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[Inverse Square]

Me
I’m Hamish Todd, a game designer/programmer and writer of plays, reviews, and essays. I’ve written for actionbutton.net, insertcredit.com, and Kotaku.


The game, Music of the Spheres
-Puzzle game with the premise that you can throw projectiles that bounce. They keep moving as long as you want them to, and when they bounce, a glockenspiel note is played. The pitch of the note is dependent on the direction of the bounce.
-Obstacles are presented by angels, who are placed and programmed to make you think creatively about what to do.
-Built to express pleasing mathematical ideas, like Osmos and Portal.
-Level design has architectural sensibilities - emphasis is on clarity about what the player is meant to do, but the layouts are also meant to exhibit pleasing patterns and symmetries.
-I've been making it part time for 3 years, and now that's changing to full time (I finished my degree). The engine is done and about 50 levels are designed; I plan to have twice as many in the final version. Initial release will be on PC this time next year, probably android market after that.
-30FPS, native resolution of 400 x 240.


The Look
It's intended as a vision of what heaven would be like, for me. The whole game takes place in stained glass windows. The ideal is to be beautiful and reverential without compromising gameplay clarity.





What’s seen here is unfinished. The pattern currently on the glass is not ideal, but gives some idea of the intention. The colours need balancing and the light effect will be modified. It gives some idea though.

The characters seen in these screenshots are "programmer art" - I want them to look different (better) in the final aesthetic as well.


Your job
You’ll be animating the entire cast - don’t worry, there are only two characters! And you can see them both in the above screenshots: One man, 32x16 pixels (NES-size sprite), and one angel, 28x28. I’m asking for 100 sprites, most of them the man.

I have decided on a lot of aspects of the characters, but there are some features I’d like to leave to you. The stained glass aesthetic will present you with some (possibly quite interesting) limitations. Just ask if you’d like more details.

If you’re interested in the contract, send a quote to hamish {dot} todd1 {at} gmail {dot} com.

[airman4]

hey
i saw your message

sorry but i dont do Nes sprites animation, mostly 2d digital.

[Inverse Square]

Welp, this is open again. Emails with quotes are welcomed!

[Miguelito]

Crazy idea here, but if the game plane is all set before a bright and colorful stained-glass window, have you thought about just leaving the player black, casting a silhouette against the background? Perhaps with a one-pixel outline that dramatically reflects the light color hitting it?

That would do wonders for immersion, and potentially save on artist expenditures too (cough). Also, if you made the angels, say, white, there would be a nice and constant coloring scheme in the game.

By the way, 100 sprites = 100 frames of animation, correct?

[Inverse Square]

Crazy idea here, but if the game plane is all set before a bright and colorful stained-glass window, have you thought about just leaving the player black, casting a silhouette against the background?

Well, I'm personally bored of indy games with flat black entities (insanely twisted shadow planet, limbo, nightsky, World of Goo, Aztez, innumerable flash games).

By the way, 100 sprites = 100 frames of animation, correct?

Yep