In Making A House A Home, I explore what it’s like to settle down a build a house in video games. It’s a completely peaceful life. Promise. First up, is Skyrim.

I’m beginning to think that I might’ve missed a trick by spawning in all that gold. Maybe the enjoyment from Hearthfire comes from when you put all of the hard earned gold you’ve gained from killing billions of draugr into your own little home away from home. If it’s done in bitesize chunks, maybe you don’t notice the tedium. In case you haven’t guessed, I started thinking this while mining more quarried stone. Maybe I could bear it if I was able to fast travel over to my mansion whenever I wanted a break from the main game. Then I just leave him there, mining away.

But as I made the silly choice to do this, I don’t really have that option. I’m here to see what the whole package is like. Come to think on it, I’ve never really laid out any guidelines as to what constitutes good house building in a game. We can’t just point to something like Minecraft and leave it with that, as these things have to operate within the rules of the game at hand. And it’s a bit hard to punch trees to bits in Skyrim. I ponder this as I wander back over to the drafting table to see what else I can staple to my mansion.

I settle on an alchemy tower. Alchemy is a skill I’ve never really touched, and I have no doubt it will be the same here, but I thought it might be funny to have two random towers stapled to my house. The alchemy tower is stuck on awkwardly at the back and I have just enough wood and metal to build the foundations. Once again I have mysterious floating doors all over my property. The problem this time is iron, meaning another trip back to Whiterun. Actually I went back to Riverwood again before forgetting that Alvor was trapped forever in time.

After waiting for thirteen hours in the middle of the street, I barge into Warmaiden’s. The usual lady smith is nowhere to be seen, so I buy a fairly disappointing amount of iron from the bloke behind the counter. For some reason he follows me out of the shop. He stands on the doorstep for a moment, staring at me, before doing as sudden one-eighty and walking back inside. Either his AI just bugged out for a moment or he’s incredibly suspicious of me stealing everything that isn’t nailed down when his back’s turned. Probably a reasonable suspicion.

After buying iron from the Companion’s blacksmith, I decide that I’m bored and take it out in the only way available. Killing Heimskyr. I pull out my pickaxe and decide to mine something more than quarried stone for once. He takes a few solid hits, and attempts to run away, but is quickly felled. The suspiciously slow-on-the-uptake guards then leap into action. I just have one second to register that they’re using crossbows, something I thought only the Dawnguard used, before I’m turned into a scaly pincushion.

Back in the land of the living and I’ve returned home to work on the alchemy tower. As expected, once I’ve put up the walls and hammered the roof into place, it looks kind of silly. The two towers cluster awkwardly together, ruining the otherwise pretty sweet design of the house. It’s perfect. With that tower up and running, it seems I’m out of things I can staple to it. I’m glad I chose the bedroom first, that might’ve been a bit awkward otherwise.

Inside, things are as bare and gloomy as ever. It’s finally time to decorate. I stick an armorer’s bench and grindstone outside, leaving only the apiary to do. I’m not sure how to get straw. Or bees, for that matter. Either way, I focus on the main hall first, laying down a wonderful dining table and chairs. It even comes with an apple dumpling that I somehow managed to make out of wood and nails. I build all that I can but upon seeing the dead and stuffed slaughterfish option, I make the call not to get everything. Those bastards have haunted my nightmares since Morrowind.