The story behind the Oblivion mod Terry Pratchett worked on

[Redress]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-01-29-the-story-behind-the-oblivion-mod-terry-pratchett-worked-on?fbclid=IwAR2L2VjR37Gb30QmtNxNfiRILR2JOpNU5IWe0joKjxpzWTyKKNdHNYBXuso

Seriously, just how cool is this?

Together with Charles, the three worked on the "Packdonkeys" mod, which allowed players to purchase up to four packdonkeys from the Chorrol Stables. Pratchett delighted in the fact that his donkey, Chico, kept stealing carrots and getting him and Vilja into trouble with the Imperial Guard. The more involved he got, the more invested he was becoming. Vilja was no longer just a companion mod - she was a person who kept growing as he, Emma, and Charles worked on her.

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.

Edit:

The mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/28977

Skyrim version of the mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/6722?fbclid=IwAR2MeMCRdcahVeWGF6rmgzMNRXZPZGXx19tzbOk_t5hC_K7MusXIPgIN620