Mephala’s Web is a Skyrim mod, with about 1.5 hours of content. It includes new quests, dungeons, characters, and an original story.
I primarily worked on the “Trial of Webs” quest. I fully created one of the dungeons, which revolves around a dungeon-wide puzzle. This project was technically challenging, as I had to learn the Skyrim Creation Kit in conjunction with its source control.
Accomplishments
Created the “Infested Grounds” dungeon. Designed it, blocked it out, added treasure and clutter, and added enemy encounters.
Designed a dungeon wide puzzle for the “Infested Ground” dungeon. The experiential goal was to get the player to slow down and think about how the rooms connect.
Added landmarks and clutter to “The Maze” location.
Wrote and scripted the "Trial of Webs" and "Trial of Talons" questlines.
Learned the Skyrim Creation Kit; including the Papyrus scripting language, source control, and SSEEdit.
Wrote dialog trees for 3 NPCs.
Created the Nav Mesh for several Cells.
About
Team Project (5 People)
Released in 2025
Made in the Skyrim Creation Kit
The “Infested Grounds” Dungeon
The Infested Grounds is one of three dungeons featured in the mod. It is a spider infested crypt, full of webs, egg sacs, and corpses.
Experiential goal: The player should slow down and think about how to navigate the dungeon. They should develop a feel for the space and how each room connects.
To accomplish this goal, I designed a puzzle for the dungeon. There are a few switches scattered around, and each switch will open or close every door in the dungeon. Each switch has three states (fish, bird, and snake), and every door is assigned a state in which it is opened.
I first designed a bubble map so I could plan out the player’s progression. This design progressed into a level design map, and finally a complete blockout in-engine.
The Problem: The player could walk through the dungeon in a linear path, they never had to backtrack. This meant they didn't have to think critically about the ways rooms connect.
I drew over my level and planned out several changes.
I added doors that are locked and can be unlocked with pull chains on one side (represented on the map as the black doors).
I changed the switch state of almost all of the doors, to change the player's path to be less linear.
The Result: The progression through the level was no longer linear, and required moments of backtracking to previous switches. The new pull chain doors maintained the feel of progression, as the dungeon opened up more as the player made their way through. The puzzle was simple, but it required the player to slow down and think about the layout.
The Spider Queen Boss
Finally, I wanted to tie the dungeons mechanic to its boss fight. I decided to reuse the turning pillars, used in the dungeon puzzle. I hooked up the pillars to activate a trap, and the player would have to get the boss into a specific location and trigger the trap with the pillar.
I had to teach the player that the pillars would now have a different use. I set up a pillar in the hallway leading up to a boss, which would trigger a trap and fling pots at the player.
