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The Witcher 3: Das malefitz

Das Malefitz is the first quest in a three part questline.

This questline was created as part of The Witcher 3 REDkit Contest. My goal was to learn to use the REDkit and then design and implement three interconnected quests in three months. There was a strict limit of five team members. I recruited two character/creature artists (Aimee Nilsson and Tim Sommer), one technical artist (Angel Humphrey), and one animator (Nassir Hazim).

Aimee Nilsson - Character/Creature Artist

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aimee-nilsson-49a55198/

Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/aimeenilsson

Blog: https://aimeenilssonfiea.blogspot.com/

Angel Humphrey - Technical Artist

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelaleehumphrey/

Portfolio: https://angelah3d.com/

Blog: https://angelahumphreyfiea.blogspot.com/

A look at the quest graph (placed to fit as a single image)

Structure

My role and responsibilities

Das Malefitz roughly translates from German to mean misdeed or wrongdoing. This quest primarily serves to hook the player and slowly reveal an ever increasingly mysterious mystery. I placed several open ended elements which would encourage the player to

In this video I go into more detail about the conceptualization of the quest.

The player would begin by wandering into a small village and learning about. Narrative design tricks: Tertiary devices such as ambient conversations, written notes/contract, Secondary devices such as talking to NPCs and learning about events by piecing together the bits of information they share to form a more complete picture, providing some crucial details but initially withholding context to encourage players to piece things together for themselves, making the player question their own actions, past and future, seducing the player by telling them not to do something which makes them want to do it more, presenting a scenario that the player is likely interested in by default - in this case the possibility of learning meeting another witcher, making the player be the first to find the murder victim (there was a scene where the player was supposed to carry the body while running from a creature but this didn’t end up happening due to lack of technical know-how) I should include a pacing graph.

ambient/background storytelling (i.e. listening to conversations, reading

Nassir Hazim - Character Animator

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nassirhazim/

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/nassirhazim

Tim Sommer - 3D Artist

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-sommer-ft/

Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/tim_sommer

Nuckelavee also known as “The Devil O’ the Sea”

Questline

Das Malefitz, I Won’t Hurt You, and Grief Chapter are the three interconnected quests that make up an unconventional murder mystery

about empathy (there’s a better way to say that). are the three interconnected quests that make up an unconventional murder mystery this is an unconventional murder mystery about understanding and empathy and the ability to understand another’s point of view and actions even if you disagree with that. The titles are taken from thematically appropriate songs.

Atmosphere, seduce the player, roleplay, choice and consequence, unconventional investigation, meaningful combat, compelling characters that feel human with their own thoughts and goals, a messy situation very representative of the witcher world, intentionally keeping some information from the player early on, player’s/Geralt’s motivation,

An example of a conversation in the scene editor

Created with the help of:

Demon

Knoggelvi

The Nuckelavee’s design is partly inspired by the monster in the 2017 Netflix movie “The Ritual” which itself comes from Norse mythology.

Initial concept to final design of the Nuckelavee