I haven't selected anyone in particular yet so the position is still technically open. Amusingly enough, the only messages I've gotten so far are from composers!

I've gotten quite a few responses to this via email; sorry that I haven't been able to respond yet! Things got pretty crazy around here over the past few days. I'll be responding to everyone as soon as I can!

Oh yeah, that's right... Gradius, not R-Type.

So you're the one who pixeled it? Nice. It's a good piece of work. The shot sprite was also on that sprite sheet.

Yes, it's inspired by the R-Type ship, apparently.

Jason "T2KFreeker" Greene designed a horizontal space shooter back in 2006 with the intentions of having it developed and released for the Atari Jaguar. The project fell through because of... well, let's just say... "colorful" people in the Jaguar scene. The original composer, Philip, had composed two other soundtracks for projects that died, and this was the third and final straw for him. Skip forward to 2011... the project laid dormant for years... until Jason discovered that I'd be willing to take it on as a production for the PC Engine. The project was then reborn.

The original composer doesn't want his soundtracks used for this production, so we are in need of a composer who can bring the same kind of energy and punch to the music. As for artwork... there are only sketches drawn by Jason, no existing pixel art at all. So the pixel art is a from-scratch deal.

Although I am posting this in Unpaid Work, I am willing to offer profit share for this, and in generous amount as well. This will be sold on physical CDROM, and the hardware it runs on already has a very loyal fanbase.

We have a working prototype of the game engine in its early form. I have uploaded a few Youtube videos onto our channel here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Eponasoft

The game is called Metro Blaster. I am unsure as to where the name comes from, or its significance. You can hear the unorthodox style of music that was originally composed for the game in these prototype videos, and the artwork that is being used is just placeholder art I obtained from opengameart.org.

If interested, you can contact me via this forum or via email (david AT eponasoft DOT com).

vote ron paul

No.

I have two main ideas for what an "indie" game company really is...

First, a company that is smaller and operates on their own without any help from a larger company.

Second, a company that produces products based on the designs of the creative developers, not the desires of the marketing department.

You lost me at C#, honestly... otherwise, I'd be interested, but not at 10%. 25% and no C# and you'd have my attention.

Added ya.

@Eponasoft - I think you missed Intermediaware.

Look again...

whaaaaaaaaaaaa

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh?

I do profit share and NDA, but the details are in the contract. It specifically states that if the production ceases or the company goes under, all the work is returned to the artist. I also release the rights of the protected media back to the artist after a certain amount of time (a Redistribution Of Rights Contract), and the NDA allows for limited distribution of the protected media during the production.

I am in the process of signing on an artist under these conditions right now. But he brought up an interesting alternate payment arrangement which I agreed to, which is to do both profit-share and up-front, but under the condition of taking out any up-front fees from the profit shares. That way, the artist gets paid some now and some later.

It's all about how you market your idea, and then market your game. Having a playable demo, plus showing signs of continuing development, is a great way of saying "hey look, this one's going to get finished" and you're likely to find help, even for profit-share. Eponasoft has not sold a game yet (we're still at work on our first public title), yet I had little problem filling contracted positions under this same kind of financial stipulation.

I wisely chose a niche and a platform for which the economic downturn has actually helped to bolster: retro consoles. The costs of games for retro consoles has seen a serious upward spike in recent years, and since "official" development for these machines died years and years ago, independents rule now, and can charge anything they want and players will pay their prices. Of course, that doesn't mean you can charge $150 for a piece of shovelware; you still have to do your work well, but there's a bit of leniency since there is little competition and retro players are starving for new titles... anything they can get their hands on.

A practical example: let's say I spend six months in production on a title, and plan to sell the title for $35 per unit (CDROM distribution). I take pre-orders to cover production costs (takes about 43 orders). 99 times out of 100, I'm going to sell those 43 units in the first few days of the announcement, so production costs are covered almost immediately. There are people who don't want to pre-order but will wait for it to come out, so there's future income too. And people will still pre-order after the production costs are covered. So if I sell 300 pre-orders, that's $10500 - $1505 = $8995 in total profit before the game has even been pressed. And then there's all the orders that will come in afterward. Now, I normally do short runs, only 1000 units. So if they all sell out, it comes out to $33495 in total profits for the production... not too shabby. Of course, I also pay percentages out to those under paid contract... this can be anything from 1% to as high as 15%. On average, I pay out about 30% of the profits to contractors. That leaves me with about $23K... pretty good for a low-run six-month production I do in my spare time when I'm not working my regular job. Of course, this is all assuming that a second run doesn't need to be made... if a second run is manufactured and also sells out, then those figures double. And all of this in this economic downturn.

So yeah... you can make it as an indie if you do it right. Producing mountains of boring shovelware is a great way to go broke (the Android and iPhone markets are saturated with it, and the developers go belly-up every day), attempting to produce the next great epic without having any financial backing is another. Choose a stable platform with loyal buyers, and select productions which are just the right length and appealing to your target market, and you've got a win on your hands, even in these hard times.

Very impressive sound reel, but your website crashed Firefox.

The position has been filled.

The whole office shown here. Since this is a home office, kids like to play in it too. Ignore their toys.


A closer shot of the three desks. Please note that the closer one is actually that of Creative Director of Eponasoft... yeah, they tend to be unorganized crazies.


My desk. Notice how clean and organized it is compared to the Creative Director's. It's also an indication of my coding style... clean, efficient, minimal.

Business plans are just that... plans. They're not written in stone. Things change. And that's how you survive... by adapting to the changes. Business plans can be very useful... as long as you don't try to use it as an absolute guide.

I'll throw mine into the fray as well.

http://www.eponasoft.com/
Eponasoft

I've already added the links, and it doesn't get any higher in visibility than that without making it the whole content of the site.

Email responded!