Overview
Engine: Creation Kit
Game: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Development Time: 157 Hours

"The Bootleg Bandits" Design Goals (Creation Kit)

  • Created a unique area within the Skyrim universe that plays like an expansion with new NPCs, areas to explore, and unique items. 
  • Created a main quest with two different endings that trigger based on dialogue and player choices
  • Created side quests for players to learn more about the lore of the area and its NPCs
  • Used world building to create a unique area that exists within Skyrim that contains a snowy village settled next to a peculiar cave with a lush oasis and vegetation inside ​

"The Bootleg Bandits" Endings

Siding with the Don Guillermo
  • This is considered the evil ending since the player is helping bandits with their drug operation. 
  • This ending was tough to balance since spriggans are difficult enemies and can kill low level characters easily.
    • To balance this, I  made sure the spriggan enemies were a low level enemy and reduced their health. 
    • I could not get rid of the spriggan's health regeneration ability so I designed the side quest to give the player an ax to help them; however, this did not help the players who skipped the sidequest.
  • This quest is tough for stealthy players since Gaea becomes hostile after the dialogue, but I allow the players to kill Gaea without having to talk to her first. 
Siding with Gaea
  • This is considered the good ending because you are destroying the evil bandits and helping the peaceful spriggans. 
  • I had a few issues balancing the quest initially since the spriggans I spawned killed all the bandits before the player could. I reduced the number of spriggans at the final battle and removed the ones I spawned inside the cave so that the player could participate in the battles more. 
  • Players usually missed out on the reward at the end of the quest because it required them to find it in a locked chest in Don Guillermo's house. The key is on Guillermo's dead body, but many players missed it when looting his body. I tried to encourage players to loot the body and houses with Gaea's dialogue at the end of the quest. 

Scarlet's Side Quest

"Scarlet the Spriggan Slayer" is a side-quest the player picks up after leaving  Crums's house for the first time. During the quest, the player recieves the Spriggan Bane ax, which deals bonus damage to spriggans. 
  •  A scripted sequence introduces Scarlet to the player when she kills a spriggan outside of Crum's house.
  • Player can get Spriggan Bane by killing Scarlet or by finding four Black Briar Reserve bottles, which can be found throughout the cove. 
  • Scarlet loans the ax. The player must return it after completing the main quest.
  • I wanted to leave the quest ending up to the player. The player can:
    • Kill scarlet and keep the ax,
    • Return the ax, or
    • Ignore the quest and keep the ax
  • Scarlet's quest changed during development to help players gain an edge against the spriggan enemies. 
  • I wanted the player to approach the quest their own way allowing them to kill her at any time for the ax. 
  • The reward for not killing her and completing the quest is that she hints at future quests and rewards. 

Explorable Areas

  • The Beach is located below the small cliff from the village creating a beautiful view. 
    • Makes the cove more immersive by showing the player how isolated the cove is.
    • Player's exploration is rewarded with a few side quest items. 
    • This area connects the Bootleg Bandit Cove to Skyrim.
  • Scarlet and Crum's houses contain items important to each NPC, which the player can steal.
    • Crum's house contains Skooma and empty Skoomashine bottles to suggest drinks what he sells. 
    • Crums's house house lacks a lot of furniture since he is not wealthy.
    • Scarlet's house has a collection of Taproots since she hunts spriggans. 
  • The Pub is the bandit's mess hall where they eat and drink. it is also where Scarlet's henchmen live.

Postmortem

What Went Well
  • Creating two unique ending with different battles was a success. 
  • Players explored the area just as I hoped.
  • The side quest was successful in that players used the quest in order to obtain an ax to make fighting spriggans easier.  
  • Play tests where the best way to receive feedback to improve the level's design. 
What Went Wrong
  • Quest alias broke before gameplay milestone causing me to miss out on feedback.
  • Unable to implement all optional quests because of time crunch
  • It was difficult thinking of every edge case for the player's actions. Many times players broke my quest by doing things that I did not expect them to do. 
  • Ran out of time to fix all bugs because the project was poorly scoped. At the time, I couldn't adequately predict how long each task would take me to complete. 
  • Spriggans  were way too hard for new players even with the lowest leveled actors and reduced help. To make the combat with spriggans easier, I deleted some and created an optional quest for the player to pick up a weapon that deals bonus damage to spriggans. 
What I Learned
  • Creating unique environment using Skyrim assets by using creation kit's terrain system and placing meshes to create the landscape. 
  • Learned how to script and debug papyrus code. 
  • Learned how to create quest dialogue and events using quest stages.
  • I am able to think more critically about quest for Skyrim and thinking of all possible ways players can break the quest. 
  • Learned to scope projects better and understand my limits. 
  • Have a deeper understanding how to guide the player throughout the level and effectively communicated to the player what they should be doing.