogue, journal logs, and objectives. I worked closely with a group of quest scripters, cutscene artists, and sound designers to implement individual story beats. As the design owner of Trosky, I coordinated the intersection of the quest with other quests taking place at the castle. I also customized the behavior and daycycles of NPCs that had a role in the story.

Kreyzl and his friends are having a blast with their black powder discovery.

Horses for Courses

There is no better view of Trosecko than from the back of a horse.

I was the design owner of a free DLC that came out with Patch 1.3, which consisted of the quest Horses for Courses and two new activities - horse racing and mounted archery.

The story focuses on two bickering horsemen with players helping settle their dispute over the best horse discipline. Being one of the first story expansions, I aimed to maintain a high standard for our quests - Horses for Courses, therefore, features four unique endings, additionally reflecting results of five quests and nearly ten unique player states from the base game. It was very important to me to preserve as much authenticity and historical accuracy as possible, so I did a lot of research into the culture, legends, and horsemanship of the Roma and eastern steppe ethnic groups.

The biggest challenge within the activities was incorporating KCD2’s new mechanics into the open world in the most natural way. To avoid too much repetition, I needed to create a large amount of hand-crafted content. This was even more important as it was post-release content - player experiences and expectations could be varied, from beginners to hardcore players with hundreds of hours in the game.

For horse racing, I designed 10 unique racing tracks around the Trosecko region, with each track having 3 difficulty settings (easy, medium, hard). Each difficulty setting additionally requires scripting behavior for 3 contenders racing with the player. Since the activity takes place over an area of 5 square kilometers, I had to make small level design adjustments within all regions of Trosecko.

For mounted archery, I designed the archery circuit, which has a dedicated page here. I created layouts for six archery courses, each of which has three variations based on difficulty (easy, hard, legendary). With the additional bonus course, 19 riding courses were created. I collaborated closely with a technical designer on custom pathfinding and spectators’ behavior, and with level and 3D artists on new assets for targets, archery stands, and obstacles.

Horses for Courses was a showcase of abilities we gained during the development of Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. We thoroughly playtested and reviewed each feature and story beat, creating a polished and tight gameplay experience. Results of our team post-mortem, which comprises our own development experiences, professional reviews, and observations of players and streamers, were shared internally in our studio.

In the new activities, players have 210 targets to shoot down and 90 opponents to defeat.

Demons at Trosky

Demons at Trosky was the very first quest I created for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Story-wise, the players are trying to eradicate the devils from the castle chambers and restore peace of mind of the local servants.

From the beginning, the quest was intended as a chance to introduce players to the complex layout of Trosky Castle, and I, as the location owner, acted as both level and narrative designer. For the quest, I also wrote dialogues, objectives, and journal logs. I drew on local legends and the work of historian Aron Gurevich on medieval folk superstition. Many players liked the quest, as evidenced by the number of memes and fanart.

Feast for the Poor

During production, I was given the ownership of Feast for the Poor, which is a quest about a vengeful prank of Kutterberg rebels aimed at the enemy forces occupying the region.

Since the narrative design was finalized by the previous quest owner, outside of polishing dialogue lines and journal logs, playtesting, and shipping, my main job was to fine-tune stealth gameplay. For this, it was necessary to create a new warehouse location where the main part of the quest takes place. I cover this work in a dedicated section.

Bird of Prey

During production, I was given the ownership of Bird of Prey. In this quest, players hunt poachers who plague the local gamekeeper.

After an internal playtest, I recognized several pacing and difficulty issues that I decided to address by reorganizing the quest structure and taking level design ownership of all poacher locations. As part of the development process, I continued internal playtesting to ensure a high completion rate of the quest by players. This is because towards the end of this quest, they may encounter one of the main story characters in an unconventional role, and although it is a surprise, we didn't want the players to miss it.

The quest can be credited for a couple of overall system modifications I formulated during its development, concerning the dog companion feature or the mental mapping within the level design.

Primum Nil Nocere

Towards the end of development, I was put in charge of Primum Nil Nocere, in which players try to cure a villager’s strange ailment.

The quest needed to be completely redesigned, as the initial narrative design did not meet the standards set for gameplay related to healing. I reworked the quest according to the established conventions and added elements of a classic point-and-click adventure game. To ensure period accuracy of the examination procedure and possible treatments, I thoroughly researched medieval medicine and cures. The quest features some of the most detailed dialogue in the game - with 10 skillchecks (covering almost all skills in the game) - which presents a variety of playthroughs based on individual character builds.

As it was incorporated in another quest, Thunderstone, working on Primum Nil Nocere required quick judgement and decision making to ensure timely delivery.