Thief II: The Metal Age, Shipping and Receiving, by Corinthian.

Another Thief 2 map, this time the second level “Shipping & Receiving”. I used to play the Thief games A LOT and I think I can remember almost every detail of many of the levels. (At least, the ones which had layouts that made a bit of sense. Not Constantine’s Manor because that was deranged.) The game did give you an in-game map, but it was a crummy static hand-drawn image which often had inaccuracies or just big gaps with questions marks in them.

Thief, A Keeper’s Training, by dspair.

Okay, now let’s talk (and draw) some real games, not your typical Call of Duty or whatever.

Thief is my personal best game series of all time, and Thief: The Dark Project is probably the best of it just because it was the first. For me, it was a revelation. Such a deep, complex, stylish gameplay in a highly interactive, living, breathing world of shadows and steampunkish class - really, people, 99% of games you play these days that you think are good enough don’t match Thief’s incredible atmosphere and endless joy. I’m still playing it and I still think that nothing to this day matched its glory.

A Keeper’s Training mission doesn’t particularly represent Thief in a nutshell (nothing does), quite the opposite, it’s the only small and linear level in the game because it’s a training mission. However, it’s the only map I can draw from memory because the rest of the missions are so vast and sprawling that I can’t draw them on the go even though I played through this game for countless times. These big missions are multilayered and multifloored anyway, so it would require some effort to draw them. The training is, however, quite small and simple by comparison. And yet, there is stuff to discover. The guy up there, walking on the second floor in the very first room - why does he roam in circles? The hiding and the silent movement rooms - do you know that you can jump over the ledges and proceed without waiting for the small doors to open? The melee training and climbing/jumping/swimming yards - you surely climbed to rooftops and walked there, didn’t you? You fell down to the river on the first time, right? And of course, you did grab the vase at the very end before the mission ended?

This is the best game experience of all time of no doubt, and it’s still the training mission. So much more lies ahead - Bafford’s, Cragscleft, Bonehoard…

All the maps in this game are hand drawn and sometimes confusing. Just like this little map of mine.

All hail Looking Glass.

Thief II: The Metal Age, level 1, by Corinthian.

I reckon I could do almost any level of Thief 1/2 this well. I reckon I could finish Thief 2 with my eyes shut. (Though, you have to be able to do that really, because it’s so bloody dark all the time.)