[The design is finished; the programming is 99% complete; the sound and music are done; I just need art and I can ship it.]

Hi! My name’s Evan Jones. I’m an independent game designer and developer currently working on a browser-based arcade-style RPG. I am seeking an artist to assist with the completion of this project.

The player’s objective is to fight a series of RPG-style boss battles, leveling up at the end of every battle, where the enemy grows in skill to counter the player’s tactics.

Screenshot featuring prototype artwork.

The game will be put up for sponsorship on FlashGameLicense.com, and although I do not have the budget to buy art up front, I am willing to pay an artist a negotiable percentage of all proceeds from sponsorship, advertising, etc., as well as proceeds from the sale of this game on other platforms (iPhone, iPad, etc.) The design is finished; the programming is 99% complete; the sound and music are done; I just need art and I can ship it.

This project will require from an artist:
- 1 dungeon background (800x600)
- 6 pieces of character art (average 40x120 each, size can be variable based on character size)
- 1 piece of enemy art (roughly 400x300)
- for each piece of artwork (characters and enemy), the following 5 stances:
  - standing (still)
  - attacking (animation, 2-3 frames)
  - being damaged (animation, 2-3 frames)
  - death (still)
  - victory cheer (animation, 2 frames)
- 1 title screen (800x600)

The style I am looking for is light-hearted high fantasy - think Piers Anthony rather than Anne McCaffrey, or Earthbound rather than Diablo. Art inspired by 16-bit era RPGs would be desired.

I would like to work with an artist who can produce the above assets in a space of four to five weeks. If you have questions, feel free to reply to this thread, PM me, or send an email to evan at chardish dot com. Thanks for your interest, and I look forward to seeing your work!

Evan Jones
evan at chardish dot com
www.chardish.com

Reminds me a lot of SpinItUp, only played on a line instead of a circle.

I can't find the game online anymore, but I can find videos:

Thanks for the feedback, all! Some responses:

I concur that there needs to be some effect when a player takes damage. However, all art in the game is currently placeholder - I'm trying not to put too much effort into the art until I get a real artist on this project. I've been borrowing Street Fighter sprites as placeholder art from this site, and there's not one for Ken taking damage, which I didn't realize until I already had Ken set up as the placeholder character. It wouldn't be hard for me to replace him with another character, but it would be time-consuming, and I'm not interested in refining artwork that will remain temporary.

@Godsavant: I plan on including a half-time option for beginners. I'm still trying to work out a good pace for "normal" play but I think the LCD Soundsystem song I'm using in the demo video is a tad too fast. The metronome, too, is placeholder art, but I think the final version will include a higher-contrast and wider needle for easier visibility.

@MrBackyard\\: Yes, it's a "glorified rock paper scissors game," but so are a lot of games (Pokemon, Starcraft, even Street Fighter come to mind...I'm sure there are other examples.) What makes RPS-based games interesting isn't the fact that they're RPS games in disguise, it's that they put different risks and rewards on making different choices. Pure rock-paper-scissors is boring because your choice is more or less arbitrary. However, in Beatdown, the choice you make has different payoffs and consequences. Punches are almost guaranteed to connect but put you in a worse position if the opponent predicts your punch and parries it. Kicks have a low chance of success but a considerable damage payoff if they connect. Rushups have a lower chance of failure than kicks but force you into an offensive posture.

@Blackcorn: You're not the first person to tell me that The game's being developed for X360, so I haven't added it in yet, but since there's interest in it I'll support keyboard controls in the next public build. Cheers!

Thanks, everyone, for the feedback!

This has potential, but I see two big rooms for (necessary) improvement:

1) Falldeaths need to go. The idea of "you can jump way higher than a normal human could, but a fall from a certain height kills you" has never really grokked with me. Plus, it creates a scenario where there's a 1-pixel height difference between being okay and death, and that just feels off.

2) You need more ways to differentiate it from VVVVVV. It sucks if you had this idea first, and gravity-flipping certainly isn't new in games, but when flipping is your only mechanic and a very popular flipping game was just released, you need some way of standing out from the crowd. Experiment with different gameplay ideas that aren't too gimmicky ("no jump zones" would be an example of a gimmick.)

Good luck to you!

Introducing: Beatdown
a (prototype) 2D rhythm fighting game

screenshots, video, and demo all use placeholder artwork

What is Beatdown?
Beatdown is a 2D rhythm fighting game. Like fighting games, it's fast paced and requires quick thinking, and like rhythm action games, all actions correspond to the beat of the music.

So then I have to manually time my attacks to the beat of the song?
No. Like Rez, the game automatically times your attacks for you. Just hold down the button to attack before the beat hits, and when the beat hits, your character performs the selected attack. Think of it like holding down a fret button in a guitar game, except the game "strums" for you.

When both players attack, how does the game judge which attack wins?
Punches (X button) do low damage but have the highest priority. Rushups do medium damage and have medium priority. Kicks have low damage and low priority.

So why not always throw punches?
Slow down there, Professor Strategy! You have another tool at your disposal: parrying. When you parry, you choose one type of attack you want to try to parry: punch, kick, or rushup. If you guess wrong, you get hit for the full damage of the attack. If you guess correctly, you get maximum priority and a damage bonus on your next attack.

So I lose if I'm too predictable, and I win if I can correctly predict what my opponent's going to do?
You got it.

What's with the Street Fighter sprites?
Placeholders. I'm not an artist (though I am looking for one), so the Street Fighter animations are in the game while I can flesh out the rest of the programming.

What state is the game in? When will you release it, and for what platforms?
Beatdown is currently in pre-alpha. Most of the game logic is there, but it needs plenty of polish and balance. I hope to release it this year on the Xbox 360 Indie Games channel.

Can I try it?
Sure! Feedback or constructive criticism of any kind is welcome. This game requires two wired Xbox 360 controllers to play. If you do not have those, please do not download it as it's a 240 MB download and you won't be able to get past the title screen. There is no AI yet, so single player is basically fighting a dummy who will just stand there.

This game requires Windows, the .NET 3.5 Framework (pre-installed on Windows 7, or else available here), two wired Xbox 360 controllers, a display of at least 1280x720, and a decent computer.
If you've read the above warnings, click here (RAR, 240 MB) to download the pre-alpha.

This is my very first indie game! Suggestions of any kind are very, very welcome.

Thanks in advance! Hope you enjoy!

Well, games should be required to meet some minimum requirements - you should be able to deal with no save device selected, and check a device exists before attempting to write, as well as supporting any pad.

Oh, totally! I think that indies should be held to the same standards as XBLA titles. There's a bit of hypocrisy at work - basically any crash is bad, regardless of the insane circumstances you have to employ to get it to work (like I said, inserting and removing the MU at a jackhammer pace, or something else no normal user would ever do.) However, ridiculously undesirable behavior is considered okay (for example, canceling the device select screen causing it to immediately pop back up again.)

Then again, if I were in charge, "obvious lack of effort" would be a valid fail reason

Brilliant idea. As a new XBLIG developer, I'm glad to see a resource like this exists - especially since this community seems more focused on game quality than on "how many times can you pull and re-insert a MU in a single second before it crashes?"

Hello!

My name's Evan, aka Chardish. I've been working on an indie game of my own off and on, and as the project gets closer to completion, I'm looking for ways to involve myself with the community.

I'm a 24-year-old computer programmer currently located in Kentucky, employed programming user interfaces. Game design and development is a passion of mine, and I look forward to immersing myself in the community as the passion quickly becomes an obsession.

I recently started a blog on game design, housed at http://chardishgames.tumblr.com/.

My current project is called Beatdown; it's a 2D rhythm fighting game. I haven't talked a whole lot about it (anywhere) but I hope to soon.

5 favorite games of all time? In no particular order:
Super Metroid: Flawless level design, incredible replayability, beautiful music and atmosphere. Possibly my favorite game ever.
Portal: Mind-expanding puzzles, brilliant writing, and a seamless integration of gameplay and narrative.
Zelda: The Wind Waker: A strong sense of danger and action and a clear emphasis on the joy of exploration. Simply put, the best adventure game ever made.
Metal Gear Solid 3: All the action of the best Hollywood blockbusters with a story better than any of them. A wonderful popcorn game that actually winds up being quite moving.
Rez: Showed that art games can be exciting and adrenaline-pumping. Wonderfully synesthetic. Never gets old.

Nice to be here! Cheers.

A very interesting concept. Game ran fine for me, 3 GB of RAM on an Phenom X2 2.9 GHz triple-core machine, though :D

I found the game's controls to get in the way of the puzzling most of the time. In my mind, a puzzle platformer should be three parts puzzle, one part platformer: in other words, once you figure out the solution, the execution shouldn't get in the way. A good example of where I ran into problems with this was the room where you have to use mirrors to clear away the spikes - I quickly figured out what I needed to do, but died about fifteen times trying to make the jumps. Usually I would land on the corner of the spikes, or walk sideways into a spike and die. The collision detection here is very sensitive!

I also think you need to work on your level design. There's one jump you have to make before you get the staff that is needlessly difficult (again, why is this a test of your platforming skills?) In addition, being forced to restart in the very first room you get the staff is frustrating; can you design the room such that you do not need to restart? I understand that your game mechanic necessitates the possibility of being required to restart, however, in room #1 (while I'm still trying to figure out the game mechanics) is really rough.

All in all, though, a really interesting idea and I look forward to seeing where you go with this!

I painstakingly finished all the levels with all the marios alive!
I appreciate the little hidden sequence

Here's hoping this isn't an actual possibility, or else it's going to be a minor obsession for me. Honestly I can't see pulling that off, especially with the (clever) coin jump on the third level.

Not bad for a two hour concept!