What first attracted you to Thief, and when was that?
Early in 2001, I was searching Gamespot for some new games to try out, and I noticed they gave both Thief games very high marks, so I downloaded the T2 demo and was immediately hooked. I bought it and played through it many times, especially LOTP. It was actually months later before I found TG on eBay and got to play through it, although shamefully, I quit at RTC and it wasn't until last year that I finally got up the courage to finish.

Why did you start designing missions, and when was that?
I’ve been designing games since I was a kid writing in BASIC on my Apple II, so it was only natural for me to want to design my own missions for Thief. I first started messing with Dromed in the summer of 2001, before I had even found TTLG. I don’t remember ever going through Komag’s tutorial, I think I just dived in.

Give us a brief summary of all your currently released missions. Tell us the idea behind them, what you are proud of, and what you regret about them.

Eastwater Bank (Orig July 02 - Gold Jan 04):
The first mission I released, for Contest 3. I got some positive feedback about it, but Ben had to disqualify it from several categories because I violated the rule about being able to see outside the contest boundaries (I somehow missed that when reading the rules). Most of what I regret about the mission was fixed when I released EWB Gold earlier this year. Basically, just a basic bank job with some underlying stories going on amongst the bank personnel.

The Burrick’s Head Inn (Orig Jan 03 - v2 May 03):
I must say that when I started this, I had just finished kfgecko’s Embracing The Enemy (one of my favorite FM’s)... the idea of encountering another thief who’s involved in the plot fascinated me, so I made Ravik a central part of the storyline. Basically, you decide to rob a local inn frequented by the nobility, and uncover a series of events with some twists and turns along the way. The story just kind of evolved as I made the mission, and I’m happy with the way it turned out. I’m even happier with the revisions I made in v2.0 later last year.

RGB (Jan 03):
This was a little thing I threw together in 10 days when Ben announced an extension in the Contest 4 deadline and I had finished BHI. I had used Dashjianta’s water tutorial to do the water in the sewer in BHI, and in that tut she describes “water elevators” using current to move the player around, and I just kind of ran with that idea… a maze full of watervators and some gemstones to find in order to get out.

A Thief’s Holiday (v1 Dec 03 - v2 Dec 04):
I had the idea to create a cozy little winter retreat for an old tired thief to relax and kick back, as a holiday gift to the FM community. Initially it was only going to be a living room with a fireplace, a tree and snow falling outside… but like with most things, I wasn’t content doing something quick and simple. I threw in 7 little mini-quests which vary by difficulty. This was made during the most furiously productive 3 weeks I’ve ever spent in Dromed. In the 2004 version, I added many more things to do (over a dozen objectives on Expert), lots of custom objects, and a camvator outro.

Spoof: The Daft Project – Benny Hill Tribute (Mar 04):
Spoof was going to be a mission where you start in a moive theater hallway, and as you click on each poster you get transported to a scene from that movie or TV show (as an observer), except of course with the characters replaced with Thief AI’s – for instance, for Star Wars, a haunt all in black was to be Darth Vader, with zombies as Stormtroopers. I dropped the idea and released the only scene I had completed – a Benny Hill-style scene with characters running around at high speed doing silly things.

The Summit (Mar 04):
I almost didn’t do a mission for Contest 5, as I wanted to concentrate on the other missions I have in the works. I did this one in about 4 weeks after buying Patrick O’Hearn’s latest two CD’s… one has a track called Approaching Summit, and I had always wanted to do a mountain climb/cavern crawl mission… so it just sort of happened. About halfway up the mountain I started getting tired of ledges and tunnels, so I had the player go inside the mountain and encounter the spirits of some long-dead dwarves who used to live there. (Their names, by the way, are Bob, Bill and Bubba. I’m not kidding – look in Dromed if you don’t believe me.)

Requiem for a Thief (Apr 05):
I did this mission for the first FM Beauty Contest, and I'm please with the result and that it came in third overall. Garrett has finally died, and you get to hear his eulogy from three different perspectives: Guards (Benny), Hammers and Keepers. SlyFoxx did the voicework and as usual it is phenomenal.

What inspiration outside of Thief 1/Gold, Thief 2, and Deadly Shadows influenced the content of your fan mission?
My lifelong love of RPG’s probably drives me to create well-defined characters and storylines (in the missions where that’s applicable). Although most of my recent missions haven’t been strong on story and characters, most of the ones I have in the works will be. My love for music also inspires me, and I think that's why I always include excerpted music in my missions. I often pick the music early on in development, and I listen to those ambients the whole time I'm playtesting and working on it, so I really start associating particular music excerpts with particular areas of a mission in my mind. That can also make changing or removing music late in the process almost painful... as an example, whenever I listen to Lisa Gerrard's incredible song Sacrifice, I still think of the final battle scene in The Burrick's Head Inn. That's because it was originally used in that scene, although I removed it from the mission entirely a few days before releasing it and went with the penthouse victrola's music, Grieg's haunting Death of Ase.

What do you feel is your strongest suit in mission design? Architecture? Story? Atmosphere? Scripting? Gameplay? Something else?
Story and gameplay, although I’m not great at either. I still feel weak at architecture and scripting, but feel like I’m improving gradually. I also think (and contest voting would agree I suppose) that I’m good at selecting and using ambient music in my missions. I often listen to music in the car driving to work and think about whether it would work as ambient mission music, and what scene I could use it in, etc.

Have you ever worked with other people on an FM project? If so, who were they, and what did they do?
I lead with a large team of developers and testers to complete AsyluM's last mission, Heist Society, which we released in November 2004. I’m working with Polygon and Moghedian on “Death’s Cold Embrace” (see below), as well as with William The Taffer to bring to fruition his brilliant "Deceptive Perceptions II". I've also consulted with Alex Thompson (Dashjianta) to complete her 2001 mission “Curse of the Carnival” and will hopefully get around to also doing that someday.

If you could rebuild any OM from Thief 1/Gold or 2 from scratch (as a T2 FM), which one would it be, and why?
I think I’d do the Mage Towers, because the original wasn’t all that great, and I’d like to improve it using, among other things, the mages Rob Hicks released as part of DedX.

What's your favorite FM(s) from other authors?
Embracing The Enemy by kfgecko
Equilibrium by SilentSleep
Inverted Manse by Sledge
Ominous Bequest by Eshaktaar
Thief Noir by Gumdrop
7th Crystal by Saturnine
Into The Maelstrom by Vigil & Morrgan

Tell us about that first mission you made in dromed, back when you were first learning the editor, which never saw the light of day.
The first mission I tried to do was a conversion of an area I coded on the MUD where I’m an admin. It was a sorceress’ tower from which she’s been evicted, and you have to sneak in, solve a bunch of puzzles and find her spellbook and return it to her. On the MUD, the tower is crawling with shadow daemons, but mine was going to be crawling with mechanists. ;-)

Tell us about the mission(s) you currently have in production.

Death’s Cold Embrace
Originally to be a single mission based on Polygon's Cold Reception (Beta), this has grown tremendously into a four-mission set being developed with Polygon and Moghedian. The surface story is rather superficial, having to do with Mechanists, nobility and synthetic gemstones... but lurking beneath is a grand, tragic tale which I think people will really appreciate, written by all three of us over the course of several years now. It will also feature a rather unique ending sequence, in more ways than one... sorry to be vague, but I hope it will be worth the wait.

The Idol
This project began as a little demo for blowing up zombies with some new weapons I made with help from Targa and Nameless Voice, but soon grew into a full-sized mission. The idea is to delve deep into a Hammer tomb to retrieve a mysterious golden idol said to radiate evil. Then, I decided to expand it into a three mission campaign, using an abandoned Hammer church mission from William the Taffer for the first and third missions, with the original Idol mission in between. New weapons, plenty of undead and hopefully some interesting new special effects should make this a fun mission set to play.

Broad Daylight: Gimfeyn's Challenge
Based on the T2 OM Ambush!, this mission will take place, well, in the middle of the day (duh). You will be competing against a fellow thief (Gimfeyn, an old friend) to see who can be first to get a certain amount of loot in broad daylight without getting caught. I also already have an idea for a sequel, if I ever get around to it.

Deceptive Perceptions II
I'm working with William The Taffer to complete the sequel to his fantastic C3 entry. I've played through it several times, and you're all in for a real treat when it gets released (not that that should surprise anyone).

The Circulation of Shadows
This mission takes place in a thieves' guild where most all the inhabitants have been killed and are being raised from the dead by a psychotic necromancer. It began as a contest-sized mission, but has grown into a normal-sized mission as I expanded the original design. It will probably be the first and last completely original, larger than contest-sized mission I complete, and I think it will be my best work when finally complete.

Missions on the back burner:

King Abedzen’s Tomb
Garrett has discovered a crumbling Hammerite text revealing the location of the tomb of an ancient king, Abedzen, of the Ruthymian Empire, which fell from power and completely disappeared centuries ago. Although the burial chamber and main treasure room have probably long since been looted, the parchment suggests the existence of a second, well-hidden treasure chamber. Garrett’s curiousity gets the better of him and he decides to make the trek on the off chance this second trasure room actually exists and isn’t empty. Hopefully the text’s vague implication that the ancient King must be brought back to life in order to open the second chamber is false...

This is another mission based on an area I coded for the MUD, and is intended to be a MicroMission (about the size of a small contest mission). Hopefully it will see the light of day, since Slyfoxx has already done the voicework for it.

Clue
Originally this was to be a Contest 5 mission, but I realized I would never finish it in time, so it’s on the back burner. Obviously, it’s a Thief version of the old logic-centered board game. You have to deduce the murderer and murder weapon by sneaking around the mansion and determining which suspects and weapons are present, and using the process of elimination. Determining the room is as simple as locating the body of your old friend, Reginald Boddy (a fellow Keeper trainee who also became disillusioned with the order before being inducted). Slyfoxx has already done all the voicework for it – hopefully I’ll complete it one day. The scripting will be a nightmare, though.

Curse of the Carnival (Final)
I’m in the process of finishing Dashjianta’s great 2001 mission, Curse of the Carnival (beta). She’s being consulted and is providing her ideas and input into how she had envisioned the mission ending. You’ll never believe how it ends...

Have you ever done any mods for other games?
Not recently. I made a large game for Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures (a toolkit for the Pool of Radiance style games) about 12 years ago.