Welcome to the FM Author Spotlight, a series of interviews that provides an exclusive peek into the world of fan mission creators. In this episode, we are talking to JarlFrank, who has produced a number of interesting and original maps in the last decade.
Aemanyl: Please introduce yourself and tell us how you discovered the Thief games.
JarlFrank: Hey! I’m JarlFrank, and I got into the Thief games in 2009 after reading much praise about them on RPG Codex. I had known about them before that, but always assumed I wouldn’t like them because up to that point, my experience with stealth in games had been limited to forced stealth sections in action games, and those are usually horrible.
But when people whose opinions I trusted kept recommending Thief, I gave it a shot - and ended up loving it. When I had finished Thief 2, I wanted more. I knew about the cancelled Thief 2 Gold, so I googled “Thief 2 expansion” to find out more about that cancelled project. That led me to discover T2X: Shadows of the Metal Age. I made a thread about that on RPG Codex, and the resident Thief veterans informed me that other fan missions exist. Someone made a dedicated Thief FM thread, which became one of the largest ongoing FM discussions outside of TTLG!
I played T2X in summer 2010, and my first FMs in late 2010/early 2011. From that point onward, Thief and its FMs became my most-played game of all time.
Aemanyl: Do you have a favourite genre, style, or theme of fan missions?
JarlFrank: I have a soft spot for several FM genres and styles. One of my favourites tends to be under-appreciated at large: FMs with a distinctly cozy atmosphere. Christine is the absolute master of this style, all of her FMs make me feel at home (not surprising, considering she lives in the same region of Germany as I, and her style evokes local small towns). T2X also had plenty of missions with a cozy feel to them, mostly due to the custom textures and models they used. While the City Sleeps is an extremely cozy city mission.
At this point, I’ve become so familiar with Thief and its FMs that it’s become a “comfort place” for me, so I enjoy the missions that lean heavily into that vibe.
Another underappreciated theme I really like is tombs/dungeon crawls. They used to be rare, but in recent years quite a few excellent Bonehoard-style missions were added to the FM library. It’s a style that seems to have gained some popularity recently, with several entries in the TDP 20th Anniversary Contest and two missions in The Black Parade going for it. When I started playing FMs, tomb crawls were few and far between.
Aemanyl: Can you walk us through your typical workflow when creating fan missions? Where do you typically begin, and how do you approach the different stages of development?
JarlFrank: It depends on the style of mission. I currently have 4 WIP FMs that I fiddle around with whenever the Dromed mood strikes me. Two are mansions, two are cities. For a mansion mission, I just make a large airbrush and build the mansion inside of it. For a city mission, I first place Garrett’s starting position, then the destination that contains the main objective, and slowly build the connective tissue between them.
I tend to complete the brushwork first, then place objects and AIs, and roombrush only at the very end. I assume that’s a common practice, since any changes in architecture will screw up existing roombrushes. For testing, I always add a couple of rope arrows into my inventory and run through the level sections I just designed, to make sure they work well and allow for creative traversal.
Aemanyl: What would be your proudest DromED achievement?
JarlFrank: The floating animals in The New Sheriff!
Aemanyl: What are your main sources of inspiration for your projects?
JarlFrank: My missions tend towards the humorous, making light of common FM tropes and elements of the Thief universe. All the inspiration is in the games and their extended lore - Hammerites, Mechanists, nobles, thief guilds, wizards… there are so many interesting factions in the City, I don’t really need outside inspiration to come up with ideas!
The original worldbuilding for Thief 1 and 2 is quite excellent, and in twenty years of fan missions so much has been added and elaborated on. It’s an excellent world that stokes the imagination and keeps making me imagine new scenarios for Garrett.
Aemanyl: Would you ever like to collaborate with a specific fan mission author that you haven’t had the pleasure of working with yet? Alternatively, are there any creators whose style is similar to your vision of design?
JarlFrank: I work too slow to be a good collaborator, but stylistically I would probably vibe well with KFort. Sadly she retired from making FMs before I even started playing them.
Aemanyl: Are you currently working on any new levels?
JarlFrank: I have two missions that are pretty far along: a modern mansion where the brushwork is mostly complete and I just need to find some decent objects (if anyone knows a good source for low poly modern furniture, please drop me a message! low poly meaning low enough for DarkEngine to load it). And a city mission with an art gallery as its main location of interest.
Aemanyl: What are some of your other interests, pastimes, or hobbies that you enjoy in your free time?
JarlFrank: I like playing other games than Thief, mostly RPGs and strategy games. I’m also an avid reader of adventure fantasy fiction: classic authors like R. E. Howard and C. L. Moore, but also modern authors writing in the same vein like D. M. Ritzlin or Byron A. Roberts.
I also like to take long walks through my quaint little town and look at the houses I walk past. Oftentimes I see architectural details that would be fun to build in Dromed.
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Thank you for reading! We hope that you've enjoyed this insightful interview with JarlFrank. Every Friday you can look forward to a fresh interview with fan mission authors, featuring both the rising stars and the seasoned veterans of our beloved community.
Stay tuned and see you in the next issue of FM Author Spotlight series!
Welcome to the FM Author Spotlight, a series of interviews that provides an exclusive peek into the world of fan mission creators. In this episode, we are talking to Pookaball, the author of Nightwalk, an oldschool city mission designed for the One Million Units Contest in 2021.
Aemanyl: Please introduce yourself and tell us how you discovered the Thief games.
Pookaball: I first played Thief Gold as a teenager around 2012, maybe earlier. I'm not sure if I played Dishonored first, but at that time, I knew about Thief from an interview with Warren Spector in which he described his time working on Deus Ex, and I was familiar with some elements of the steampunk genre from other media. When I got Thief Gold, I was captivated by its cutscenes and worldbuilding. I played until Bonehoard or something like that and didn’t get very far. But the game stuck with me, and I revisited it a while later, getting stuck in Thieves Guild because I was bad at navigating, and it wasn’t until 2018 or 2019 when I came back to it and completed the whole game and later The Metal Age. I found fan missions at the same place where Thief was being discussed, and I downloaded a pack of some classic FMs but never got around to playing them between my bouncing off the game the first time and system changes. In 2020, however, I was hooked on the FMs. There was a lot to catch up on, and by then I think the 20th-anniversary mapping contest for TG had happened.
Aemanyl: Do you have a favourite genre, style, or theme of fan missions?
Pookaball: I prefer Thief Gold to Metal Age because of the more noticeable dark medieval themes. In terms of story, I like low-stakes slice-of-life FMs where you’re not trying to save the world and are just getting by, doing routine burglary, and maybe detective work along the way. I like exploring abandoned crypts and prowling the city streets. I like missions where you start far away from the objective and can choose to approach it in a number of ways. Tiled floors are the bane of my existence.
Aemanyl: Can you walk us through your typical workflow when creating fan missions? Where do you typically begin, and how do you approach the different stages of development?
Pookaball: To me, the ideal way to start making a mod for a game is to make some notes and sketches on paper to decide what I want to do before opening up the editor. Then I try to build the whole thing, starting to finish, in a very barebones, blocky way, and place the AIs and patrol points, objective items, and some loot, maybe lighting. It’s easier to change the flow of the mission when everything is at a large grid size. Then I would go over the brushes and add actual architecture and texture the brushes, making sure locked doors, light switches, and other mechanics work. Room brushing comes when all the architecture is done. Actual objectives, readables, and soundscapes come last. Pretty much, I follow the stepwise building method.
Aemanyl: What would be your proudest DromED achievement?
Pookaball: I haven’t made the big FM I'm proud of yet, but in order to get there, I have enjoyed learning to wrangle the editor and getting in a state of mind that lets me get to where I need to go. I don’t write scripts for Dromed, but I did customize some keybindings, and I know how to make custom textures, sounds, and models and get them in the game.
Aemanyl: What are your main sources of inspiration for your projects?
Pookaball: Classic books like Balzac, old masters’ paintings, European sci-fi comics (Moebius), fantasy and horror movies, biographies of medieval and Renaissance people, folklore and mythology, 3D renders of level designs for other games, and most importantly, other FMs.
Aemanyl: Would you ever like to collaborate with a specific fan mission author that you haven’t had the pleasure of working with yet?
Pookaball: I would like there to generally be a more alive mission-making community. Unfortunately, Thief just isn’t that popular as a game. Thief FMs deserve more eyes on them.
Aemanyl: Are you currently working on any new levels?
Pookaball: Currently working on an FM that lets you explore caves in an icy region, far outside the City.
Aemanyl: What are some of your other interests, pastimes, or hobbies that you enjoy in your free time?
Pookaball: Eeking out a living doing game art. I live for pixel art and low poly modeling. Also, I love Scottish Country Dancing.
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Thank you for reading! We hope that you've enjoyed this insightful interview with Pookaball. Every Friday you can look forward to a fresh interview with fan mission authors, featuring both the rising stars and the seasoned veterans of our beloved community.
Stay tuned and see you in the next issue of FM Author Spotlight series!
Welcome to the FM Author Spotlight, a series of interviews that provides an exclusive peek into the world of fan mission creators. In this episode, we are talking to Swiz. Swiz debuted as an author in 2018 by contributing to the TDP 20th Anniversary Contest with his classic manor level called Mother Redcaps Last Request. Last year, he released a post-Mechanist city mission titled Rockpool.
Aemanyl: Please introduce yourself and tell us how you discovered the Thief games.
Swiz: Hello! I'm Swiz, author of 2 Fan Missions: Mother Redcaps Last Request and Rockpool.
I missed a lot of classic PC games at the time due to a combination of university and being a terrible Amiga fanboy. I got into Thief, Deus Ex etc. around the mid 2000s - I've still got the budget re-release I bought (the dual-sided DVD Sold Out release of TDP + TMA) somewhere.
Aemanyl: Do you have a favourite genre, style, or theme of fan missions?
Swiz: It's a cliche, I know, but I'm still a sucker for the Sinister Mansion. But thinking about it, my absolute favourite FMs are city-based ones - Broken Triad, Seven Sisters first levels, and Disorientation. They can be large and sprawling, but still have enough landmarks to stop you getting overwhelmed and lost.
Aemanyl: Can you walk us through your typical workflow when creating fan missions? Where do you typically begin, and how do you approach the different stages of development?
Swiz: Nothing too outlandish - basic geometry and texturing, followed by objects and enemies, then a final detail pass. I tend to bounce around areas otherwise I obsess with fiddling with texture alignment for ages. I use GitHub to keep everything backed up.
Aemanyl: What would be your proudest DromED achievement?
Swiz: From my released stuff, I still like the overall atmosphere of the dockside area in Rockpool. For unreleased things, finally mucking about in Anim8or to step outside purely stock missions.
Aemanyl: What are your main sources of inspiration for your projects?
Swiz: From a mission-type point of view, the FMs I mentioned before. From a setting point of view I was thinking about gaps in the Thief story where something could be slotted in, and the downfall of the Mechanists seems mostly unexplored. It also gave the opportunity to have little side-stories in the readables (infighting after Karras' death, civilians going after them with torches and pitchforks, guards looking the other way, etc).
I also had a vague notion of a more sort of British heist movie feel to them, all thuggish gangs and bent coppers. But that only really comes across in some of the names (Mother Redcaps is a pub I've drunk in, and Rockpool is Liverpool by way of another mythical bird. Bonus points to whoever gets what no-nonsense female guard Inspector Shallott is a reference to).
Aemanyl: Would you ever like to collaborate with a specific fan mission author that you haven’t had the pleasure of working with yet? Alternatively, are there any creators whose style is similar to your vision of design?
Swiz: Honestly I don't think I'd be comfortable collaborating yet as I'd need to earn my spurs a bit more. Redcaps is very much Baby's First FM, and Rockpool largely did what it set out to do but what it set out to do wasn't hugely ambitious.
Aemanyl: Are you currently working on any new levels?
Swiz: Yes, expanding on the Mechanist themes I mentioned before. Needs a final push, but unfortunately work's gone mad.
Aemanyl: What are some of your other interests, pastimes, or hobbies that you enjoy in your free time?
Swiz: I got into cycling a bit during the pandemic to stop going stir-crazy. I need to get back into Pico8 (https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?uid=45932) as well, that was good fun to muck around with.
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Thank you for reading! We hope that you've enjoyed this insightful interview with Swiz. Every Friday you can look forward to a fresh interview with fan mission authors, featuring both the rising stars and the seasoned veterans of our beloved community.
Stay tuned and see you in the next issue of FM Author Spotlight series!
Welcome to the FM Author Spotlight, a series of interviews that provides an exclusive peek into the world of fan mission creators. In this episode, we are talking to Snake, the author of recently released A Thief`s Training, a very competently made daylight mission for Thief Gold.
Aemanyl: Please introduce yourself and tell us how you discovered the Thief games.
Snake: My name is Colm and I am originally from Galway in the west of Ireland but have been living in Dublin for the past 12 years. I am an accountant by background and currently work in banking regulation.
My introduction to Thief is probably an experience shared by many others. It began with a demo disc which came with the February 1999 edition of PC Zone, a UK video game magazine. I still have a copy of the disc. I was only 11 years old at the time so I can thank my older brother for purchasing the magazine in the first place. I have vivid memories of us playing that demo disc repeatedly, which contained A Keeper’s Training and Lord Bafford’s Manor and I think for that reason, both those missions are ingrained in my memory more than others, and might explain the setting of my debut mission to some extent. We eventually got our hands on The Dark Project and there was something about it that hooked me instantly, it was different to anything else at the time (most first-person games were shooters) and it evoked a unique and memorable atmosphere which I think is still unmatched today.
There are moments from TDP that still resonate with me from the first time seeing them, like the twist in the cutscene following Return to the Cathedral. I got stuck in The Haunted Cathedral for a long time that I nearly gave up on Thief entirely, and truth be told, I was probably too young and scared to play the game. I did obviously return to it after a short break and remember getting Thief Gold, Thief II, and Deadly Shadows as they were released. It was in the void left following the final game of the trilogy that I discovered T2X in 2005 and with that, TTLG and the world of fan missions.
Aemanyl: Do you have a favourite genre, style, or theme of fan missions?
Snake: It will probably come as no surprise that TDP/TG is my favourite game of the series and I naturally tend to prefer fan missions made for it as a result. There is a style of mission that is hard to describe but I think I’ve heard some refer to it as "urban mystery" and Melan is a master of this with Bad Debts, Disorientation, and Rose Garden being good examples. Skacky has put his own stamp on it too with Endless Rain and Sound of a Burrick in a Room.
Other genres I enjoy are those missions which recreate that other-worldly surrealism of The Dark Project. I am thinking here of missions by Schlock and Squadafroin such as Alcazar and Into the Odd.
Not to dismiss T2 entirely, I really enjoy a well-made mansion mission, with Heist Society, Duncan Malveine, and Conspiracies in the Dark springing to mind.
Finally, I enjoy supernatural/horror themed missions as well, but I tend to prefer the feeling of dread, or what you don’t see, as opposed to an out and out undead filled map. Horror can be created through atmosphere without ever encountering a haunt or zombie.
Aemanyl: Can you walk us through your typical DromED workflow? Where do you typically begin, and how do you approach the different stages of mission development?
Snake: My experience is based on building my one and only mission to date and given that I was very much learning as I was going, this may not be best practice!
I started A Thief’s Training by rebuilding the exit corridor from A Keeper’s Training. That was a great learning exercise, as rebuilding a small area from an original mission (OM), by reference to the OM itself in Dromed, helps you pick up some of the basics quite quickly (but almost all my Dromed knowledge came from Nicked`s excellent tutorial and help/support from the Dromed Discord and TTLG). If I were to give one tip to any new Dromeders, it would be to look at other missions in Dromed and figure out how they built or implemented certain things.
From there, I just built room by room without any plan as such. I had a general idea in my head of areas I wanted, like a main entrance hall, a scriptorium, a library, etc. but didn’t sketch any of that out. I used many photos of real places and tried to recreate those spaces in Dromed or at least use them as a base (more on that in my next answer). I also had no story, and it took me quite a while to figure out a reason for Garrett to return to the Keeper training compound. That part came quite late in development. In fact, the entire outdoor starting area was the last part built for the mission.
I tend to try and fully complete all processes for a room or area before moving on, so for example, I build the geometry, texture it, and roombrush it before moving on. I understand other authors might use dev textures and complete final texturing and roombrushing at a later stage. The processes I left until nearer the end were sound design, AI placement, readables, objectives, and some more technical aspects like setting up scripts and traps and the like. A Thief’s Training was largely complete from a geometry/brush perspective by Q3 of 2023 but it took many more months to implement those other elements (along with taking a break to play The Black Parade… and getting married!).
Aemanyl: What would be your proudest achievement in DromED?
Snake: This a short and easy answer given my equally short output in Dromed - finally finishing and releasing a fan mission. I take particular pride in this considering I first took up Dromed all the way back in 2005 and abandoned it for many years before returning to it at the beginning of Covid and lockdowns, where I had a bit more time to learn it all again. Even though it took me almost 20 years, I got there in the end!
Aemanyl: Your debut mission, A Thief’s Training, evokes a raw and austere atmosphere that is reminiscent of the early Middle Ages. Some of the readables were inspired by the poetry of William Butler Yeats and Martial. What are your main sources of inspiration?
Snake: A Thief’s Training started life as a potential entrant for the New Dark contest, a deadline I missed by some margin. Linking back to my earlier answer on how I discovered Thief, I spent a very long time replaying A Keeper’s Training from the demo disc and I remember my 11-year-old self being fascinated by that final corridor and where those doors might lead to. So, I thought it would be interesting to use the theme of the New Dark contest (create a new mission inspired by an original mission) and explore this idea by expanding on the original Keeper training compound. There was something about the daytime setting of the training mission (and Cragscleft) that made those missions stand out and resonate with me many years later, especially that contrast between the clear blue sky and birds singing, with the more dark and foreboding interiors, shadows and droning ambient music.
I rely quite heavily on photos for architectural inspiration. Many of the areas in A Thief’s Training are based on real life places. For example, the Restricted Library is inspired by the “Long Room” of the library in Trinity College Dublin and the internal cloister area is based on a similar structure in the fortified monastery of Lérins on the island of Saint-Honorat. Deadly Shadows was an inspiration for things like the Council Tower and sound design while other elements come from the small glimpses of things we see of the Keepers in TG/T2 such as the Interpreter’s Tower (also how this was implemented by Melan and others) and the scriptorium (eagle-eyed players might see that this comes from the first Keeper intro cutscene of TG, I even put imperfections in the pillar of the window separating the two sections of the scriptorium which can be seen in that briefing video).
In terms of inspiration for the story, setting, and readables, I tried to be authentic to a medieval setting, without it being too “real world” based. Many of the names are based on early medieval Anglo-Saxon names and some of the readables employ Elizabethan English, but I found these quite difficult to write so that style is limited to 2 or 3 readables. Most of the readables in the Keeper Compound reference other FMs or are loosely based on medieval political intrigue, particularly those referencing noble families and banking. Whenever I come across an article on an obscure or interesting medieval matter, I bookmark it for later reference. For example, most of the stories in the newspaper in the inn are based on real life peculiar medieval incidents.
As you have highlighted, I included two readables more or less verbatim from real poets - Yeats and Martial. The Yeats poem is only partially included (the beginning and end) and it is edited to remove real world references and replace them with Thief world ones. The Martial epigram is also edited (and I actually found it difficult to find a consistent version of it as it seems there have been many translations over hundreds of years).
Finally, many authors and missions inspired the design, particularly Alcazar, and there are some areas in the mission which should be instantly recognisable to those who have played Alcazar.
Aemanyl: Are there any creators whose style is similar to your vision of design?
Snake: As indicated above, and I am in no way putting myself in their category, but I did take a lot of inspiration from authors like Schlock and Squadafroin in particular but also the rest of the Feuillade team (DirkBogan, DrK, Firemage, marbleman, and Skacky). I am a big fan of all their work and I like how they have brought a lot of love and care back to The Dark Project, raising interest in that game and inspiring more fan missions to be created for it.
Aemanyl: You have recently published your debut mission. Any specific plans for creating more levels in the near future?
Snake: Right now, I will take a short break from Dromed, but not for long as I don’t want to forget everything I’ve learned or get out of practice. I have some ideas in my head, some of which had seeds planted in A Thief’s Training. So hopefully I can begin work on something new soon.
Aemanyl: What are some of your other interests, pastimes, or hobbies that you enjoy in your free time?
Snake: I enjoy film, reading, travelling, ballet, and art. Also watching, but no longer playing, football (fan of Liverpool) and snooker.
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Thank you for reading! We hope that you've enjoyed this insightful interview with Snake. Every Friday you can look forward to a fresh interview with fan mission authors, featuring both the rising stars and the seasoned veterans of our beloved community.
Stay tuned and see you in the next issue of FM Author Spotlight series!
The Dark Mod project trundles onward for it’s 15th year in a row. In that time we have improved our game engine in countless ways and have grown to over 170 missions!
To celebrate our perseverance and the years of improvements to come, we are hosting a contest to mark 15 years since the 1.0 release!
Unlike most recent contests, there is no defined theme and we are simply going to score based on our standard metrics of Story, Gameplay, and Visuals with our standard weighted scoring.
Contest Submissions should be provided before October 16th so that players can start playing and celebrating on the 17th
Welcome to the FM Author Spotlight, a series of interviews that provides an exclusive peek into the world of fan mission creators. In this episode, we are talking to Froghemoth, the author of Condemned Catalogue, a compact yet superbly crafted and atmospheric level for Thief Gold.
Aemanyl: Please introduce yourself and tell us how you discovered the Thief games.
Froghemoth: Hello, I'm Froghemoth. I discovered the series in 1998 through the Thief: The Dark Project demo found on a game magazine disk. Being a child at the time, I was too scared to even leave the shadows and risk facing Bafford's guards. But the sounds, cinematics, and overall vibe of Thief ingrained themselves in my mind forever since.
Aemanyl: Do you have a favourite genre, style, or theme of fan missions?
Froghemoth: There are two broad categories. The first category consists of dark and grimy city missions like those found in The Black Parade's "extended universe". The second category includes FMs with a slightly surreal atmosphere that managed to strongly affect me for one reason or another. Some examples include Breathing Corpses, Into the Odd, and The Sun Within And The Sun Without.
Aemanyl: Can you walk us through your typical workflow when creating fan missions? Where do you typically begin, and how do you approach the different stages of development?
Froghemoth: I begin by drawing a sketch of the level layout, followed by carving out rough mission shape with large air brushes. After that I divide the level into smaller areas and go through them one by one, doing brushwork, texturing, and object placement for each. I leave roombrushing and sounds for the last step, unless I want to get the full feel of some important area early on.
Also, there is always a sheet of paper by my keyboard on which I doodle when some interesting thought appears in my mind. If something good comes from it, like a cool architecture element, it goes into the FM.
Aemanyl: What would be your proudest DromEd achievement?
Froghemoth: If I ever manage to successfully make a large, mechanically solid FM with all stealth gameplay components (hiding spots, lights, patrol routes) planned and calculated from the beginning. It's difficult for me to pre-plan such things, and I end up improvising on the go.
Aemanyl: What are your main sources of inspiration for your projects?
Froghemoth: Anything with a particular feel that can work as FM's theme.
Condemned Catalogue was inspired by just a single illustration I saw somewhere online years ago. It depicted a street of Middle-Eastern-style buildings with walls made of bookshelves.
My current project is loosely inspired by the "Children of Taronne Tenement" mission from SWAT 4 and "The Horror at Red Hook", a short story by H.P. Lovecraft.
I also get plenty of inspiration just by walking through my neighbourhood. It's filled with crumbling 100+ year old buildings built from myriads of different materials.
Aemanyl: Would you ever like to collaborate with a specific fan mission author that you haven’t had the pleasure of working with yet?
Froghemoth: I have a modest opinion about my dromeding skills, so I'm not sure what I can bring to the table. But in purely hypothetical terms, I would like to collaborate with StinkyKitty or FrenchDecay if it means we get to see more FMs from them.
Aemanyl: Are you currently working on any new levels?
Froghemoth: Yes, though it doesn't have a name yet. It's a T2 mission that takes place in a run-down apartment building taken over by pagans, with a small city and dungeon sections as well. It's one Jacknall's Paw away from becoming a reimagining of TDS's Into the Pagan Sanctuary, but I'm not sure if it'll be done in time for the anniversary contest.
Aemanyl: What are some of your other interests, pastimes, or hobbies that you enjoy in your free time?
Froghemoth: I enjoy a bit of traditional painting and drawing now and then. I was also DMing tabletop RPGs for my friends until real life put that on hold. I actually used one of Melan's TTRPG settings and only much later realised it was from the same Melan whose FMs I played and loved.
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Thank you for reading! We hope that you've enjoyed this insightful interview with Froghemoth. Every Friday you can look forward to a fresh interview with fan mission authors, featuring both the rising stars and the seasoned veterans of our beloved community.
Stay tuned and see you in the next issue of FM Author Spotlight series!
Welcome to the FM Author Spotlight, a series of interviews that provides an exclusive peek into the world of fan mission creators. In this episode, we are talking to Intruder, a veteran author who has been working in DromEd since 2005. His most recent mission, The Stone of Alarus, is a very enjoyable map that combines classic Hammerite and Bonehoard themes.
Aemanyl: Please introduce yourself and tell us how you discovered the Thief games.
Intruder: My name is Steffen. My (back then) 14-year old self discovered Thief in late November 2000. I remember it was a Friday afternoon and I was a bit bored, so I browsed the CD accompanying a PC gaming magazine and stumbled upon the Thief 2 demo (or "Dark Project 2" as the German version was called). Just out of boredom I fired up this demo and got frustrated pretty quickly because I never played any first person "shooter" game before and died rather often (...and loading a quicksave took several minutes on my machine back then). However, there was something about this game's atmosphere that got me hooked immediately. I then spent the entire weekend navigating the roofs of Dayport and with Christmas just around the corner I knew what I wanted to have as a Christmas gift :-).
Aemanyl: Do you have a favourite genre, style, or theme of fan missions?
Intruder: I usually prefer missions where the handcuffs are off, i.e. those that encourage exploration and feature multiple ways in and out so to speak. Hence, I’m not a big fan of the typical mansion heists.
I’m quite happy that we as a community have been indulged with so many great city and rooftop missions! This is also why I enjoy OMs such as The Haunted Cathedral, The Lost City, or Life of the Party so much. I know that you’ve asked for FMs and not OMs, but Life of the Party really has been groundbreaking for me because it was the first time that just getting to your objective was even more fun than the actual mission itself.
Aemanyl: Can you walk us through your typical workflow when creating fan missions? Where do you typically begin, and how do you approach the different stages of development?
Intruder: I assume that I begin like most authors by creating a rough mental model of what the mission should be like (i.e. a rooftop mission with focus on exploration or a bank heist that is focused on a specific building). The second step usually revolves around creating sketches of key areas or important buildings of the mission. For example, when working on Return to the Lost City I drew sketches of most areas I wanted to add to the mission (e.g. the ancient workshop/shipyard, several distinct residential areas, etc.) before doing any brushwork in Dromed. When this is done, I start working on one of those areas in Dromed by creating and texturing the brushes, adding initial sounds, furniture etc. until it is getting close to how I’ve envisioned it beforehand.
At this point in time I already spent a lot of time actually “playing” the mission (well, walking around and staring at stuff might be a better way to put it) just to see if it “feels right”. I then move on to the next area/building and develop the rest of the mission in a more organic manner. In my earlier missions, I stuck to a more layered approach of first creating all the brush-work, then adding objects, then the sound, then the AIs, and finally the readables and objectives. However, I’ve skipped that in favour of developing an area as far as possible before moving on to the next one.
Aemanyl: What would be your proudest DromEd achievement?
Intruder: Well, there are actually two. The first would be A Night’s Profit, a rather tiny FM by the usual standards but nevertheless an important step when viewed in hindsight. This was my first mission with proper Thief-like lighting (especially when compared to Keeper Investigations where a lot of areas were just too dark). Likewise, it has been my first “reloaded” mission where I took the core concept of an FM (Shipping and Receiving in this case) and implemented it in a completely new manner, thereby providing a new experience while bringing back tons of OM-memories.
The second one would be Return to the Lost City for its many interconnected pathways and exploratory gameplay. I also like how the integration of the bits and pieces of Break From Cragscleft Prison (i.e. the mines) blended into the Lost City theme.
Aemanyl: What are your main sources of inspiration for your projects?
Intruder: This has definitely changed over the last ten years. It used to be “everything” I was watching, reading or playing besides Thief. Nowadays it is the OMs of the first two Thief games. Maybe it’s just a bad case of “everything was better in the old days”, but I really enjoy recreating and re-interpreting the OMs. To me, they remain a rich and apparently never-ending source of inspiration. Which reminds me that I would still love to build something based on Into the Pagan Sanctuary or The Sunken Citadel, the only two TDS OMs that I enjoyed thoroughly and still have fond memories of.
Aemanyl: Would you ever like to collaborate with a specific fan mission author that you haven’t had the pleasure of working with yet? Alternatively, are there any creators whose style is similar to your vision of design?
Intruder: It’s really hard to name someone specific. I’ve worked together with so many talented and helpful people since my first FM in 2008. It’s just a great community, even after all those years!
Aemanyl: Are you currently working on any new levels?
Intruder: Unfortunately not, but as mentioned above, I’m still pondering the idea of “re-loading” one of those TDM OMs...
Aemanyl: What are some of your other interests, pastimes, or hobbies that you enjoy in your free time?
Intruder: This hasn’t really changed since the initial interview by Athalle back in 2014. It’s still astronomy, hiking, and reading for the most part. However, this list has been extended by “building tree houses” and “building Lego stuff” with my son who now “occupies” most of my free time 🙂.
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Thank you for reading! We hope that you've enjoyed this insightful interview with Intruder. Every Friday you can look forward to a fresh interview with fan mission authors, featuring both the rising stars and the seasoned veterans of our beloved community.
Stay tuned and see you in the next issue of FM Author Spotlight series!
Thief: The Black Parade took out first place of 2023 Mod of the Year Awards from ModDB.
Congrats to Feuillade Industries!
And thanks to everyone who voted :)
One of the rare mods able to bring a ton of nostaglia back, over 25 years on from the series original release.
You can now rate (but not download) original missions from
Thief: The Dark Project
Thief Gold
Thief II: The Metal Age
Thief: Deadly Shadows
Go here and cast your votes!
Reply to a thread, or click the envelope (✉) icon to be notified about every new post in given thread.
On May 25, 2023 Skacky and Yandros have published on TTLG the new Thief: Deadly Shadows 20th Anniversary Contest.
You have exactly one year to build a mission for Thief 1, 2, Deadly Shadows or The Dark Mod in the style of Deadly Shadows.
Intertheft by Nomadman, got 493 total score and 8.22 average score.
House of the Architect by TheDataElemental, got 464 total score and 7.73 average score.
Congrats!
Go to results
Go to missions
The idea of this contest is quoted below:
Create a new mission, inspired by one of the original missions created by Looking Glass, hopefully using the benefits of New Dark to your advantage.
We introduce a new fan mission series browser!
With the new page you can easily browse through two kinds of FM series:
- Contests
- other Series - which are mostly story-related campaigns
When browsing series, you have access to most of the functions that you already know from fan mission browser. You can filter-out series that were released during specific timespan or limit to games that are of your interest.
By default, series and contests are ordered from newest to oldest. If you want, you can order them by rating, popularity or alphabetically. In rating option, series are ordered by average across all missions inside each list!
Don't forget that you can also make your own collections. While series and contests are a sort of official lists of missions, collections provide you a way of cataloging missions as you like.
Christmas "Connections" Contest 2021 results are now available on The Dark Mod Forums:
1) Winner: Wellingtoncrab "Iris" 97.08%
2) Bikerdude, Amadeus, Dragofer "Written in Stone" 95.28%
3) Kingsal "Hazard Pay" 95.06%
4) thebigh "Down and Out on Newford Road" 81.01%
5) Jedi_Wannabe "Paying the Bills 0: Moving Day" 77.64%
Congratulations to all contestants!
Read more on The Dark Mod Forums
Browse and download all fan missions here
Christmas "Connections" Contest missions are now available.
Go here for a list of all 5 missions.
The theme of the contest is "connections", which means that the mission must somehow relate to the story or characters of another existing TDM mission.
In addition, the organizer defined a list of "dev build bonuses" that are adding reward points to the voting average.
To help promote the 2.10 beta process and encourage more testing, additional points will be added for using features from the latest TDM versions.
A non-contest speedbuild competition was announced on TTLG. The competition will start at Sunday, August 1st and will last for 14 days.
This will not be a contest per se, as in there won’t be any voting or a declared winner, but instead will just be a friendly competition with your Dromed cohorts, and a chance to see what you can accomplish in a short period of time.
I'm a collector, Mr Garrett.
Konrad
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