Project type: Personal

Personal projects I’ve worked on.

Call Your Horse

Call Your Horse is a simple and lightweight mod that I made for personal use, and decided to share it with everyone! It lets you call your last-used, player-owned horse to your location – as long as you’re in Skyrim, and not in an interior.

Mod synopsis

Call Your Horse was the result of me re-playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim after many years. Many games I had played since that included horse riding had a feature that allowed the player to whistle to call their horse to the player’s location, and I found I was missing that feature in Skyrim.

As I tended to create larger quest and location based mods, I thought it would be a good opportunity to change gears and create a small, single-feature focused gameplay improvement mod instead.

Whilst there were other mods that fulfilled similar functions, there were none that matched the requirements I had set out:

  • Lightweight and modular, allowing it to work with horses added by other mods as well as official DLC without compatibility concerns
  • Immersive horse traversal – if the horse is within the player’s vision cone, having it path straight to the player. If the horse is out of sight or otherwise unloaded, perform a trigonometric function, placing it far behind the player and have it gallop towards it
  • Keeping it ‘real’ – rather than a spell that conjures the horse, have it be a traditional whistle

Overview of Work

  • Identified feature gap in the “market” for a horse calling feature
  • Planned out and implemented a modular and extensible framework for the horse whistle feature
  • Iterated on the mathematical function that found a clear area behind the player to teleport the horse to, as well as a failsafe in case the teleportation function failed
  • Worked with an audio designer to get 5 variants of a whistle audio asset to cut down on repetition

Platform: PC & Xbox, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Role: Designer and scripter
Duration: 2 Weeks
Tools Used: Creation Kit SDK, Sublime Text 3, Adobe Audition

America Rising – A Tale of the Enclave

Video by Ali Oram

You’ve woken up after 200 years of cryogenic preservation. The world you knew, the people you love, all replaced by a twisted and desolate wasteland. You then discover that there are others like you. Others working towards bringing back that world you lost. Is it all too good to be true?

Mod synopsis

A spiritual successor to my Fallout: New Vegas mod For The Enclave and my first Fallout 4 mod, America Rising – A Tale of the Enclave sees you work to rally the shattered remnants of the Enclave in a multi-hour adventure seamlessly integrated into Fallout 4. Currently, at Version 1.1.2, I’m working on a large update serving as the definitive version which will overhaul significant aspects of the story and gameplay as a whole. I regularly update the community via the mod’s file pages, and post large updates on my blog.

As the sole developer, I perform multiple roles on this project. Jumping between level design, mission and gameplay scripting and managing voice actors and actresses, it’s been a great way of keeping on top of my skills.

My favourite aspect of this project has without a doubt been the scripting. I set myself the challenge to implement some of the most complex functionality I’ve ever had in one of my projects, and I’m very pleased with the results. It’s led to me having robust quest functionality that can self-correct if the player completes actions in an unexpected order, allowed me to create even larger and more grandiose setpieces and even create a puzzle-minigame element that the player must complete to continue a quest. All the while I’ve been enforcing a strict scripting style guide on myself, and self-documenting all my scripts along the way. I’ve included a sample of the code corresponding to the puzzle on this page. Opening images in new tabs allows you to view them full-size.

Overview of Work

  • Design
    • Performed extensive pre-production designing an engaging main quest, as well as multiple side quests, characters, locations and encounters
    • Assembled over a dozen levels ranging from small interiors to vast exterior world spaces
    • Wrote hundreds of lines of dialogue
    • Implemented numerous custom art assets and audio effects
  • Scripting
    • Used Bethesda Game Studios proprietary Papyrus scripting language to implement numerous missions, encounters and gameplay systems
    • Created a modular and easily expandable wave survival codebase
    • Implemented various complex scenes and cinematics
  • Production
    • Managed a cast of 23 voice actors & created multiple voice-acting documents & scripts, offering direction

Platform: PC & Xbox, Fallout: 4
Role: Lead scripter, lead designer, producer
Duration: 6 Months
Tools Used: Creation Kit SDK, Sublime Text 3, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Audition

Credits

  • Art
    • Elizabeth Sharp for the majority of the custom textures
  • Marketing
    • Ali Oram for the trailer
  • Voice Acting
    • AliMackScot as General Russell Ward
    • Josef Boon as Staff Sergeant Toby
    • MaevesChild as Doctor Ellen Kane & Female Enclave Soldiers 1
    • Knight0mega as Female Enclave Soldiers 2
    • Nik Pedro Balson as Sergeant Peterson
    • RealWarhawk as Corporal Fitzpatrick
    • Elizabeth Sharp as Enclave Dispatcher, Female Enclave Technicians 2 & Female Enclave Scientists 2
    • InsomniaVA as Quartermaster Barratt
    • Mchenry as Doctor Dagless
    • NeverNotNinja as Male Enclave Officers 1
    • Oridaellin as Male Enclave Officers 2
    • K-athleen as Female Enclave Officers 1
    • Ali Oram as Brotherhood of Steel Soldier
    • Jenk City as Male Enclave Soldiers 1
    • Critikal Miss as Male Enclave Soldiers 2
    • LonnieIIV as Male Enclave Technicians 1
    • Cory as Male Enclave Technicians 2
    • Irusu as Female Enclave Technicians 1
    • Brad as Terrified Settler
    • PurpleCoffins as Vault Distress Beacon
    • Dead-Vo as Male Enclave Scientists 1
    • Fuya_Jo as Male Enclave Scientists 2
    • Livski as Female Enclave Scientists 1

For The Enclave

After the numerous defeats across all remaining fronts, the Enclave has fractured into their own splinter groups, with their own ideologies. Two factions are about to go head to head in the Mojave Wasteland, and General Jamison is turning to the Courier for help. Will they join the Enclave, or leave them to their fate?

Mod synopsis

For The Enclave was a mod project created prior to my formal education as a Game Designer for the game Fallout: New Vegas, born out of my passion to create new experiences for players. Developed as a hobby project over 3 years, after release it was covered on various gaming news sites such as PC Gamer and has been downloaded over 150,000 times.

In the mod, the player is recruited by the remnants of a faction from Fallout 2 – The Enclave, to save them from the brink of destruction and spearhead the reformation of their faction, all while defending against an autocratic, openly hostile faction.

Taking the player to various new handcrafted locations where they would experience dramatic scripted sequences and twists in the narrative, the experience of this project pushed my design and technical skills to new heights. 

Overview of Work

  • Scripting
    • Created a modular codebase to support various new features including a base-building system and inter-faction diplomacy
    • Scripted extensive quest-content and vehicle transport systems
  • Design
    • Designed and balanced new gameplay systems, such as the base-building system (Balancing costs of each base module, output of resources etc)
    • Assembled 39 levels
  • Production
    • Made use of the Art Pipeline to import dozens of new models and textures
    • Managed a cast of 19 voice actors

Platform: PC, Fallout: New Vegas
Role: Lead scripter, lead designer, narrative designer
Duration: 3+ Years
Tools Used: Custom Level Editor, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Audition