Hey
EDIT: Artists/Programmers still wanted, I have found a designer. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't email me if you are a designer. I like the designer I currently have, but his availability is dependent on something in his personal life, in the event that this prevents him from working with us, I will still be looking for designers! (check back here on the 26th of april)
So I am a business student at the University of Texas. A few months ago I started a team (numbers vary as I still occasionally recruit) of about 8 people, mostly student, and we started working on a game together. We have the basic Idea in place, I have a writer, graphic artists, sound artists, programmers, myself (as producer) and we have been working for several months to prepare the game for full production when the summer rolls around.
However, as much as I love video games, I cannot design the entire thing by myself. My brother being a video game designer out of USC, I do not underestimate either the importance of the position, or the expertise required to excel in it.
Therefore I am looking for a video game designer that will be dedicated to the game, that will research and make educated decisions about facets of the game from game mechanics to level layout, balancing, etc. I will be harder on the designer than anyone else in my team as I deem it the most important task, that takes considerable amounts of research and work on the project.
I should add that if the game turns out great (which it could very do) we would try and sell the game on indie platforms and redistribute the profit to the team, but the main focus of the project is to get real team experience for our future careers in the industry so it is an unpaid project.
(any comments irrelevant to the posting, but relevant to the project are welcome! smiley )
More information upon request!
EDIT:
-the Game is a 2D Isometric adventure game centered around sabotage and basic environment interaction.
-Target audience would be indie-friendly early adopting adults.
-Game is coded in Java
-once we get in contact and you are interested in working for the project, we can talk about your qualifications
IN DEPTH DETAILS ADDED BECAUSE OF COMMENTS
I am currently busy with my own project, but I would like to hear more about yours. It sounds like a sort of stealth game if I'm not mistaken. Is it meant to be open ended, or slightly more confined? The adventure and sabotage aspects make me think Metal Gear meets Legend of Zelda.
Have you implemented any core mechanics yet? How much designing will be from the ground up? A little more details on the game direction would be nice. Something that tells the theme and basic idea of the game beyond "sabotage". (Ex: "Robot ninja sabotages alien starship production plant to get back girlfriend" would be enough extra detail.) What's the timeframe for the project?
Yes - the game concept and mechanics requires more details, that is the main reason why I need a designer. I will answer your question here and add it as an edit to the first thread.
The game story involves a league of extra-ordinary gentlemen traveling in time to set some events right against a plot by a 3rd party to change the course of history.
The game levels will be separated in 3 parts. Infiltration, sabotage and execution.
Infiltration: you enter the castle under the pretext of a job (right now first level is either guard, cook or maid), you have to befriend, gain the trust of your job-mates through various minor accomplishments (TBD). It also serves as a tutorial phase to understand the castle layout and limitations of your castle access and ends when you are ready to venture into the next phase.
Sabotage: the Main part. You are now free roaming in the castle. Every character of interest within the castle has an opinion of you which is quantified with a simple formula (trust - suspicion). Your actions (sabotage, or helping individuals) affects your standing with characters. If someone sees you doing something suspicious, or is relatively close enough to 'hear' suspicious activity and then sees you go by will have his suspicion increase. (and we have designed a simple suspicion spreading system with guard shifts that I can explain, but this thread is already getting too long). After the timer ends, your sabotage parts end (there's a logical explanation for it in the story)
Execution: Your bombs are setup to blow at this part, an army attacks the castle or whatever the story dictates on the level, and you take your part in the 'battle' (usually just assist minor tasks, no real combat, perhaps get to the king and assassinate him, your sabotage would make this easier. Finally your sabotages tally up in points and determine whether or not the level was successful, and to what degree.
This might seem very complicated, but it really is not. It is just large at scale and this is why I require a FULL team (and why I already have 10+ people working on it, little by little).
So - This game is not going to be very stealth mechanics based. And yeah the visual is somewhat of a legend of Zelda type of thing. There will be some visual detection system, but it will be limited in complexity. Let me explain that: imagine you are in the forge and you heard the smith a few hours ago talk. "one time I accidentally re-used boiling water to cool of the sword I was making, and it ruined the blade but I couldn't tell until I tested it against armor" (a very deliberate example) - well your job as a saboteur will be to switch out the two waters when the smith is out, in hopes of ruining newly forged blades. If you succeed, some guards will get crappy blades that shatter the second the army rolls in.
What's the timeframe for the project?
I'm interested, but I want to make sure this project already has some structure before jumping in for a trial. Are you looking for a level/game mechanic designer/tester, or someone to design all facets of the game from music to art to story and levels?
Read above for game mechanics. I need versatile people that can work in teams. But as you read the above part, you will understand why I need very competent and dedicated level/quest designers. I don't know what all the sabotage points/quests are yet, and how much point they each give etc etc. I do however have prototype maps of the first level (needs upgrading, my level design skills are sub-par) and an infrastructure built to work in teams! I have 2 great sound artists. A bunch of pixel artists (although a lot of them I just got and will test before I actually rely on them) a few programmers (same deal).
That gives me an idea -
having multiple designers to one game.
I used to have a couple, they stopped responding to my emails and were delaying the project and the rest of the team. So we went our separate ways.
Are you still in search of someone?
yes, but please send me an email with your background information and previous work first at
[email protected]Here are some of the early concept art that we are still working on: (these are mostly for inspiration and maybe dialogue since most of the game will be pixel art)
more soon
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