Thief related design docs

Dominus on 29/11/2009 at 20:40

If anyone knows any design stuff related to Thief games or any Looking Glass games, please post the links here. Interviews are ok too :) I want to gather in one place all of the info, I am really curious how they did those games back then.

Here what I found until now:

Heather Kelley's design documents created for use during mission and level development on Thief 3
(http://www.moboid.com/portfolio/thief/docs.htm)

Randy Smith's Design Fundamentals of Stealth Gameplay in the Thief Series
(http://www.roningamedeveloper.com/Materials.html)
+
(http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060606/gamapodcast_01.shtml)

System Shock 1 Designers' Notes
(http://gmzzz.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/system-shock-1-designers%E2%80%99-notes/)

System Shock 2 Designers' Notes
(http://gmzzz.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/system-shock-2-designers-noteshell-i-found-some-designers8217-notes-inside-the-system-shock-2-manual-and-i-want-to-share-them-too-neat-stuff/)

Ultima Underworld II Designers' Notes
(http://gmzzz.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/ultima-underworld-ii-designers8217-notesjust-got-the-game-today-and-i-want-to-share-this-page-from-the-game8217s-manual-keep-in-mind-that-this-game-was-released-in-1992-i-would-like-to-see-more-pages/)

also design related articles:

Journey Into The Cradle
(http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/?page_id=618)

Robing Gods
(http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_205/6150-Robbing-Gods)

Interview with Doug Church
(http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/?p=676)

Interview with Daniel Thron
(http://dominus.ttlg.com/?p=65)

Warren Spector Master Class interviews at The University of Texas - Marc LeBlanc
(http://gmzzz.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/warren-spector-deus-ex-thief-ultima-wing-commander-master-class-interviews-at-the-university-of-texas-1-september-10-2007-warren-spector-intro-lecture-2-september-17-2007-patricia-york-hr-director-dis/)

The collected game design rants of Marc “MAHK” LeBlanc
(http://algorithmancy.8kindsoffun.com/)

Looking Glass Studios Manifesto
(http://web.archive.org/web/19980224020118/www.lglass.com/p_info/dark/manifesto.html)

Interview with Sean Barrett
(http://www.southquarter.com/2009/05/08/interview-with-sean-barrett/)

Ken Levine on Gaming
(http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4082/ken_levine_on_studio_culture_from_.php?page=3)

Interview with Dan Schmidt
(http://www.incgamers.com/Features/162/Terraforming)

Interview with Jordan Thomas
(http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2007/09/21/making-of-thief-deadly-shadows/)

I'm pretty sure there are more out there, so if you have any pls post here, thanks! ;)

DJ Riff on 30/11/2009 at 10:05

Tom Leonard

Building an AI Sensory System: Examining The Design of Thief: The Dark Project
(http://www.gamasutra.com/gdc2003/features/20030307/leonard_01.htm)

Postmortem: Thief: The Dark Project
(http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3355/postmortem_thief_the_dark_project.php)

clearing on 30/11/2009 at 10:12

Sound Propagation in 3D Environments (Chris Carollo): (http://darkfate.ru/?show=files/clearing/chris_carollo.zip)

Esme on 30/11/2009 at 13:30

(http://www.boxtechnic.com/thief/chris_carollo.pdf) pdf version of the chris carollo sound propogation powerpoint

clearing on 18/12/2009 at 05:55

Level Design & Lighting in Thief: Deadly Shadows: (http://web.archive.org/web/20050306134336/mavra.perilith.com/~faceless/.sux/thief.shtml)

Nephthys on 18/12/2009 at 07:06

The Journey into the Cradle article was very good, even if it feels like it might give the wrong impression of the games as a whole, I really enjoyed the complexity of that level, and it's good to see that other people did too, and published something about it! :D

Beleg Cúthalion on 18/12/2009 at 13:03

Quote Posted by clearing

Level Design & Lighting in Thief: Deadly Shadows: (http://web.archive.org/web/20050306134336/mavra.perilith.com/~faceless/.sux/thief.shtml)

This is actually a really nice article for FM authors, thanks for finding it. :thumb:

Esme on 17/9/2015 at 13:02

Quote Posted by Esme

(http://www.boxtechnic.com/thief/chris_carollo.pdf) pdf version of the chris carollo sound propogation powerpoint

Could someone mirror this, I just realised it was missing due to switching servers and spent a couple of hours hunting for a backup and the zip file from clearing doesn't seem to be available

Renault on 17/9/2015 at 14:07

<strike>It came right up when I clicked on the link. Maybe try it again.</strike>

Nm, I get it now. Here's a mirror:

(http://www.southquarter.com/downloads/docs/chris_carollo.pdf) Chris Carollo Sound Propogation

AntiMatter_16 on 17/9/2015 at 20:25

The fellow in charge of Thief2 Gold released his design docs/journals about the project:
(http://thief.wikia.com/wiki/File:EmilsJournal.pdf)
(http://thief.wikia.com/wiki/File:EmilsJournal_pt2.pdf)

I haven't looked much through them (the handwriting is difficult to read - though it wasn't written for release) but they detail the Thief2 Gold missions like the Necromancer's Castle, and the "Raid as Wallard Square" among others. It's pretty interesting.