The developers of upcoming Skyrim total conversion Enderal: The Shards of Order have released a new trailer, showing off a location dubbed the Undercity.

I’m curious: just how does one acquire a Shard of Order? First you’d need to shatter an intangible concept, which seems like a lot of hard work, even for a fantasy big boss. Ordering a Shard seems a lot easier: you can just have one custom-made by any number of Skyrim merchants. Enderal, whoever you are – you have my number. Call me.

… [visit site to read more]

I have The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter installed on my PC and ready to go. But there’s something that’s been playing on my mind regarding that game before I’ve even booted it up. It’s been nagging at me ever since I watched a video from Andy Kelly’s Other Places series the one which focuses on Ethan Carter’s Red Creek Valley and it finally crystallised a problem I’ve been experiencing for years without being able to put it into words.

Just after a shot of a dam there’s a lingering shot of a churchyard. In the foreground a handless statue of Jesus marks the grave of a woman named Thusnelda. In the background the autumn trees sway in the breeze and the weed-infested grass well, I want to say that it sways but it’s a sway which comes via a clump-by-clump waggle. That grass is why I’m proposing there exists a foliage version of the uncanny valley.

… [visit site to read more]

There are lots of survival games, but there are also lots of games which >could be survival games with the right mods installed. Over the course of Survival Week we’ll highlight a few of those games and i)write a diary of our experience playing with it ii) explain how to do it yourself.>

I found Meeko sitting by the side of the road. He is one of Skyrim s shaggy, grey wolfhounds that look as old as they do stupid. He saw me, turned around and ran into the thicket. I followed him through the trees, where he led me to a run-down shack. I looked inside and there, lying still and grey on the shed s single rickety bed, was Meeko s owner. He was dead. The mongrel looked to me, blinked in the cold and seemed to whine. All right then, I thought, you can follow me. It was a decision I never came to regret. Later on, Meeko killed a lot of people for me.

But more importantly, Meeko kept me warm in Skyrim s deadly mountain passes. One of the mods I have installed is Frostfall, which gives the player a few extra things to worry about. Exposure can leave you freezing to death, while being wet means you succumb to the cold even faster. You have to keep yourself warm at fires and fill up on hot soups to keep your exposure meter from dropping too low. Once, I tried to swim across a small, icy river and before I could get a fire going on the opposite shore I passed out from hypothermia. I woke up in a familiar inn, penniless, frostbitten and with this note in my pocket.

… [visit site to read more]

There are lots of survival games, but there are also lots of games which >could be survival games with the right mods installed. Over the course of Survival Week we’ll highlight a few of those games and i) write a diary of our experience playing with it ii) explain how to do it yourself.>

You may have already read my Skyrim survival diary and if not, why not? It sees me struggling to ward off frostbite with wine and adopting the game s most lovable dog just to keep my feet warm. If you want to plod through the winter wastelands of Tamriel with the same survival mode in mind yourself, these are the mods you ll want to add. Most of them come from a single source, the Nexus modding community. Before you grab them, it is best to have their Nexus Mod Manager installed, as well as something called SKSE. (You will also have to register to join the Nexus community to download these files). Getting all this architecture in place is a minor frustration compared to the improvements you ll see in the end. It will be worth it when you find yourself freezing to death under a rocky outcrop with no wood to start a fire.

… [visit site to read more]