Stories from the Shadows

The Dark Mod team is a solid group of professionals and talented amateurs from all over the globe. Most are here because they are fans of Thief and stealth gaming in general, and see the mod as a way of delivering the stealth experience they wished T3 had been.

In order to keep things organized, the development team is divided into several divisions.

Original Mod Founder

Fingernail

David Massey (UK) - "Student, guitarist, musician, fancies himself as a bit of a polymath. Never expected the mod to take off quite like it has but it's been a rather pleasant surprise."

Programming Division

greebo (Coding Lead, Mapper)

"Age: 29, graduate student in the field of Technical Physics (organic electronics). A Thief fan ever since. Currently coding on all kinds of stuff like AI, physics, GUIs and the DarkRadiant editor (together with OrbWeaver)."

sparhawk (Coder)

Gerhard W. Gruber - "Married, three kids. A computer freak since about 1983 and a professional programmer since 1991, working currently for a telecommunication company as a software developer, project manager, functional responsible, kind of business analyst and SLS lead. Somehow I lost track of all the computers and languages I learned, since most of them I havn't really used much, except in school, so the only ones really still counting are SQL, 80x86 assembly and C/C++."

Ishtvan (Coder)

Born: 1981. Ishtvan is a graduate student in the field of physical science, and occasionally programs simulations as part of that job. Brought Sound Propagation into the game and is currently working on finishing the Melee Combat System.

Crispy (Coder)

"Crispy is a computer science student at the Australian National University who dreams of someday escaping the clutches of academia. When not plotting his escape, he's been helping out with various programming tasks, almost all of which involve AI."

OrbWeaver (Coder)

"DarkRadiant project lead and (very) small-time modeller/mapper. Outside the Dark Mod I am an office-based wage slave and amateur pianist."

angua (Coder, Mapper)

"Age: 29, graduate engineer (technical physics). Started as beta mapper, working together with greebo on The Dead Gathers map, which is now one of the largest maps of the mod. Has moved on to AI coding since half a year (door handling, searching behaviour, altert states, AI optimisation). Enjoys playing the bass and volleyball when not mapping. The first Dark Mod girl!"

Tels (Coder)

Tels is a computer programmer at day and a dark modder at night. He's done the packaging scripts and oversight for the first two releases, Thief's Den and Saint Lucia. When not cleaning up, fixing bugs or documenting things, he writes support scripts, like the new documentation GUI, as well as works on in-game entities like the new extinguishable light system.

Artistic Assets Division

Springheel (Artistic Lead, Modeler)

Eric Pommer (Toronto, Canada) - "Springheel has been doing freelance illustrations for fantasy game companies since 1997. Check out his art at www.mindplaces.com. Besides designing character and creature concepts for TDM, Springheel has dabbled in just about everything other than coding: texturing static meshes, maintaining the mod website, creating GUI menu screens, modeling props and AI, and recently, mapping. His proudest achievement is the TDM lockpicking system.

Arcturus (Texture Artist)

Has contributed a whole lot of high-quality textures - you'll love them.

SneaksieDave (Chief Tester, Texture Artist, Modeler)

Straight from the unsung hell-world of software quality assurance, Dave contributes whatever he can manage to learn, including textures, models, particles, and arguments. He enjoys mapping above all, but rarely actually finishes a map. Damnit.

Animation Division

squill (Mapper, Animator, Modeler)

"Animator with a strong passion for games and graphics. Started out with creating maps for various FPS games and developed some modeling and texture skills to enhance his environments. When not into games he enjoys being a animation student, musician and film junky. Joined The Dark Mod team as a mapper but extended with some model and texture creation and is currently doing character animation at the animation department."

Noisycricket (animator)

Domarius (Animator)

"Born 1978, Australia. Illustrates, models, animates and programs, self-taught and through Uni. Currently working at Halfbrick. Started out joining the mod as a programmer, and was the only scripter in the beginning. Created the scripts for the blackjack, sword, and the base arrow weapon, and also the broadhead and the fire arrow. Moved to animating when there were programmers but no animators."

Mapping Division

Fidcal (Mapper)

Since he joined, Fidcal added a whole lot of documentation and tutorials to our wiki, invaluable work which future mappers will surely appreciate. He's constantly pushing the mod towards higher levels of mapper-friendliness.

Dram (Mapper)

Name: Martin Melicharek. Born: July 3rd 1987 in Czech Republic. Website: www.dramthethief.com
Studied Electronic Arts for a Bachelor Degree at the University of Western Sydney in Australia and has been a mapper for the Dark Mod since its creation. He is currently employed at Bohemia Interactive in Czech Republic as a Level Designer. His game editing addiction goes back to when he was but 12 years of age, modifying settings at his own accord. His largest solo creations were a "Bullet-time" mod for Unreal 1, where the players could dodge bullets in slow-motion like in the Matrix, and a "Ghoster" mod for Thievery, which made sneaking as difficult as Thief on Expert and allowed AI to notice missing loot, among other things. Currently he is working on Blackheart Manor, which is at present one of the largest maps in the Dark Mod, alongside The Dead Gathers by greebo and angua.

jdude (Mapper)

Jordan Kopp (Canada) - "I've always loved creating things which has lead to my huge background in mapping. I loved using army men and blocks as a child, but I'd always run out of blocks which was frustrating. I first played doom back in 1994 and started editing maps for it in 1995 when Tricks of the Doom Gurus came out with Waded on the CD (making me a 9 year old mapper) . I had the realization that it's just like blocks and army men, but with no limitations! From there I went onto mapping as a hobby for quake, thief and various halflife and halflife2 mods. Most of what I've made has never been revealed to the public, I just do it for fun. Eventually I found myself mapping for Doom3 and since I've always loved thief, this was a project that was very interesting for me. The name Jdude doesn't really have any significance."

Komag (Mapper)

Ben Ramsey, born 1976 in Michigan USA. Being a Thief "super fan" ever since the first Bafford demo came out in 1998 complete with rope arrows and swimmable water, he has been running www.KeepofMetalandGold.com since 1999 and www.ShadowdarkKeep.com since 2005. Komag has written some widely used beginner tutorials for the three Thief games, hosted numerous fun small mission contests, and is now excited to be contributing to The Dark Mod as a beta mapper and tester.

Sound/Vocal Division

Goldchocobo (Vocals)

Marcus Zuhr stepped in at the right moment and gave the mod an awesome set of vocals, including builders, nobles, guards and zombies. He's also working on some promising maps.

New Horizon (Vocals)

Tim Gormley - "Age: 34. Born: March 9th, 1975. A married Jack of many trades. Has earned a living as a professional actor, theatrical sound tech, and as the lead vocalist of a Rock, Rhythm and Blues band. Currently exploring the freedom and imprisonment of self employment."

Thanks go out to our former Team Members who are either missing or no longer contributing: