Lordbound

About the Project

Lordbound is a massive Skyrim expansion mod that aims to add 30+ hours of quality Skyrim content in the form of new factions, lands, cities, dungeons, quests, dialogue, and loot. The team has had over 30 different members consisting of both industry professionals and industry aspirants. We are organized like a professional studio, and work like one, too.

Lordbound uses the Skyrim Creation Kit and existing Skyrim assets, as well as a few of our own custom made assets. We also use SVN for version control, and a few custom made tools to make life easier.

The project is currently still in development.

Media Coverage

My Role

I joined the team in 2018 as a Level Designer working on the Dungeon Team. I was put in charge of designing some of the mod’s “exploration dungeons,” meant as short experiences the player can enjoy at their own pace as they explore the world, unattached to any particular quest.

Looking to expand my design skillset, I moved to the World Team, where I worked on various exterior encounters, environments, and places of interest throughout our new worldspace.

Level Design

  • Idea Pitch
    • Based on the lore brief of the location I am assigned, I brainstorm a few possible designs and pitch them to the leads. We discuss and pick the best one.
  • First Layout
    • I build the first “blockout” in the editor, test it a bit, and send it off for feedback.
  • Gameplay Pass
    • I Iterate until the space feels good, then add the the necessary gameplay elements (enemies, puzzles, other functionality).
  • Lighting, Set Dressing, Optimization
    • After feedback and iteration on the gameplay, I add props and set dressing, loot, refine the basic lighting, place ambient sound markers, and optimize the level with room bounds and occlusion planes.
  • Merge
    • I send the files for merge, and my work gets added to the master file. Teammates will play the new content, give feedback, or report bugs to be fixed during the polish phase.

Encounter Design

  • Populating Levels
    • During the Gameplay Pass I add enemies, build navmesh, and hook up any patrol routes or interact markers I need.
  • Scripting AI Behavior
    • For specific encounters or boss fights, I will script additional gameplay elements (additional spawns, health threshold behavior, spells, or other effects).

Puzzle Design

  • Puzzle Outline
    • I like to start with a simple outline of the puzzle where I can see all of the elements and solution before I do any implementation.
  • Basic Implementation
    • Depending on the specific puzzle, I might create a mockup in a test environment first, then script and hook everything up before copying it over to the level and placing everything where it needs to go.

My Work

Dungeon Interiors

  • A short exploration dungeon hidden away in the swamps of the druadach valley. Meant to have a sort of “batcave” feel to it. Includes a combat challenge and a small traversal puzzle, this dungeon is full of environmental storytelling to hint at its true purpose in the game world.

World Locations

  • Area in the worldspace I designed. An old temple built into a cliffside mountain, becoming more perilous over time and abandoned by the monks who lived there. Features a combat zone, small dungeon exterior (tower), graveyard, and temple entrance.
  • I designed this combat area with multiple approaches in mind, knowing that Skyrim is a highly replayable game with multiple styles of play. I focused on ensuring that ranged, melee, and stealth combat techniques were all viable and fun ways to approach this encounter.
  • I also scripted a bit of combat behavior to make the fight feel unique, as well as scripted a special time of day based feature the player can use to enhance useful items, giving them a reason to return to this location.

Dungeon Exteriors

  • A dungeon exit location, meant to be a one way gated exit but still provide an engaging experience for players who stumble upon it before entering the dungeon. Occupied by a local bandit faction, includes a combat challenge with some treasure reward for completion.
  • I wanted to emphasize verticality in this area, to make combat encounters here a bit more engaging and make the area more interesting overall. Enemies are scattered around different heights, so players will have to be careful when taking on the fight head on.
  • This location was initially blocked out by me, then polished and set dressed by another member of the team.