Quest ReQuest: Quiz Quest

Today's quest is one my my biggest ones! In fact, outside of Dutch Quest and the Sorrowlad series, it is the biggest one!

It's Quiz Quest! A pretty early creation of mine, which basically kickstarted the whole 'quests based around weird concepts' thing after I liked Psychology Quest enough to carry it on. The concept of this one is a quiz! The protagonist is summoned to a rather weird setting and has to answer a series of 27 questions. It's weird, and not at all the sort of thing the engine was intended for, but I managed to make it work somehow!

Since the recording is so long, I'll be using timestamps to mention noteworthy stuff. I'm not expecting people to sit through 60 minutes of this, but it is 60 minutes filled with content! I'm surprised I didn't fail more of the questions, really!

Iknight Bright is a weird character! For one, the name's supposed to sound more like "Ignite Bright" than "I-Knight Bright"! I suppose in general he's supposed to be rather pompous and arrogant, but he also does know his stuff so it's not like it's just pure bluster like most of my boisterous characters behave. He's also surprisingly non-sexual, but will use cheeky flirting to annoy the villain and reacts to oddly sexual NPCs with curiosity or exasperation rather than excitement. It was fun to write him, even if he doesn't feel quite as flashy or extremely defined as someone like say Ingrid or Denarius is. Oh, we'll get to those two.

Wow, it;s Qorgan Qreeman!!

At around 3:44 I actually reference all the six Barbari races it seems! Of course only three of them are actually available in the game in its current form! I wound up relying a lot on Goblins and Ogres to substitute for the Fear, Destruction and Sorrow races. That's why most Ogres are Sorrow and most Goblins are either Fear or Destruction, even if they don't always really act like it! We might talk about that a bit more when we get to Globin''s character!

In the following conversation with EMPRESS GOREGONZOLA (I love that name!!) they actually talk about doing 30 multiple choice questions. I should have edited that to say 27, since there's just 27 questions!

At 4:55 the actual questions begin, I actually edited some of these after the game's release like 7 years back, because a lot of the questions were basically just trial and error! Usually this was by either changing the question outright, or by making the answer obvious from contextual clues. The 2+2 question was always meant to be an easy gimme though! The Egypt answer actually refers to a comment one of my Dutch teachers once made about 2+2=Egypt as an example of a nonsensical answer... It struck with me, clearly!

This room also contains the first SPECIAL CODE! It's 8663! We'll be seeing more of these codes, and they are the bases for one of the quiz questions. The numbers actually reference my usernumbers on Fig Hunter, the new Fig Hunter, Introverse and Alora Fane, if I recall correctly!

At 5:41 you can also see the penalty for failing, an instant game over! Originally the announcer's AI was not so aggressive, but I agreed with criticism that it was pointless to drag out being wrong and having to start over!

Every wrong answer has a battle trigger like this!
Depending on the nature of the mistake it triggers one of several dialogues!

At 6:48 we get to the first instance of random out of nowhere sexual content!! The sign in the room also explains, rather poorly, why there's healing crystals all over the place! This is also a reference to Sorrowlad, as one of the episodes in that series was about the town being flooded with healing crystals from the same company! That was actually meant to tie into like the OVERARCHING ANTAGONIST'S PLOT!! Well, like, it was gonna be retconned to be part of it, not like intended to be from the start!

This room's meant to look like Iknight's face!!

At 8:10 we come to the first BOSS QUESTION. This was the first one I edited, the original didn't have joke answers. This question is terrible!! It's vague and nonsensical, and the whole cucumber thing is weird. Was it just an innuendo? It should have been about cheese at least to be relevant to the setting! Sloppy!

This bit's also preceded by some blabber with Goregonzola. I like how she appears in every boss room and has her own consistent theme music! She's not quite threatening enough to warrant the Omnicidal track, but I'll chalk it up to ironic use of the theme! 

The rest rooms have a lot of dumb NPC banter! They offer potentially useful clues, lore bits and sometimes crucial items though. At 10:07 they quickly introduce themselves. I don't get what the point was of those two first who are doing some sort of FOREPLAY ROLEPLAY? Weird!

Whomham Disi is an amazing character though! Like there's a complete utter non-sequitur character if there ever was one, her dialogue still makes me laugh! The Dragon and Goblin are rather amusing too. The Dragon one is a rather thinly veiled and somewhat emberassing jab at a series of quests made by the engine's creator, the fourth of which (which was never actually released) was to be about a dragon misfit living in a village of unemphatic Goblins. Rather mean-spirited of me, I felt strongly about it at the time, but it just comes across as petty! 

The Goblin is also a reference!! It references a certain comic at the time, Catharsis. It featured a character decapitating a Goblin, then some other character runs along naked and the first character gets offended. DOUBLE STANDARDS AM I RIGHT?! I felt bad for that Goblin, so I put her in this quest and made her survive being decapitated! She also got eaten by the dragon, for reasons?? Weird, but kinda amusing! Also a bit petty! These quests really are time capsules of some sort.

The Goblin design is so cute!
I think AF:C started my GOBLIN OBSESSION!

At 14:05 there's an annoying counting puzzle! I put too many stupid math puzzles in the early parts! The coin one of the NPCs gives actually contains the hint to solve this, but brute forcing the puzzle is honestly quicker than solving it! There's also a secret 6 in this room, part of the password!

The dragon at 15:25 is super sexual again! The hint here is in her use of punctuation, she uses ellipses for three of the answers but exclamation marks for one of them. What a silly character though! I think this joke works better than the previous sexual jokes though, because at least it's consistent and the announcer gets to lament having to say out the answers! It's the only time he uses an emotion, actually! He's probably the only character I've made who regularly does not have associated emotions in his speech bubbles! 

At 16:27, there's the MEATHEAD!! This is like a super old in-joke between my and my brother. We used to play this crappy MMORPG-like game called Sherwood Forest or something and there was some NPC skeleton who boasted having "the biggest arms in the world". Silly! Skeletons don't have any muscle mass! I put this in as sort of an homage to that! The fourth answer also misspells Goregonzola's name as Goreganzola! Maybe that was intentional though, to clear up the ambiguity of what the answer is meant to be?

I like the visuals of this room! Big crystal made up of small ones!
The question is boring though, I'm skipping it!
Originally it just asked to count the crystals.
Now it's a Sorrowlad reference question.

From 18:25 onward there's a bunch of plot stuff going on! It's probably rather hard to follow though, due to the messy writing! The idea is that the restaurant is TERRIBLE and used to serve all sorts of BAD CHEESE products, which Iknight reported the place for which got it shut down. This was also when the Queen ate there and the BAD CHEESE transformed her into the Empress? It's strange and confusing really, since it implies a backstory between these characters that I'd clearly not intended when I started making this quest!

At 21:12 there's some more NPC banter! I like the two gossiping Goblins, it's a funny sequence. The hero they're talking about is supposed to be Bellestrella, who appears later on in the quest. I'll talk more about her when I get there!

Yes

There's this Goblin Shaman who references Shammama and Shamander, I think those are NPCs from DESTINY OF ATHROS, which was the first quest I made. It's kinda rubbish, but it featured Denarius Athros, who was a common recurring character in my Quest quests. There's a whole tribe of these Shammy Shamans, and Athros is the strongest among them, I think. The Chiefmayor thing is a reference to the Mayor character from Sorrowlad!! It seems I'd already made that back when I first released this.

Oh dear

There's also the Goblinkin character. Some of that dialogue certainly is very close to being ALLEGORICAL. I don't think it was meant to be allegorical though I would certainly write this different now than I did when I first released this! At least Iknight seems supportive enough. This was just another dig at that quest about the dragon living alongside the Goblins! Rather than not liking it, the Dragon actually wishes to be fully Goblin instead. Apparently Dragons and Goblins can conceive children in this setting! So I'll leave the image of a Goblin and Dragon having sex up to the reader. 

I also like the visuals here! This bit of the mountain is vaguely meant to look like a flower, and the bits with the chests are like the petals or leaves... Well, maybe it's not that clear, but it's why the room is so oddly structured! Some of these rooms I got rather creative with. 

Another password: 25

This character at 24:50 is a random reference to Björk Guðmundsdóttir?! How weird! I suppose this as back when a certain YTP came out which featured her, so I stuck her in here as a Goblin! This question was another one I altered, the original requires knowledge of her real surname, that's stupid! The new version had her use a tilde after every sentence, and the correct answer was the only one with a tilde. And speaking of Björk...

Another randomly sexual gay goblin!
HELL YES

This room is weird! It has two questions in it, questions 10 and 11! But question 10 is a stupid non-question! I suppose I added these to mix things up more than because I ran out. Gotta keep things interesting! The other one asks about Goblins that are helpful like signs, those are Signsage Goblins yes! A reference to Signacious Signod from Sorrowlad. A character I totally forgot about until some days ago! He was very minor, I suppose.

Tedious!

I couldn't fit in this dumb maze if I'd also had to put in an NPC, so hence why there's two questions in a row. The room name rather amuses me. It turns out this stupid maze just exists for Iknight to collect a tiny bud coin, but to get it he also needs to spend the far more valuable coins. It's meant to be a gag and I suppose it's a breather from all the questions, but I can easily see people forget which answer to take here!

This rooms looks pleasant!

The room at 28:18 actually contains a secret path to the previous room's sign. I only put these signs into the game after writing most of the final scene, it's tacky writing! I'd do that differently! The question in this room is possibly the most evil if you don't want to just trial and error! It requires counting all the pebbles in the first three mountain rooms! I of course had to count them myself, and it's 121 tiles with 4 pebbles each, so 484. I actually remember that one by heart since it's 22*22, so getting it wrong like I did is stupid! 

At 29:55 there's some more Goregonzola banter, and OBJECTS HIDDEN BEHIND TREES! Since these tree objects occupy 1*3 tiles but are very tall, it's possible to hide objects behind them! I really like this prop as a result. It makes forest maps very interesting to put together, and some of my favourite AFC maps are in the forest tileset as a result. 

Irrelevant Maze from "EVIL Quest"

Starting screen from "Level Zero"

The question in this room is rubbish though! I had to trial and error this! Is this a reference to something? Perhaps some in-joke we had at the time, but I should have altered this to give a contextual clue! 

The room at 30:05 has more NPCs again! This is supposed to be some sort of cultish place of worship for the Empress. I assume this was either built recently, or it used to be some sort of generic cheese temple of sorts! The NPCs are amusingly simple for once, try finding all the mistakes in the one ranting about the empress! The levitating one is joking about the ohm phrase by putting it into the context of electrical resistance instead of extrasensory abilities. Very amusing, yes, heehee haha!!

It also introduces Glee Bliss! Not related to Hugh Bliss from Sam & Max, though their demeanor is very similar! He uses what I refer to as the 'blissfaces', these pale yellow/beige-ish faces that all seem to convey a sense of uneasy peace and tranquility. I use it for several characters in other quests too, and they're all rather offputting people!

The questions inside the temple themselves aren't too interesting! The first one has some references in the answers, the second is a call-back to the two priests at the start of the game (it was fun making up the fake names!) and the third is a reference to Dutch Quest. It was originally something else, because I know I released Dutch Quest way after Quiz Quest! I'm not sure who the Heh character is meant to be though, he and Iknight are just inexplicably familiar!

Triggers!

The big gimmick here are SPECIAL RULES! These three rooms all have a rule, like don't step on the grass, follow the flowers and a mixture of the rules! The way I did this was to literally just put triggers all over the place so you'd get instagibbed by the Narrator if you disobey! Very hokey, but it works!

You can easily shortcut through this room!
Also, a hidden 2!

I wonder whether I could've made a better rule for this one.

Things get more interesting again at 40:00, the question in this room is just to follow the NPC, so it's easy so long as you paid attention. This also makes this the only question you can't ask the NPC to repeat! The next room contains some more exposition, and set-up for the messy finale. Empress Goregonzola drops some cheese for whatever reason, very convenient! She drops two pieces of cheese, one to open the lock so the player has to see this scene to progress and a second piece to be used during the climax. The question itself is rather confusing though, one'd think Cheese and Iknight would be more sensible picks than Queen! I chalk this confusion up to my failure to properly convey this in the prior writing.

At 43:18, Iknight meets some familiar and unfamiliar faces! The two characters on the left are Rey Alph and Denarius Athros, protagonists of Hotel Quest and DESTINY OF ATHROS respectively. These quests are both rather bad and not worth examining, but Denarius will appear in other quests since he's a favourite of mine whereas Rey Alph makes a large cameo in Honeymoon Quest and a silent and very brief cameo in a Sorrowlad quest. 

Bellestrella and her entourage were going to be important characters in Sorrowlad! In particular, Bellestrella is Hellestrella's much more successful and accomplished sister! She was going to have offscreen dialogue in Kitty Sitting, appear more prominently in the Art Gallery and feature significantly in the Town Hall episode and onwards. She also has Lovrette by her side, who was going to tie in with the Ghouliette subplot. There's also Sombra. I don't remember what her deal was at all! Maybe she was going to tie in with the whole Narrator/Player/Aunt Gertrude trifecta?

I should note that my plans for these three have been subject to change though, I might very well have cut out Sombra and Lovrette since the former is superfluous and the latter's role could be more meaningfully served by Ghouliette's friend group. Bellestrella was also going to be a much more serious characters instead of the zany hero she is here! Either her attitude was going to just be a font or I was going to retcon it altogether come Sorrowlad IX. 

DEATH

At 46:32, there's another Hotel Quest cameo! She used to be the BOTANIST OF DOOM back in that game, but now she's the clearly different FLORIST OF BLOOM!! Just like in Hotel Quest, she is hidden away behind two locks requiring Life Petals! The Petalier of Room line is a good one, I didn't intend to ever follow up on that, but I think I should definitely have put an NPC with that name in a quest at some point! Perhaps she could have helped out with the interior design of the Blissvale Art Gallery... The fourth answer references "Grapple", "Ju-Dorange" and "Pomegrenade", which were stupid ideas I had for Miasmon! Grapple was an apple specializing in grapple attacks, Ju-Dorange was an orange specializing in Ju-Do and Pomegrenade was a pomegranate grenadier. 

At 47:36 there's a sign that contains a hint about the final question. The room also contains the second Goblinkin dragon. Maybe if they fuse they can become 100% Goblin?! The question here is rather amusing at least, just because the name of the Goblin Mountain Village is spelled so ridiculously!

48:50 features the return of  the Narrator from Psychology "Quest"! Iknight doesn't fall for their usual nonsense babbling though, and the Announcer is rather annoyed as well as there's no need for both an announcer and a narrator. In the end any route is safe. The top half of the room is garbled on purpose! I don't remember what the purpose is though!!

Nani

The next room features me! Funny how my speech patterns have changed since then... I like that silly scene where I make Iknight undress and say something stupid in the middle of the heart-shaped pond! This is also where the passcode comes in! I believe the original version was much harder and the passcodes were more similar, in this version they're all totally different, so even knowing one part is enough to solve the question.

The room at 51:00 has some spooky ambiance! Totally silent! Sometimes the most proper choice of music is no music at all. The question here makes no sense though, or rather, the answer that's correct makes no sense! I really messed up here, hence why I fail a few times! This is also the point where I was somewhat running out of steam, but of course I CLEVERLY made it so it was the Empress who was running out of steam instead... Why did she make this quiz anyway?!

>:]

This is where the 'boss rush' happens, though it's more like a boss questions rush! The question in this room is a rather tricky one, it's "what is this question's number"! One might think it'd be 25, assuming there's 6 sets of 5 questions, but there's actually two less questions than that because the first section only has 3 questions!

There were actually meant to be no crystals during this entire segment, but I realized it would be tedious to sit through cutscenes all the time, so I added one anyway. But then I forgot to alter the dialogue saying there's no crystals. Whoops!

At 54:10 the scene is suddenly outdoors again, and you need to enter one of four restaurants, even though it leads into the castle! The question here is a bit of a silly one, Gheffrey DX what Iknight thinks is the right answer, rather than asking for the right answer, which would imply any answer Iknight earnestly picks thinking it's correct would be the right answer! So much for a boss rush! This silly trick is actually ripped pretty much directly from Telepath RPG 2, where the protagonist can reason their way out of a conman's shell game using the same logic.

I should also comment that the portrait and sprite don't match up properly!
The portrait is correct while the sprite is wrong!
Iknight and Icky aren't supposed to be bald but have very short hair!
This same issue happens in reverse with Minori in Sorrowlad, who's meant to be bald!

The next two rooms basically function as a trick question! Gleeful Bliss states his question is the final one and has the final answer, and a simple one at that, does Iknight want an easy or difficult path? Both answers are correct! The next room then asks the question of WHY Iknight chose the path he chose. The trick here is that obviously it could be any answer, but Gleeful Bliss and a signpost earlier stated that the final answer was the final answer. Giving anymore answers therefore BREAKS THE RULES!! So, the solution is to abstain from giving any answer and walk the other way! Doing this triggers a suddenly sappy conversation where Iknight and Icky make amends. That story arc could have been fleshed out better! This trigger is also why entering the room triggers Iknight to walk up to his brother, the solution couldn't work otherwise! The wrong answer here also has a special dialogue, it's the only answer with a unique game over dialogue!

Anyway, I got help from a friend setting this scenario up! I do like it conceptually, the final solution is not to pick the correct answer but to not give an answer in the first place! It's interesting! The execution might not be flawless though, since the connection between the final question and breaking the rules for doing a question after that might be too vague!

AND NOW THE EPIC FINALE

The finale is really quite dumb!! The Announcer does some grandstanding and the Empress challenges Iknight to piece together her incredibly stupid backstory and plot!

I like this room's looks at least. Menacing!!
It also has the quest's only ogre! How odd!

Soooo... The conclusion. It starts at 58:46 and it goes on, and on, and on! When I first made this quest, I had to cut this dialogue up into several pieces because I kept hitting the dialogue limit! Hence the awkward pacing and the Announcer spawning in there!

Iknight basically ties together the Empress's plot and her transformation from the Queen into her current form, and it's weird and confusing! The whole cheese thing is very silly, and the basic gist just seems to come down to the Queen loving cheese so much she kept eating it despite getting a food poisoning, and it turned her evil because EVIL CHEESE!!! But Iknight fixes it with GOOD CHEESE which the Empress dropped but it was actually dropped by her GOOD SIDE the Queen who somehow still had that much control???

That makes... Sense? Sort of? Maybe? But it's really dumb and poorly conveyed! Still, it's a functional ending! There wasn't too much left for me to do, other than maybe totally alter this room into a sequence of multiple choice questions where the player needs to GIVE the answers before Iknight exposits! I'd have had to kinda finagle it though, as this was literally the only remaining map left to use, and I'd used up all plot states too!

I've used up everything!!

I had to use several other workarounds for things too! For example, the dialogues for the rest area NPCs and the questions are actually reused between areas! I made sure to end each chapter with a plot state advancing trigger, which is also why it's impossible to backtrack, as every NPC in every area changes their dialogue every chapter! This means the NPCs asking questions 1, 4, 9, 14, 19 and 24 all use the same script! 

It's hokey, but functional! It goes to show how even in the older days of the engine, where it was much more limited, it was possible to work around it with clever use of plot states! Still, I much prefer the current engine that has much more spaces for dialogues, props, NPCs and text boxes per dialogue!

All in all, I think Quiz Quest is decent. The mapmaking and writing is all over the place, and some areas and questions clearly got more love than others! I do think it has a certain appeal at least, if only just for the sheer novelty of using an RPG making toolkit to make a multiple choice quiz!

Oof, this blog is over 4,000 words long! And QQ isn't even my biggest quest! This took me entirely too long to write, doing this for all quests is not sustainable! Since I do want to continue this series, I'll experiment with the next quest and will try out live commentary. That might mean I'll put these out less consistently, since I don't want to do those when there's people around, and I will need to see whether I can even feasibly record audio, but hopefully I can get it to work!

Thanks to anyone who made it this far!! As a question, please tell me what question you like best or something. This is my way of knowing whether you read this part!!!