What Treasure?
Quest | Narrative | Puzzle | Technical Design
Starfield
Level Summary
What Treasure? is a single-player narrative quest designed for Starfield. The level combines Puzzle-solving, combat, and dialogue to deliver an interactive story experience. Players must explore a mining facility and gather Power Cells through NPC interaction, environmental challenges, and combat to restore power to the underground Mine and advance the narrative.
25+ minutes of gameplay
1 exterior space + 1 interior space
1 main quest + 1 side quest
1 morally ambiguous choice
2 branching endings
Level Design Document
Map Overview
Exterior: Duskridge Excavation Site
Interior: Main Mine
Quest Overview
Exterior: landing pad
1. Arrival: Land at the excavation site, meet the quest giver, and follow the tents to the employee office.
2. Power Crisis: Witness a confrontation between the Merchant E and Secretary J, then receive the objective to restore power to the mine.
Exterior: Office
3. Power Cell Tutorial: Retrieve the first Power Cell from the research lab and learn how to use it from the engineer.
4. Mine Access: Power the communications room, obtain a second cell from an NPC, and use both cells to enter the mine.
5. Interior Space 1: Defeat enemies, solve a Power Cell puzzle, and use five cells to restore the control room and unlock the next area.
6. Interior Space 2: Survive a larger encounter, recover four additional cells, and solve the nine-cell puzzle to restore the mine’s main power.
7. Final Choice: Decide whether to activate the Signal-Shield Tower, choosing between reconnecting the workers with their families or increasing the mine’s profits.
8. Consequences: Clear the remaining pirates and witness the outcome: families return if the tower remains offline, while activating it leads to fewer pirate raids.
Design Goals
Narrative &
Quest Design
Character Perspectives & Conflict
Information Pacing
Dialogue Branch
Gameplay &
Puzzle Design
Reusable Power Cell System
Skill Teaching & Progression
Spatial Puzzle Progression
Conveyance &
Feedback
Different Room's Purpose
Interaction Readability
Power-State Feedback
Narrative & Quest Design
The player accepts a quest to restore power to a damaged mine and drive out the invading pirates, but discovers that keeping the Duskridge site hidden requires a signal-shielding tower that forces its workers to sacrifice personal connections and physical well-being. The quest culminates in a meaningful choice between financial security and human well-being, asking what is truly worth treasuring, and either outcome shapes the settlement’s future.
>Character Perspectives & Conflict
The central conflict is not between a clearly good or evil side, but between two competing visions for the workers’ future: preserving their personal connections or improving their financial stability.
Conflict
Keep Tower Offline
Activate the Tower
Benefits
Family visits
Better physical health
Higher earnings
Fewer pirate raids
Costs
Lower income
Recurring pirate raids
Little family contact
Radiation exposure
Character
Juliette Raines
Secretary
Edgar Moreau
Merchant
Henry Thompson
Engineer
Gerrit Hale
Miner
Jake Virell
Docter
Personality
Boldness and determination
Ambitious and pragmatic
Timid and anxious
Forthright
Responsible and empathetic
Perspective
Needs money for her daughter’s treatment, but can no longer accept separation from her family
Prioritizes profit and believes higher earnings justify reduced welfare
Prioritizes immediate safety and fears the pirates
Depends on the income to support her family
Understands both positions and believes neither option fully protects the workers
>Information Pacing
The quest separates essential Story Information from optional Supporting Information to keep the narrative easy for players to understand. Story Information communicates the core conflict and objectives, while Supporting Information is delivered through optional dialogue branches or character-specific NPC dialogue to answer questions players may naturally have.
>Dialogue Branch
Dialogue branches reveal key information through natural, character-driven conversations, allowing players to connect the clues and reach the intended conclusions through their own reasoning.
Clear Primary Option
The first dialogue option always provides the fastest path to essential quest information and moves the conversation forward.
Short and Neutral Player Responses
Player responses are kept short, neutral, and intention-focused, avoiding emotionally loaded language or designer-imposed opinions.
Optional Questions
Additional branches address likely player questions and provide supporting information.
Gameplay & Puzzle Design
Starfield’s base Power Cell system does not allow inserted cells to be removed. I redesigned it as a reusable resource puzzle, allowing players to retrieve and redistribute cells across increasingly larger challenges.
I later realized the original restriction likely protects an open-world quest structure from sequence breaks and showstoppers, so my version includes safeguards against those same risks.
>Reusable Power Cell System
Collect
Each Power Cell can be inserted into a slot to power linked devices, then removed and carried to another location. This creates a simple interaction loop: collect, insert, retrieve, turning Power Cells from one-way keys into reallocatable resources. This interaction loop enables the multi-slot puzzle: players must gather and distribute enough cells across all connected receptacles to complete the power circuit and open the linked door.
Insert
Retrive
>Skill Teaching & Progression
>Spatial Puzzle Progression
Conveyance & Feedback
>Different Room's Purpose
>Interaction Readability
>Power-State Feedback
What Went Well?
1. Improving the flow of the level.
2. Getting the battery mechanic to
work smoothly.
3. Narratively, I improved the story pacing compared to earlier versions.
What Went Wrong?
1. I didn’t define the core gameplay and flow early in the process.
2. The uncertainty around whether the battery mechanic could be implemented.
3. The pacing of the narrative was also difficult to manage.
4. The space in some rooms was too large and hard to decorate.
What I Learned?
1. I learned the importance of locking down core gameplay mechanics and level flow early in development.
2. In terms of narrative design, I learned that branching dialogue requires a strong structure and clear player intention.
3. I also learned that time management between different parts of the level
Postmortem