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The Dark Mod 15th Anniversary Contest! To celebrate our 15th year, we are holding a fan mission contest! The Dark Mod project trundles onward for it’s 15th year in a row. In that time we have improved our game engine in countless ways and have grown to over 170 missions! To celebrate our perseverance and the years of improvements to come, we are hosting a contest to mark 15 years since the 1.0 release! Now is your time to demonstrate the mission design that best exemplifies your personal style and capabilities! Please consider entering this event! Unlike most recent contests, there is no defined theme and we are simply going to score based on our standard metrics of Story, Gameplay, and Visuals with our standard weighted scoring: Max Possible = Total Votes * 5 (Outstanding) TotalMaxPointsPoss (TMP) = AllCategoryVotecount(ACV) * 30 Full Weighted Score (FWS) = (Gameplay score*3 + Visual score*2 + Story score) / TMP Contest Submissions should be provided before October 16th so that players can start playing and celebrating on the 17th! The players have been keen to relay that they would like really creative missions so it may be worthwhile to examine our “Community Unusual Contest” to get an idea about the wild range of possibilities we offer to designers. Also, since the contest submission is in October, there will probably be an increased desire for Horror themes. The Dark Mod 2.12 was just released so including new 2.12 features is strongly encouraged. Finally, it might be nice if authors name their protagonist Corbin to match the included missions. ( None of the above suggestions are requirements for the submissions. ) Please post your intention to enter in this thread. Thank you! The Poll on this is to demonstrate the intended design used in the mission release threads.

The Numbers don't lie. It has been 15 years since the release of TDM 1.0 in 2009. I think we should consider a contest to celebrate this. Further, the contest goal should be with the intention of motivating the completion of a campaign that can be deemed official. Here are some possible ways forward: Proposal 1: Middle mission(s) Authors are asked to create a mission that expands the story between "A New Job" and "Tears of St Lucia". This can involve escaping the heavily guarded city perimeter, stowing away on a ship or caravan, attempting to recruit a partner for St Lucia and failing, getting caught by Builders before arriving and having to escape their compound, getting lost in haunted woods on the way there, etc. Any interesting way that the connection between the two official missions can be expanded. Points are awarded for making explicit references to Corbin, St Lucia, and any story elements in the two official missions. If the resultant mission is of high enough quality, it can possibly be made into an official mission. If we get a number of excellent submissions and they do not cause logical inconsistencies, we might even be able to add two or more to the official list. Proposal 2: Intellectual Property distinct approximation of TDS missions Over the years, many have asked that we recreate Thief 1 \ 2 in this engine. Obviously we cannot do this due to copyright law but we could create similar missions and stories that approximate the Thief 1 or 2 designs. That said, I think that most of our audience has played these missions to death so it may be underwhelming to see them arrive in approximate form anyway. What might be better would be to develop a similar story to TDS and make missions that resemble what T1 \ T2 players were dreaming would arrive when TDS was announced and the first screen-shots were shown in gaming magazines. So take any TDS mission you like, examine the story arc and wildly re-interpret something similar but on a much grander scale. Since it's possible that two or more contestants will choose the same mission to re-interpret, we have a slot system were authors need to claim their preferred mission and if it is taken then they must select another one or lose some story points. The slots represent a sketch of what the mission author might try to do rather than a blueprint. If authors can come up with a mission that has almost no resemblance to any TDS mission but would make for a compelling story development in a similar story arc then that can be claimed as an alternative to a slot. Proposal 3: Same as proposal 2 but we stick with Thief 1 rather than TDS. Wildly re-interpret T1 based on what you may have dreamed of when reading the gaming magazines or playing the demo. Slots system to prevent duplicate submissions. Maybe with either proposals 3 and 4, we still require the use of Corbin as the protagonist and a connective enough story that they could also be adapted as middle missions for the official campaign if the team agrees on it. Proposal 4: Another "Connections" Contest. We just allow authors to connect any two missions with each other or expand the story of an existing series or single mission. So those are my thoughts. I'll leave it to players and mission authors to suggest other proposals and if we have some sort of consensus about the most popular proposals then we will make a poll. Realistically between now and October we may not be able to hold a contest with any strict guidelines ( and tricky issues with maintaining a distance to Thief IP ) so proposal 4 may still be the easiest option.

Hello sneaksie taffers! I'm very pleased to release a new map, named Down and Out on Newford Road. Our kleptomaniac protagonist has found himself without his gear after a job gone wrong and is now stuck in a strange part of town with few friends to call on. It's a smallish-to-medium city exploration map with several intricate parts to deal with. In keeping with the "connections" theme there are usually multiple ways in and out of the various City sections. This is a Christmas Connections contest entry. For my connections to previous missions I have chosen two of the oldest missions in the archive: The silly Builders from the Outpost north of Bridgeport are making another attempt to manufacture a golden holy symbol. Has the Bishop learned his lesson from last time? ...because the one man still willing to talk to you wants you to steal it before he'll help you out. This contact is none other than Hamill, the fence from the first FM of them all. Thieves with a talent for exploration and an eye for hidden secrets might come across a sneaksie reference to my first mission The Factory Heist. Here and there are also bits of foreshadowing for my upcoming mission, tentatively called A House Call. And of course I had to work in a tribute to the greatly missed Grayman, also findable by players with a passion for discovering secret areas. ---- ---- This mission would be much uglier, buggier, disorganised, and z-fightier without my kind beta testers: ate0ate, datiswous, JackFarmer, and Kingsal. There were also useful comments from Dragofer, wesp5, and madtaffer. I am very grateful to them for their hard work and attention to detail. ---- Here is the link to the mission: Down and Out on Newford Road --(!!TDM 2.10 v 8 BETA REQUIRED!!)-- I'm also including some promo shots for the downloader: Promos ---- Enjoy and thanks for playing!

The Builder's Blocks The time has come for my unusual gameplay fm to be released! Important! Please read this before you play the map. You will be playing a mini-game in this map. This mini-game alters the mouse sensitivity setting when you start it, so be sure to click on the 'leave' button in-map before exiting the game. Failure to do so means that you must reset the mouse setting manually and then restart the map. Since this is a map for the unusual gameplay contest the gameplay is unusual (not surprisingly). Do not expect a normal Dark Mod mission. Link(s) (post mirrors, and I will add them here): https://www.dropbox....ders_blocks.pk4 Screenshot of someone playing with a prototype of the game: A big thanks to my beta testers (in alphabetical order): jaxa nborh1more Obsttorte PPoe without whom many features would never have seen the light of day.

Summary Greetings dear friends! To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the release of my FM, I have published a (hopefully) worthy update to it. Version 2 of my FM called "Sneak & Destroy" uses many new features that have been added to TDM over the years, fixes numerous bugs that were overlooked at the time, but the FM still remains true to the original one. So if you had problems playing this FM lately, if you never played this FM or if you wish to revisit a tiny but lovely part of the TDM history, this update is for you! Download the latest version via the in-game downloader and celebrate the past 10 years with me together! Improvements Visual improvements to city area and interior rooms Enriched the scenes with additional audio Fixed critical bugs that were introduced as TDM was updated Added triggered Conversations for NPCs Added EFX support to all areas Changed multiple aspects of the map in terms of better gameplay and progression Corrected and inserted new writings in books and notes Reduced amount of loot necessary to end mission Added lantern and looking glass to inventory Made use of new particle effects to enhance visual quality Screenshots Credits Thanks go to: bikerdude for being on call to bugfix and improve the map with me Dragofer for pushing ideas for scripting things jysk, Baal & datiswous for finding even the tiniest bugs Springheel for reintroducing me to DR after almost 10 years with his tutorials Greebo for working on the newest tools to update my rusty FM Grayman – I hope I made you a little bit proud Have fun! SeriousToni - 12.04.2012 - 17.11.2022

Woo-hoo! Done! A new version is now available, v1.1. Thanks to all who commented on the first version. Thanks to my beta testers: Bikerdude HappyCheeze Xarg The Story: The Builders have "lost" a lightning-attracting artifact. And they want you to find it. In a thunderstorm, no less. But there's more to this theft than meets the eye. Enjoy!

Time for a new contest eh? This contest will almost be a speed build contest since we are shaving a few days off the typical 3 month span of a standard contest. TDM has no shortage of horror themed missions but since we missed the chance to have a Halloween contest this is a "gift" to the large contingent of TDM fans who enjoy some horror in their life. I wont go crazy with bonus points in this contest but there will be a few incentives... The overarching theme of this contest will be placing the player in dangerous locations. Having to climb down into elevator shafts, narrow caverns pits, etc to acquire loot or trigger objectives. This theme is meant to be paired with an incentive to use vine arrows to escape (etc). There is no hard requirement to adhere to this theme but players can judge your theme score using this concept as a baseline. Bonus incentives: 3 Perfect votes added for creative Vine Arrow usage 1 Perfect vote for creative Mine usage 1 Perfect vote for creative Flash-bomb usage 2 Perfect vote for EFX audio 1 Perfect vote for Subtitles 1 Perfect vote for adding Translation string support As with the previous contest, we may need to add a scaling factor if there is lower than expected participation from voters. Standard Contest Scoring: Total Points = (gameplay * 3) + (Appearance * 2) + (Story \ Theme * 1) Max Possible = Total Votes * 5 (Outstanding) Category Score (%) = Category Points /Max Possible * 100 Total Score (%) = Total Points /Total Max Possible * 100 The vote count was equal in all categories for everyone so: TotalMaxPointsPoss (TMP) = AllCategoryVotecount(ACV) * 30 Full Weighted Score (FWS) = (Gamescore*3 + Visualscore*2 + Storyscore) / TMP Pre-existing maps: The contest will be for newly created missions. Authors can use modular assets and prefabs and limited pre-made map sections. If you wish to use an existing WIP mission, you will need to declare this in your release thread and other participants will need to agree that your mission should be allowed to compete. Otherwise, if multiple authors with WIP missions decide to join we can create a separate scoring for those missions. The submission deadline will be Christmas Day ( but we can extend the deadline if all participants agree to the request. ) Please declare you intention to join in the fun!

https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152224 There is a new mapping contest over on TTLG for the Thief: Deadly Shadows 20th Anniversary and the organizers were kind enough to include The Dark Mod along with all of the Thief games as an options for making a mission to submit as an entry. The deadline is a year from yesterday and the rules are pretty open. I recommend going to the original thread for the details but I will summarize here: Rules: - The mission(s) can be for Thief 1, Thief 2, Deadly Shadows or The Dark Mod. - Collaborations are allowed. - Contestants can use any custom resource they want, though TDM cannot use the Deadly Shadows resource pack. - Contestants can submit more than one mission. - Contestants can enter anonymously. - The mission(s) can be of any size. Using prefabs is allowed but the idea is this is a new mission and starting from an abandoned map or importing large areas from other maps is not allowed. Naturally this is on the honor system as we have no way of validating. Mission themes and contents: There is no requirement from a theme or story viewpoint, however contestants might consider that many players may expect or prefer missions to be celebratory of Thief: Deadly Shadows in this respect: castles, manors, museums, ruins inhabited by Pagans and the like, with a balance of magic versus technology. This is entirely up to the authors, though, to follow or not - it is just mentioned here as an FYI and, while individual voters may of course choose to vote higher or lower based on this on their own, it will not be a criteria used explicitly in voting or scoring. Deadline: May 25th, 2024 at 23:59 Pacific Time. See the TTLG thread for details on submissions and the voting process. Provided I can make the deadline I hope to participate. It would be nice to see the entire community do something together, and expressing our complicated relationship with this divisive game seems as good a pretext as any.

Is there any renewed interest in a mission contest? Now that I've created the poll, I am kinda partial to a Thanksgiving contest since it straddles the fall \ winter seasons ( my favor TDM seasons ).

Hello all! It has been too long since a contest has been organized so this is an overdue proclamation. Part 1: The theme of this contest is "connections". This means that the mission must in someway relate to the story or characters of another existing TDM mission. For example, you could create a mission that creates a side story that connects a Thomas Porter series mission to a mission in the Penny Dreadful series. You could also create a mission that tells the story of what happened to a side character in a Thomas Porter mission before the events of a subsequent Thomas Porter mission. If you are the author of a mission series, you are free to create another entry in your existing series but are encouraged to somehow connect that new mission to a different author's series. If you are not the author of the series, it will be up to you to decide how strongly you describe or imply that your mission is connected to the series. Feel free to make branch stories of the main TDM campaign missions or be more adventurous and branch out from a unique gem like Blackgrove Manor. If you do intend to strongly associate your connected mission to a mission not created by the TDM team or Crucible Team, it may be best to reach out to the original author of the mission for approval or guidance. You are only free to create "official sequel" missions for a series if you either created that series or have approval from it's author. For example, should you decide to create a new Chronicles of Skullduggery mission and call it "COS 4: Sneaky Snacks" chances are that Bienie would not approve of this unofficial sequel and we could not host it or allow it to compete. It is safer if instead you create a mission that tells your own story but incorporates location names, characters, and story elements from an existing mission. Further, when incorporating these elements they should remain largely untouched. You can have your character discuss where Thomas Porter was going (etc) but you should not change Mr Porter's sexual orientation or conjure some story about his desire to quit his adventures to become a hot-air balloon operator. ( Unless the author Sotha approves of your fanciful divergent version of Mr Porter ) More "safe" ways to "connect" your mission to an existing mission: A story book (readable) that tells a fable version of what happened in a different mission. A character who hates the protagonist of a different mission for some reason. A character who has visited a town from another mission. The "connection" attribute will add to the "story score" and will be voted on. ( Ranging from 1 added perfect vote to 5 added perfect votes biasing the average. ) Part 2: 2.10 OPTIONAL Dev Build Bonuses To help promote the 2.10 beta process and encourage more testing, additional points will be added for using features from the latest TDM versions. This will be a risk \ reward scenario since cutting edge features may need to be changed or even removed by the final 2.10 release. We will work hard to ensure that features that are critical to the design of these missions are maintained and improved but we may not be able to guarantee 2.10 beta features will be considered stable for production. Mission authors are free to release a two versions of their mission ( 2.10 and 2.09, or 2.10 and 2.07 etc ) if they want to allow players who don't want to use TDM 2.10 beta ( Dev builds ) to play their mission. This isn't just a 2.10 initiative, you can see below that we are also awarding authors who use features from 2.07 to 2.09 as well. The newer the feature, the greater the reward. The reward for using a new 2.10 graphic or game-play feature will be 6 perfect votes added to your voting average. The reward for using a new 2.10 asset ( texture, model, sound, etc) will be 2 perfect votes added to your voting average. The reward for using a new 2.09 feature will be 5 perfect votes added to your voting average The reward for using a new 2.09 asset will be 2 perfect vote added to your voting average The reward for using a new 2.08 feature will be 4 perfect votes added to your voting average The reward for using a new 2.08 asset will be 2 perfect vote added to your voting average The reward for using a new 2.07 feature or asset will be 2 perfect votes added to your voting average These points will be averaged into either the graphics or game-play section of voting depending on what you add. I will attempt to identify what features are being used but will kindly ask that authors declare which features are being used in their submission thread. Standard Contest Scoring: Total Points = (gameplay * 3) + (Appearance * 2) + (Story \ Theme * 1) Max Possible = Total Votes * 5 (Outstanding) Category Score (%) = Category Points /Max Possible * 100 Total Score (%) = Total Points /Total Max Possible * 100 The vote count was equal in all categories for everyone so: TotalMaxPointsPoss (TMP) = AllCategoryVotecount(ACV) * 30 Full Weighted Score (FWS) = (Gamescore*3 + Visualscore*2 + Storyscore) / TMP Pre-existing maps: The contest will be for newly created missions. Authors can use modular assets and prefabs and limited pre-made map sections. If you wish to use an existing WIP mission, you will need to declare this in your release thread and other participants will need to agree that your mission should be allowed to compete. Otherwise, if multiple authors with WIP missions decide to join we can create a separate scoring for those missions. The submission deadline will be Christmas Day ( but we can extend the deadline if all participants agree to the request. ) ================================= Final Contest Entries: Winner: Wellingtoncrab "Iris" 97.08% Second Place: Bikerdude, Amadeus, Dragofer "Written in Stone" 95.28% 3rd: Kingsal "Hazard Pay" 95.06% 4th: Down and Out on Newford Road - thebigh 81.01% 5th: Paying the Bills 0: Moving Day - Jedi_Wannabe 77.64%

Finally done with my vertical contest entry... Swing You'll get your sea legs ... or die trying ... Thanks to my beta testers: SiyahParsomen Diego Baddcog ---------------------- README: SWING a Dark Mod mission, by Komag for the Vertical Contest held summer 2010 find me on TheDarkMod.com forums, or via ShadowDarkKeep.com This mission is a "platformer" with slight puzzle elements (figuring out where to go next and how to get there). Be prepared to do a lot of falling, dying, and quickloading! Quicksave anytime you are sure-footed, about take a risk Getting off the swing for any reason is not recommended! And try not to get sick ;-) Have FUN!!! Komag - Ben Ramsey -------------------------- BRIEFING: The King's steward has seen you in action aboard His Majesty's Ship Vertigo, and he is pleased with your potential. You are hereby granted an opportunity to prove your quality by successfully navigating the King's Royal Navy training swing. You need only retrieve the high crown (a replica of course) from the top of the swing, and return it to the docking area. As a bonus, see how many of the ten hidden bottles you can find - the more you come back with the more impressed your superiors will be, and that can only be a good thing as you know." ------------------------ Known Issues: - It's possible to stop the motion of some of the moving things, and even the entire swing itself, if you mess with things enough ENJOY!!! http://www.shadowdarkkeep.com/missions/Swing_v1.2.pk4

Evenin, Taffers! My FM for the Grand Christmas FM Contest, Business as Usual... updated 16-01-10 (fixed all of the minor errors people were having) "Got a new place in the old quarter, but as the saying goes 'the more things change the more they stay the same..." "...Tiss the holiday season and the first snows are upon us, bah bloody humbug. As usual there is a local thief who needs taking down a peg or two and some noble boasting about his wealth down the local tavern. Thankfully this part of town is free from the likes of the Builders, but my 'old friends' the Guardians are as usual keeping an eye on things..." Download links: filefront Build Time: 5 weeks, starting December 13th. Thanks:- Huge respect to the Dark Mod team for such a great mod and for all the hard work they put into it and continue to put into it. Special thanks to Fidcal, Serpentine and others for their help on the forums and to my beta testers: Serpentine, 7upMan, StiFuNelson, FFox, Acolyte, Chiron and others who did an awesome job. Known issues:- # This mission will have less than optimal fps at a few points on the map. # Enabling bloom on low end PCs will drop off 5-10fps # On low end PCs I recommend, V-sync is off, AA is off, Aniso is 4x or lower. # Additionally, on low end PCs you may have to disable player shadow - bring up the cmd line in tdm (ctrl-alt-`) and then type the following line ' g_showPlayerShadow 0 '

Three weeks since Fredham set me up on that bankjob. He said it would be an easy job, said he had an inside contact. Little did I know that they would betray me and make me take the fall. I can not say I am innocent, I tried to get into a sealed off place full of gold and here I am, locked in a small cell in a gold mine. The punishment fits the crime I guess... The story takes its beginning when the lord of earth desided to drive his fist down on this place. I can't describe it. There was just a hideous crack and the whole mountain started to shake as if the rock king decided to roll over. Three bright flashes and smouldering green smoke seeped through the air. I believe the whole mine complex have fallen asunder. Luckily my cell is still intact and I am still alive and breathing...Haven't seen the guard for a while. Maybe he succumbed to the earthquake...I hear a noise. Maybe it's the guard coming to serve me my daily crusts...But...What is this! DESCRIPTION This is my first map and it is a quite unique map, architecturally speaking and it is not meant to be realistic in all manners. It has certan unreal elements to it and some strange nooks. BUILD TIME 8 weeks KNOWN ISSUES/GOOD TO KNOW x As you start as a captive you have no equipment from the start, which means some ghosting. x All clear windows are breakable x FPS-drops at certain spots. x Sometimes ambient sounds from two different locations play simultaneously after reloding. CREDITS Henrik Swenson who's made some ambient music. Custom sounds taken from a custom sound CD, no particular name of the company. THANKS TO Fidcal - Has answered my many questions along the way. Bikerdude - Betatesting and assistance on visportaling. Also thanks to my other betatesters; Sotha, Chiron and Baddcog DOWNLOAD http://www.mediafire...nvdtk2dlr22sj9t Enjoy! /Fieldmedic EDIT! A new version is uploaded! The old version hasn't got any written version number, but this is Betrayal ver 1.1 (Unofficial undertitel: The Good Edition) (see the notes) Changes:

I just downloaded the latest beta version of the Dark Mod right now and by starting this specific FM: Iris, I get this black screen with the music and ambient sounds in the background, but no picture showing. I was only able to get to the mission briefing page showing the objectives of the mission and then by clicking on "Objectives" It takes me to a black screen. What is causing this issue? My other fan missions work just fine, I tested out other ones, so it's not my game. Could be this is a broken fan mission?

Illusionist's Tower Your low on money and the landlord is leaning on you, well he sent two heavies round your place to extract the long over due rent, after avoiding the heavies you end up in a local bar. You overhear a story about an old abandoned tower ten miles northeast of Bridgeport, apparently for years people have been trying to find a fabolous (sic) treasure hidden in the tower. Traveling to the tower will be easy and cost nothing as two gravedigger's visit the area every week, and gaining entrance to the tower will also be easy as the main door was bashed down by the Grey Mist gang just before they all totally disappeared. Only one slight problem though, of all those who have entered the tower, none have ever been seen again, well not alive at any cost. Illusionist's Tower direct link Illusionist's Tower indirect link