Helping a Settlement - Glitchfinder If you’ve modded Fallout 4

If you’ve modded Fallout 4, there’s a very high likelihood you’ve stumbled upon today’s interviewee. We’re really excited to be chatting with them as they’ve worked on a whole host of changes to everyone’s favourite post-apocalyptic title ranging from the odd bugfix here-and-there to fully fledged expansions. So, without further ado, let’s meet Glitchfinder.

It's great to have you here with us, Glitchfinder! To kick things off, tell us a bit about yourself?

I'm not really sure there's much to say about myself. My about page here sums it up well enough with just "I make mods," and that's the part that really matters, you know? We're all here because we play games and enjoy modding them. Or at least I hope we are. None of you are here against your will, right? Blink three times if you need help. 

We'd love to hear about your journey into becoming a mod author for Fallout 4. What's your history with gaming and can you remember your first gaming experience?

I can't remember what my first game was, but I can remember that the first console I played on was an Atari 2600 and the first game I ever personally owned was Pokémon Blue. Confusing combination, isn't it?

As for Fallout 4, I got that as a present from someone who saw how much time I was sinking into Skyrim and figured I might enjoy Fallout 4 too. Clearly they were correct. Also similar to Skyrim, my first experience modding the game was purely out of frustration - my settlers simply were not doing what I wanted them to do at Jamaica Plain and I wasn't going to stand for that. A few things have happened since then, and here we are seven years and dozens of mods later.

What then led you to modding?

I think my first big "Wait, you can edit the game?" moments were with level editors in games like Sierra's Hunter Hunted and city builders/strategy games like Caesar III and Age of Empires. The idea that it wasn't just a one-way interaction was mind blowing.

And then I tried Creatures, and learned about these "COBS" that you could make for the game that would let you add new objects, edit existing ones, and even edit the world yourself. It was incredible, and I haven't looked back since.