Skyrim Mods
Frostwater Village
Collaborative modding project alongside 4 other designers. Built over 6 weeks. Adds a new village to the game alongside a multi-quest storyline.
You can see just the quest I worked on to the right.
Key Contributions
Owned the level design, set-dressing, and puzzle scripting for the Warmair Mines level. (excluding the lava area & mine exterior).
Created an overall mod content treatment to pitch the story and gameplay flow, this was combined with other pitches to create the first plans for the project.
Built with Skyrim Creation Kit, using GitHub & Dropbox as version control.
Warmair Mines
In order to build the village, the citizens of Frostwater need stone and precious ores. A nearby mine contains all they need but it’s been occupied by Skooma dealers with personal connections to the town. The Dragonborn must visit the mines and find a way win over the Skooma dealers so the town can use it resources.
Before
Puzzle Breakdown
For this puzzle I did the following
- Overall puzzle / level design
- Scripted the level and gameplay logic in Papyrus
In order to escape the ruins and re-enter the mines, the player must solve open the door by solving the puzzle.
The puzzle centers around finding the correct combination of 4 levers to pull. Pulling a 5th separate lever is the sort of 'answer check'.
Any incorrect combination of levers flips them back to the start.
In order the find the combination, the player reads a note that hints at ingesting the mine specific skooma.
Once they do, special markings on the levers reveal themselves, noting which levers to pull.
After
Implementation
This entailed creating a new skooma object that applied a magical effect to the player when consumed.
The magical effect runs a custom papyrus script that applies the onscreen effects and if in the correct location / quest stage reveals the glowing lever markings.
I wanted a relatively simple puzzle whose solution wasn’t found in normal Skyrim gameplay. Not another 3 pillar symbol puzzle for example. I think this accomplishes that goal.
Level Iteration 1
The first iteration of the mine was a simple blockout with a few key goals:
Create a believable space for the dealers to operate out of.
Contain a ‘one way valve’ for the players to return to.
Contain a hole / pit for the players to jump into in order to rescue some lost skooma.
Level Iteration 2
The 2nd iteration was focused on world building / set dressing. Building up details to make the space feel more lived in. I pushed the set dressing even further for the final version.
I made sure to create an interesting blockout for the set dressing to build on by:
Having multiple changes in elevation.
Breaking up the cube-like blockout and adding a more organic feel by adding large rocks, pillars and other objs.
Level Iteration 3
The 3rd iteration was focused on adding a dwemer themed puzzle to the area. As development progressed, we ended up needing to add a puzzle to this level.
I wanted a puzzle that worked with the Skooma dealer theme and used the Dwemer aspect of the area the player returns from.
After a bit of brainstorming we settled on a puzzle that the player could only be solved by taking the mine-specific brand of skooma.
About the mod
A group of refugees contact the Dragonborn for help. They need help building up their village. They’re Increasingly targeted by the nearby city of Windhelm & it’s Stormcloak army. The Dragonborn will help build up the village, learn about it’s people, and defend it from Stormcloak extremists.
