As I mentioned in another post, I decided to delve into making a Skyrim mod again after being inspired by seeing some of the new mods that appeared since I left the modding scene several years ago. One that impressed me the most was Mantella because I've been tinkering with several AI-based tools for various purposes.

But I hesitated to start modding again because I remembered how painful the development experience with Creator Kit and Papyrus was. I've been coding for a long time, which gave me strong preferences and opinions about programming. If I'm to spend what little leisure I have, as well as my working hours on coding stuff, it has to be for something I can enjoy.

Then I discovered that there's a tool that allows one to code in TypeScript to create Skyrim mods. It felt perfect since TypeScript is one of the languages I enjoy coding in.

So, I've spent a few days building a proof-of-concept mod with it, which allows me to talk with a character using my voice. (The character replies in her own voice after a few seconds of delay.)

It's rudimentary compared to mods like Mantella or AI Follower Framework, but it worked decent enough to convince me that I could create something more serious on top of it.

But I've been experiencing a lot of personal troubles lately, and it doesn't look like things will get better anytime soon, which means I only have extremely limited free time to work on this project.

In fact, this was the main reason I started this blog instead of creating a thread in the regular Skyrim modding forum. I want a place to share the news about the development without raising the expectations of others too much before I can release something playable, which won't likely happen soon. On the other hand, I wanted it as a means to motivate myself to keep working on the project by showing to what little audience this blog may attract the progress I make.

So, here we are. Let's just hope that this won't end up like my previous mods, which I abandoned without making them playable.