Michael Feffer
Game Designer
The Stolen Sweetroll
Summary
Game: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Engine: Creation Kit
Development Time: 200 hours
Downloads
Level Overview
"The Stolen Sweetroll" is a comedic, single player level for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The level consists of a new interior and exterior area, new characters, new spells, and two new quests.
In the main quest, “Sticky Fingers”, players search for clues and catch the thief who stole an aristocrats prized sweetroll. In the side quest, “Trail of Crumbs”, players use new detective spells to find the missing sweetroll.
Scripting
Quests
One of the main goals was open quests, in which objects may be completed in any order.
The quest system in Creation Kit uses sequences of stages, which made implementing my goal of open quest a challenge. I solved this by separating parts of the quest that may be completed in any order into separate, hidden quests. Additionally, a lot of the logic for quest completion was externalized to a papyrus script.
AI
The AI is my level is actually quite simple, although I ran into some problems. The biggest problem was NPC forgiveness; if a player attacked an NPC before completing the quest, the NPC would attack the player and never stop. During one test, an NPC chased me out of the mansion, through the estate, and into the original game world, only stopping when I turned off targeting.
I made the NPCs immortal for the duration of the quest, which meant they would never stop attacking the player. It was taking too long to find a fix already implemented in Skyrim, so I decided to make a script to remedy the issue.
My script uses a timer that determines when to make the NPC stop attacking. Every time the player hits an NPC, that NPC's timer increases, so it will continue to fight back until the player stops attacking. The script also checks what faction the NPC is in so that during the quest finale, the NPC that the player fights is removed from the quest faction and the script will no longer calm him down.
Design
Design Goals
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Non-linear quest progression - Players can find and follow up on clues in any order. There are also 2 endings to the main quest: accusing the thief and accusing the wrong person.
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Investigation gameplay - A majority of the gameplay is finding clues, talking to NPCs, and connecting the dots. The only combat is at the very end of the main quest.
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Humor - The idea of this project came from the line in Skyrim, "Let me guess, someone stole your sweetroll." The main quest revolves around a actual, high-profile sweetroll theft. The rest of level had to suitably reflect this silly premise. I incorporated humorous elements into all parts of the level.
Interactive Maps
Click on sections of the map for more information
