ABSTRACT
For a mobile game, every play session lives and dies on borrowed time—and the player must always feel it is worth the risk. Mobile game studios typically have a far smaller headcount compared to AAA game studios, and often cannot afford to differentiate between a designer and a writer. This chapter explores how to design good mobile game quests and how to write good mobile game quests. A quest is an objective given to the player that moves him or her through the game space via interactions with objects and/or nonplayer characters and/or systems in the game. While player character (PC) and console games assume the player is sitting in his own home with at least a few hours to sacrifice, mobile games are typically played under an entirely different set of circumstances. The App Store has seen an influx in both ported PC/console games and new mobile games that make the better hardware and longer play sessions.
