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Real Name: Jani Saarijärvi Forum Identity: Spitter Location: Finland What first attracted you to Thief, and when was that? Not a very original story. Thief: The Dark Project was released about the same time as Half-Life, and since I was young and naive, I opted for the latter. About six months later I curiously tried Thief's demo and liked it instantly. Why did you start designing missions, and when was that? Soon after acquiring my copy of T1. I had been interested in level editing for a long time, but had never released anything before. I had tried many level editors for as many games before, and quite frankly didn't believe I would end up actually finishing anything playable. Anyway, I started my venture with Dromed, wanting to see what I could come up with. 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.
What inspiration outside of Thief 1/Gold, Thief 2, and Deadly Shadows influenced the content of your fan mission? Movies and books. Dune and Discworld series come to mind. Hightowne Museum's vault climax was inspired by Mission Impossible (as was told before). Oh, and anything steampunk. What do you feel is your strongest suit in mission design? Architecture? Story? Atmosphere? Scripting? Gameplay? Something else? Architecture and atmosphere, although I'm master of neither. I strive to have a good story (or at least to have one in the first place), but often that's easier said than done. Although I often spend ages balancing torch light radius and brightness values, my missions tend to end up either too easy or too hard (as was the case with Geller's Pride beta version, although it was by no means up to the Elevator mission!). Have you ever worked with other people on an FM project? If so, who were they, and what did they do? Worked on a T2 mission project with my real-life friend Seeker. We've pretty much split everything (architecture and story being most important). The level is on hold till we get our hands on a T3 editor. 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? Constantine's Sword. It's freaky, probably one of the most intense non-undead levels ever. I would like to recreate this tension with Thief 2's "advanced" engine features. What's your favorite FM(s) from other authors? The Enterprise and it's sequels have a great story, Just For Show is visually stunning, The Seventh Crystal has an intense atmosphere and The Saint of Redmound excels in several different areas and is just fun to play. The list could go on quite a while - although I'm pretty picky about fan missions, the number of excellent missions never ceases to amaze me. 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. A yard for my multilevel megacampaign (oh, the naive days of a Dromed newbie). Had barrels, texture windows and an unworking sewer. Small and horrendous, luckily I soon begun work on Geller's Pride. Tell us about the mission you currently have in production. Saints and Thieves (T2). Hopefully coming some day. Has a warehouse and some city. Dromed has beaten me with pretty much every error message it can produce while making this mission, but I'm determined to finish it. I've made some clever (or at least uncommon) decisions in the mission, and I quite like some of the enviroments I've constructed - I wouldn't like to waste it. As for now, though, I shan't spoil more of the level. Have you ever done any mods for other games? I have done levels for Doom, Doom 2, Duke Nukem 3D, Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games, Red Alert, Jedi Knight, Half-Life, et cetera. Never really finished anything worth uploading for everyone to see. Travel to: Go Back / T-TC.com (home) |