[UDK,Royalty] 3D/Concept artists needed for puzzle-adventure game.
polycounter lvl 9
The concept
Empathy (formerly known as project sunset) is an exploration/puzzle game with strong focus on storytelling, in the image of games like Dear Esther, Journy and Braid. The story goes as following:
"The world is coming to an end. The cities are crumbling, the fields lie barren, life already gone, consumed by the Void. With its last effort, the Spirit of the world is set free to do the work of rebirth. The world itself must be reincarnated, but what is life made of? Emotions, empathy and thought make an intelligent being what it is. The Spirits objective is to sample them, but from whom now that the world is deprived of life? The Spirit reaches out and snatches away one life, a Child, from a moment in the past. The Child, oppressed and alone in his life, sought to flee from the world. The Spirit obliged.
Together, the Spirit and the Child travel along the Road in the dying world, a road between existences. Along the way the Spirit of the world will visit Echoes, abstract representations made of Childs emotions and memories to sample them and use for the rebirth of the new world. Behind them, the crumbling world, in front, hope of the rebirth. Where will their journey take them?"
Features
Child, the games protagonist is travelling the dying world, carrying the Spirit inside of him. Together, they will go through the dying world, Spirit visiting Echos of the Child's emotions to sample them and Child travelling between them.
Empathy features rich and intriguing atmosphere with several different storylines, which are up to player to figure out and interpret in his own way. While putting main focus on storytelling, game will also feature engaging mechanics with light puzzle feel in the Echos of Child's memories for Spirit to solve, as well as certain interaction-puzzle mechanic for the Child.
Who we are
We are a group of people sharing passion for creating games that can offer something uncommon in the contrast to the current popular genres of FPS and Fantasy RPG dominating the gaming medium. This project is our first contribution to that goal, we are starting slowly by exploring interesting narration and interaction mechanics.
The current team consists of following members:
- Project manager, game and level designer (that's me)
- Story writer
- 3D artist
- Programmer
- Programmer
- Sound effect designer
- Composer
- Character modeler and animator
- Concept artist
You can find out more about the game, as well as team behind it and more additional concept art at www.empathygame.org
What do we offer
We offer you a chance to contribute to an interesting and established project which been in development for over six months. All of the core mechanics are implemented and we are now looking to expand our team with artists to speed up the implementation of the visuals of the game. This is a good opportunity for you who shares our passion for games with emphasis on story and exploration, who feels that you are well skilled within a certain area of development but yet haven't had a chance to prove it, or are simply looking to expand your portfolio.
Software we work with
We are using UDK as the engine for our game. Communications are handled through the Skype. The artists are working in Maya, Photoshop, Zbrush and Mudbox.
Business plan
The business plan is simple, we are aiming at release of the game in late autumn, and will be using first months income to compensate members of the team based on their contribution to the project, with further income being used to fund later projects you will have opportunity to participate in.
Who are we looking for
We have been focusing on creating proof of concept, in which we succeeded to implement all planned features, so now it is time to move on to the development of visual side of the project. As you can see from the concept art I posted, we have a skilled concept artists and we are now looking for talented artists capable to translate the art and its atmosphere into 3D. We are mainly looking for the following people:
- 3D artist
You need to be creative and capable of modeling assets which fit the atmopshere of a concept but are not included into said concept. You have good aesthetic sense and eye for details, capable of easily spotting errors in your work and fix them. You also have some experience in keyframe animation of non-organic objects such as machinery or scenery and are capable of modeling, animating and exporting let's say a simple animation of a jack in the box. You have solid understanding of general 3D pipleline, including sculpting and normalbaking.
- Texture artist
You have solid skill in traditional art as we will be using handpainted, somewhat realistic looking texture. We'd like the textures to be close to what you can see in the concept art, with a touch of visible "art", such as brushstrokes, warm mix of colors.
While the above are the high priority positions we will also consider filling the following:
- UDK Guru who is experienced with level building and materials and are looking for an opportunity to try out some new cool stuff.
- You think you can contribute with something beyond the above to further improve the game? Feel free to contact us!
Contact information
Contact me through PM ,please provide some samples of your work.
Feedback and questions are welcome both here and through mail!
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