All Spotlights

Real Name: Aaron Lambert
Forum Identity: Sharga
Location: USA, California, San Diego

What first attracted you to Thief, and when was that?
To begin, I must start at the beginning: my mother met my father and-ok we'll skip that part. I've loved computer games and video games since I was a wee lad, just able to push the A and B buttons on my Nintendo controller. I was in 9th grade when Thief: The Dark Project came out and I had a friend in my Spanish class who spoke often of it's amazing quality. I became slightly interested but not interested enough to take action and buy it. What? I'm cheap ok. Then one day, he said that it was just too realistic, scary, and difficult for him (would you believe that he had made it all the way to the tombs in the Bonehoard?!) so he wanted to sell it. I went home that day with a new CD in my hands and fifteen dollars less in my pocket. >From then on I've been hooked.

Why did you start designing missions, and when was that?
I had already finished Thief:TDP and become heavily involved in the TTLG community when I first heard about the fan mission people were making and I was amazed. I also heard that just about any dedicated Taffer who wanted to could learn how to build a mission of their own. I've always given myself ridiculously long and involved projects to work on as hobbies, so mission design fit right in. Game design had always been my dream and now here was a chance to make my own world! Who would pass that up? I don't remember when I started exactly but I figure it was around 2000 some time.

Mansion of Chaos



Swamped

 Give us a brief summary of all your currently released missions.
I've got two currently released missions of my own: MOC2 The Mansion of Chaos and Swamped. It's difficult to put years of work into a few sentences but I'll try. I had begun building with ideas for an incredible plot, tons of voice acting, etc. Boy was I naive. Over time, my ideas changed greatly and finally, after a lot of messing around, I was set on making a mission that continued the story of the Trickster since I loved Maw of Chaos so much. I spent a long time working on it, nearly abandoned it twice, and was never able to do half the stuff I imagined. Looking back on it now, it's obviously newbie work and it has its share of problems, but it is a pretty fun mission and by the end I had finally got the knack of building in Dromed. Oddly enough the architecture gets better as the mission progresses, heh.

Although I swore to never make a mission again, I just couldn't help myself. Any Dromeder know this painful struggle. No two ways about it, Dromed is an addiction. To continue, I had this great idea for a mission about craymen and then I had this idea about a mission that takes place in a swamp, both of which had never been done before. And now I had the beautiful new lighting and textures of Thief: The Metal Age! I began building and realized that my story would have to take place in 2 missions at the least. So first I made Swamped, which is a "getting there" sort of a mission. Although it (like any mission) could always be better, I am very proud of this one. It turned out to be exactly what I wanted it to be. I believe people enjoyed it, even though many got lost in the fog and usually ended up being mauled repeatedly by angry treebeasts. The following missions for the campaign are still in progress. I'm getting help on figuring out how to finish them, if they'll ever be completed at all.

What inspiration outside of Thief 1/Gold, Thief 2, and Deadly Shadows influenced the content of your fan mission?
Well, I was born in a swamp and raised by a mother apebeast and a father crayman. I suppose that had some influence on my designs. Seriously though, it's probably just my wacky, unique, tripped out imagination. I am an artist after all, not a stereotypical one (though my friends tease me plenty about that) but an artist all the same.

What do you feel is your strongest suit in mission design?
Without a doubt, its architecture. I love being able to bring a room to life. Maybe that's why I'm so skilled at 3D programs at my school now. Or perhaps it is my time spent in Dromed that gave my the abilities in digital 3D that I have today. I do have a lot of cool ideas for story but they're just not cleaned up. Most of the time they are such that implementing them into Dromed would be impossible.

Have you ever worked with other people on an FM project? If so, who were they, and what did they do?
Yes, I built a large room for Doaal for his mission Mystery Man and I built quite a large section for him for his upcoming mission Shrine of the Sinistral (SOS). He's also helped me with a ton of technical stuff in all my missions.

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?
Either the Maw of Chaos because it's just dang trippy or Down in the Bonehoard because it's my favorite Thief:TDP mission. I think I could really beef it up with even more great puzzles and incredibly intricate tomb and cave systems. Why, I could make a whole game off of that mission, even a whole series! Oh wait, that's Tomb Raider.

Sorry, it's been a while and the ol' thinker aint working like it used to.

What's your favorite FM(s) from other authors?
I love too many to go over them all. But the ones that stick out in my mind are these (in no particular order):
the Calendra Series (of course)
The Great Tree
Keeper of the Prophecies series
The Seventh Crystal
Benny's Dead
The Death of Garrett
Order of the Vine
Mystery Man
Along with many of the past contest missions (deceptive perceptions esp.) and almost all of the new contest missions.
There are many that I forgot or that I would have mentioned had I played them, so keep that in mind. Basically I love missions that pull off something new or ones that take something common and make it amazing.

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.
It stunk, really bad. But I can't tell you how many hours I spent in it just running around, blackjacking the guard, and grabbing the scepter. In fact, when I made my first room (it consisted of a cube with Jorge texture in light_bright mode) I was struck with an incredible sense of awe. "I've created space!" I shouted with glee. Then I ran in circles and bumped against the walls for a half hour or so. In some aspects, Dromed is identical to real life. ;)

Tell us about the mission you currently have in production.
I've still got the workings of the Secret of the Craymen campaign sitting on my computer. It's the two missions that follow Swamped in the story. Somone else volunteered to work on them. I don't know if they'll ever get completed or if anything will happen to them, but I have to say that the architecture I have completed thus far in them is incredible (and this is coming from a person who is very critical and biased against himself, so that's got to count for something).

My old Thief site is still running last I checked and it's got a few pictures on it

     

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