The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Monthly Modder: Dafydd1
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Modder Dafydd1 discusses making puzzles that are meaningful, challenging and accessible for Skyrim.
This month’s Featured Mods look at puzzles and we wanted to talk to one of these authors about their process. Sometimes mod authors want their content to be available to a wide range of players, while others focus on a niche play style. Striking the right balance can be tricky, especially when introducing new functions to the player.
Dafydd1’s mod The Dark And The Light (PC, Xbox, Nexus) contains a huge assortment of puzzles.
The Dark and The Light has a wide range of puzzles that really push the bounds of the Creation Kit and the game itself. How did you go about designing these?
Back in the 80s I used to write BASIC games on 8-bit machines and publish the listings in magazines. During long car journeys I'd take a notepad and graph paper and sketch out graphics, levels and ideas and once home I’d figure out how to code them. And now – well, other than the journeys being on London Underground – little has changed! The Dark and The Light was my first mod, so I was learning from online tutorials as I went, and this gave me inspiration too. If I can do this, why not this? As a result, many puzzles have been reviewed and improved as I learned more.
Fortunately, for almost any idea I had, there was an example of how the interaction could work within the Skyrim game itself or at least a good place to start from. Good puzzle design is surprisingly hard – not just the concept and technical implementation, but also judging the difficulty to give a good level of entertainment to the players. It's a little like a crossword clue – some people will get it straight away, so no real challenge, and others won't ever get it. The trick is to get them in that sweet spot of being intrigued enough to scratch their heads for a while without getting fed up, before the penny drops and they progress. And if they have to seek help, they think, "Of course, that makes perfect sense! Why didn't I think of that?"
Once designed, how did you go about introducing all of these new functions to players?
The puzzles are notably different to ones from the original game, even when they use similar resources, and mostly more challenging. As such players can need more guidance to work out what to do. In almost all cases I’ve provided several different hints (eg on a readable plaque, a loose note, markings on the wall, or even hidden in the design of the puzzle itself) and an amulet also verbalizes additional clues when entering certain zones. Limiting the options of what a player can do at a certain point should also herd them into the right path!
What was it like utilizing existing Skyrim mechanics, like spells?
Using telekinesis to solve a puzzle was novel. Skyrim includes this unique spell, but it wasn’t core to any events. In TDATL you use the spell to lift flasks off pressure plates in the correct order. It only works because there's a grill in the way to stop the player from collecting the bottles and a 'reset' button to put them back in their original places, so when these kind of existing mechanics are used in new ways you need to limit their use a little so the puzzle can’t be broken.
Are there any puzzles you had to scrap after playtesting them?
Any ideas that didn't work out I kept hammering at until they became something I thought was fun so I rarely gave up on one. However, I did have to abandon a corridor trap that was to have wooden spikes rise out of the ground like a wave racing towards the player - I couldn't get the tips to cause damage as they made contact. I also had the idea of taking a miniature Shalidar's maze and using it as a “ball-in-a-maze puzzle” with tilt controls, but didn’t find the result reliable enough. The biggest thing I removed however wasn't a puzzle, but a moveable Dwemer home called The Sidrat. It was to have been the final reward for completing the mod, but I thought it might have broader appeal so I span it off into a separate mod of its own.
Without giving too much away, any puzzles you’re especially proud of?
I think “The Archery Cup” works well - I made archery targets and combined them with a new numeral system so you can see scores and timers. This proved versatile, so there are five different games you can play with four levels of difficulty. “The Traveler’s Map,” because it challenges the player’s knowledge of Skyrim. And “The Contraption Maze,” in which you push a ball around a vertical maze by operating pistons. It makes good use of the physics engine in a way I hadn't seen before.
What is your favorite part of modding?
Honestly, it's the helpful mod community and hearing from players. Every now and again you get a message from someone so enthusiastic about what you've made it makes it all worthwhile. It’s only then you can really discover what's enjoyable, what people have got stuck on, and whether the "scary bit" really was scary. Mod makers don't have access to Achievements, which are a great method of feedback for games companies, so I created The Dark Points system which gives you a score when you've completed the mod - and a web-based "Oracle" that allows completionists to type in a code specific to their playthrough for hints and tips for the things they missed.
Other than your own, any mods you'd like to recommend?
I tend to focus on my own mods rather than others, so sometimes I've reinvented ideas others have already come up with without even realizing. That said I’ve enjoyed the classics:
- Legend of the Dragonborn (Nexus)
- Clockwork (PC, Xbox, Nexus)
- Wintersun (PC, Xbox, Nexus)
- Forgotten City (PC, Xbox, Nexus)
- Wearable Lanterns (useful for TDATL!) (PC, Xbox, Nexus)
- Inigo (PC, Xbox, Nexus)
Always keen to hear about more puzzle ones though!
