ES4: Oblivion - The Terry Pratchett Mod Story

Eurogamer tell the tale behind the Oblivion mod that Terry Practchett worked on.

One of the most important features that was added to Vilja was the lead-the-way function, which Pratchett had specifically requested to help with his Alzheimer's. "By that point Terry was already having serious trouble with his memory," Charles told Eurogamer. "The sort of short-term memory functioning needed to navigate the game world was a particular problem for him."

Charles and Emma worked particularly hard on implementing this function, which enabled Vilja to lead the player out of the dungeon they were in. However, this wasn't an easy task. "Since I knew there was a real need behind that request I kept thinking about it," Charles said. "Eventually, I realised that another Vilja feature moved a special marker around to track when she changed locations. Once I had that insight, combining the two features at the technical level was fairly easy." Once the function was operating properly, Pratchett could simply turn to Vilja and select the "I'm lost!" option whenever he got stuck in a dungeon, which would prompt her to lead the way out.

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Thanks Farflame!