Starfield: Turing Complex

“Turing Complex” is a single-player custom quest in Starfield, set on Pluto, a low-gravity planet unsuitable for humans to survive. Pluto Research Lab specializes in pharmaceutical research that involves developing new medicines to help those inflicted with PRD, short for Plutonian Radiant Degeneration, a hard-to-cure disease. Their medical research has been quite successful, bringing the company that funds their research both fame and wealth, which in turn makes the environment of the lab and treatment of the lab workers better. However, a pirate attack suddenly strikes this quiet lab, so the player has been asked to intervene.

Engine: Starfield Creation Kit

Development: 4 months

Requirement: 15 minutes of gameplay

2 mutually exclusive impactful, morally gray endings that form an ethical dilemma

Design Goals

1. Use the 3-step teaching pattern to help players learn, reinforce, and expand on the theme of turret hacking
2. Progressively raise the required skill level to complete challenges to help players stay in the flow channel
3. Let players unravel a mystery through environmental storytelling and spatial progression

I first introduced the players to the mechanic of turret hacking in the exterior of the level. As soon as the first fight happens, pirates rush out from one of the houses in the town square area, naturally drawing the player's attention towards it, and the turret-controlling terminal is placed conveniently in front of that house.

This gameplay occurs two more times in the interior of the Pluto Research Lab, and the last hackable turret is placed in the central room of the research area. If the player successfully hacked the turret the first time they entered the room, their second fight in that same room will be significantly easier since that turret will be already on the player’s side, subtly rewarding them for correct behavior.

As soon as the player receives the quest, they are tasked with the job of helping clear out a pirate attack to Pluto Research Lab, but they are never clearly told the reason behind the attack until the very end. Having this mystery remains in the player’s mind is an intentional design decision that I made since I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag too early and lose player interest for the rest of the level.

Keeping the relationship between player skill level and challenge level in mind, I carefully manipulated the level of difficulty in “Turing Complex” to make sure that it is kept high enough so that the gameplay feels challenging but also manageable to not cause anxiety on the part of the player.

Postmortem

What went well

Managed the scope within reach, not too overwhelming but also meeting the minimum requirement of the project
Asked questions to stakeholders and classmates about things I don’t know how to implement
Took feedback from the stakeholder and implemented most if not all of them

What went wrong

Deviated too much from the original LDD, resulting in a lot of rework especially on the narrative part
Poor time management skills lead to not fully fleshed out levels, some critical aspect of the level hasn’t gone through multiple iterations
Unfamiliarity with the engine resulted in time being wasted in the process of trying to implement a function

What I learned

Giving more thought to the LDD in the Preproduction process is very important and avoids unnecessary rework
Working a little every day results in better productivity than trying to do everything on the weekend
Asking questions and reaching out to the professor about design changes never hurts!