Hello! We’re Needs More Robots, a UK game studio working on our first project. Neon Death Pact is a cyberpunk strategy-novel launching in 2017 on consoles and PC.
We’re two Englishmen, Aidan & Ben, and we co-founded Needs More Robots in March this year. We’ve been bouncing ideas for Neon around for a couple of years now– prototyping, world-building, and generally refining the thing in our spare time. A year ago it was a ‘story-driven smartphone runner’ but pre-production has taught us a lot about focusing on the core of our concept and building something really coherent.
We work between the UK and HK, and our first project is very much inspired by the latter, Hong Kong. Hazy neon hues, a heaving urban sprawl, clutter, claustrophobia & massive corporations. We’ve secured project funding for Neon and landed a small partnership deal with Xbox, but we’re fundraising further to take the NMR team to HK and spend some of the production timeline together there.
This is a 9-month project but, ideally, we’re looking for core team members that want to stick with us and build the company. Neon is the first project in our 3-game strategy, these games revolve around light mechanics, heavy narrative, and plenty of content/learnings to be carried over between projects.
The 9-months of work are budgeted for, but further investment and revenue generated by Neon will ultimately determine the fate of the company and projects to follow. We’re just as focused on the business of building a sustainable game company as we are on making compelling games, so Hong Kong doubles as fertile ground for investment & entrepreneurial mentorship.
Aidan and I have both worked in Hong Kong for a number of years. Aidan's experience is in game design and production, mine is in creative agency writing, art direction, and startup fundraising.
Building the team, we're looking for self-starters able to work proactively with high-level feedback as this first stage will require plenty of iteration. Payment will be milestone based and we’ll agree on workload milestones to be paid in full when they’re done - this feels like a safe way to focus on delivery/payment and offer some flexibility for preferred work pace.
// What we're looking for:
1x artist.
1x programmer.
// Excellent candidate experience:
+ Shipping a game, not necessarily retail.
+ Working in a small team.
+ Console.
+ Unity.
+ Live 2D.
// Project Timeline
Phase 1: Prototype [4 weeks]
Focus on speed of implementation over quality code. We’ll be throwing things in and ripping them out until we’ve locked down the core game loop.
Phase 2: Vertical Slice [6 weeks]
Prototype iteration until we have a vertical slice. In this case, a self-contained 30 minute story that is playable start to finish, with final quality assets and effects.
The purpose of these 2 phases is to:
1) Lock down the game design - essentially providing a playable design doc.
2) Allow us to gauge how long it takes to create content and schedule accordingly.
Phase 3: Tools and Planning [2 weeks]
Create Unity Inspector elements (etc) that allow us to to add art / dialogue without needing it to be manually added by programmer.
Phase 4: Vertical Slice to Ship [6 Months]
The game will be feature-locked at this point. XB1 is our lead platform, so focus will be on getting game running on the H/W as soon as possible. Next, reimplementing features with final production quality.
To apply, please email us at
[email protected] and send over your CV, portfolio, and a few work samples.
Also, tell us four of your favourite games (ordered or otherwise), your salary expectations, and when you'd be available to start!
Thank you!
Ben & Aidan.
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