The Frostbitten Nightmare is a horror Skyrim mod. The player falls asleep and is transported to a nightmarish dungeon, where they must put a lost soul to rest.
The mod includes a new dungeon, an NPC, a unique questline, a new armor piece, and a new bossfight. It was designed to organically fit in with the world of Skyrim, while also providing a unique gameplay experience. The mod is designed with low level players in mind.
Accomplishments
Designed a new dungeon. Laid out dungeon rooms; populated them with clutter; and added lighting, FX, and SFX.
Designed enemy encounters. Added ambush enemies with trigger collisions. Created the level NAV Mesh from scratch.
Designed a boss fight, with a new boss enemy. Established the boss’s inventory, spell list, and behavior.
Created a new NPC and questline.
Scripted unique mechanics for the questline.
Wrote a narrative for the quest, including notes and NPC dialog. Tied the narrative with the established world of Skyrim.
Learned how to use the Skyrim Creation Kit.
About
Solo project (Part of a larger 3 person mod pack)
Released in 2025
Made in the Skyrim Creation Kit
Full Playthrough
Dungeon Design
The dungeon consists of a main hallway and three branching paths. Having the three small branches allows the player to explore the dungeon in any order. It should also encourage the player to explore each area thoroughly to find the goal item in each branch.
The dungeon was designed to feel like it was in a dream. To achieve this, I used Skyrim’s assets in intentionally bizarre ways. I created strange scenes such as:
An array of repeating rooms. This section has an interesting sightline where the player would look down a hallway and see the same room repeating.
A room which appears at the beginning of the level, and then later on upside down.
A room on fire, with enemy ambushes.
