Skyrim dragon mounts made in Bethesda 'game jam' experiments

Dragon mounts, home-building, Kinect shouts, werebears, spears, and other strange and wonderful experiments were whipped up for Skyrim by the folks at Bethesda in a 'game jam' week after the game was finished, director Todd Howard has revealed.

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Dragon mounts, home-building, Kinect-powered shouts, werebears, spears, and other strange and wonderful experiments were whipped up for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim by the folks at Bethesda Game Studios after finishing their fantasy RPG. The team took a week out for a 'game jam,' toying with ideas which may or may not ever be released officially.

Skyrim game director Todd Howard revealed the game jam's fruits during his keynote speech at the 2012 D.I.C.E. Summit last night, saying the team were told "Do whatever you want and put in the game." The highlights were put together in a video for Bethesda's annual end-of-year show-and-tell, which you can see below.

"This is all experiments that we did in a week," he made clear. "How much of this stuff sees the light of day, to be determined. Could it be in a future DLC? We don't know. Could various parts of it be released for free? We don't know."

Other projects included spell combinations, dark dungeons, seasonal foliage, stealth enhancements with water arrows, adoption, goblins, and a lycanthropy perk tree. Check the whole lot out below by skipping to 21:25 to see the game jam highlight reel, courtesy of GameSpot:

From The Chatty
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    February 9, 2012 7:15 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Skyrim dragon mounts made in Bethesda 'game jam' experiments.

    Dragon mounts, home-building, Kinect shouts, werebears, spears, and other strange and wonderful experiments were whipped up for Skyrim by the folks at Bethesda in a 'game jam' week after the game was finished, director Todd Howard has revealed.

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      February 9, 2012 7:18 AM

      home building yes please.

      I want to find a nice view and build a giant house that doesn't suck lol.

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        February 9, 2012 10:52 AM

        unf.

        with display cases for all my sweet weapons and armor.

        and a hot tub.

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          February 9, 2012 11:35 AM

          and a throne.

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            February 9, 2012 7:41 PM

            and a harem, for all my bitches companions

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      February 9, 2012 7:41 AM

      Thoses are some really cool ideas and I hope to see them soon in Skyrim. Mounted combat, I cant wait!

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      February 9, 2012 8:28 AM

      Just about everything in that video needs to be added to the game, because it was all pretty awesome.

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        February 9, 2012 9:34 AM

        i agree. all of that should be in the game lol.

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        February 9, 2012 12:06 PM

        Absolutely. At the very least, I'd LOVE to see the graphical enhancements show up. Kill cams for ranged attacks? Seasonal foliage? Flow-based water animations? Glorious!

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        February 9, 2012 12:20 PM

        [deleted]

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      February 9, 2012 9:07 AM

      Played skyrim pretty little compared to others but I would've played 2-3x more if those features from Game Jam where in the game

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      February 9, 2012 9:09 AM

      if I could only have one it would be mounted combat. horses are useless as they are right now

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      February 9, 2012 9:46 AM

      man the visible water currents look amazing.. also glad they wanted better underwater visuals, so brown and boring otherwise.

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      February 9, 2012 10:11 AM

      I would buy the shit out of a "game jam DLC pack" 5-10$ for a bunch of random mod like shit made by the devs.

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      February 9, 2012 10:26 AM

      Kinect shouts - I'm pretty sure if I was sitting in the living room yelling FUS RO DAH at the top of my lungs every few minutes, my wife would put the kids in the van and leave me.

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        February 9, 2012 10:42 AM

        +1.....

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        February 9, 2012 12:16 PM

        There was a mod on Skyrim Nexus a few weeks back that let you do this with a microphone. I never did test it out, but it looked just fucking ridiculous in the demo video.

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      February 9, 2012 11:16 AM

      omg is there an mp3 of that music?

      "It's been too long since I've had a nice arrow in the knee."

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        February 9, 2012 11:17 AM

        And yes, pretty much everything in there needs to be in the game.

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      February 9, 2012 11:32 AM

      Those were amazing

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      February 9, 2012 12:26 PM

      stealth enhancements with water arrows
      Awesome, I'm not overpowered enough in stealth I need more!

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        February 9, 2012 12:31 PM

        Yeah, that has to be some serious Thief nostalgia there, being able to crouch right in front of people while jumping up and down like a rabid ferret is plenty stealthy enough

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        February 9, 2012 3:15 PM

        The enhanced guard AI sounded good though. If it's possible to script guards to take notice of doused torches, surely it should be possible to make them take more notice of corpses?

        A proper stealth overhaul mod would be awesome. I want guards that go on high alert the moment a body is found and stay there for like, a day or until they find you. Combine that with better communication amongst patrols too!

        It definitely seems like such things are possible with the kit. If someone at Bethesda can hack it up in a week (admittedly they know their game inside out) then hopefully some plucky modder can figure it out over the next few months,

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      February 9, 2012 12:32 PM

      [deleted]

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      February 9, 2012 2:44 PM

      I'm pretty sure I would've built horse armor

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        February 9, 2012 6:10 PM

        I would have built an armor upgrade system for your horse armor.

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        February 9, 2012 7:43 PM

        My choice was Giant Armour.. give those guys a chance!

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      February 9, 2012 3:14 PM

      HOLY FUCKING SHIT.

      I really wanted mounted combat, house building, dragon riding and becoming a flying vampire etc.

      If they release this stuff I'll jizz everywhere.

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      February 9, 2012 9:20 PM

      That video was great actually, I watched the whole damn thing. I couldn't stop.

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