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Box2D Castle Game - Need sprites

Started by lmlPezlml Oct 4, 2011 at 10:35 AM 5 replies 2k views

Original Post

Oct 4, 2011 at 10:35 AM

Foreword -
I need someone to make 3-4 small sprites and 3-4 layered backdrops (cartoonish) please see the normal template below:

Team name:
Individual (Not a registered team, I am the only member)

Project name:
Crossbows'n'Catapults (Working title - this is the name of the childhood board game that inspired my game)

Brief description:
The project has been in production for about 3 months on and off, it's a playable demo, I've got plenty of sprites, had help doing foley and some textures, and have been working on music.

It's a flash/box2d driven "physics game" which people have compared to angry birds, which is fair I guess! The gameplay is a side perspective and features two teams which are on the left and right of the map.
Each team picks a castle (either from a selection of pre-made castles, or you can use the games editor to build your own and upload it), and then take it in turns to use either the catapult (fires in an arc) or the ballista (fires forwards) to demolish their opponents castle. First person to loose all their warriors or both their weapons loses the game.

I guess the defining feature of this game is that it's two opposing castles and that you can design your own. This sets it apart from other castle destruction games (at least that I'm aware of).

Target aim:
This is a portfolio piece for myself to showcase my programming, the guys (my brother and an old friend) who helped me compose the music to showcase our game music, and the other two good friends of mine that are trying to get into foley (got the gibbing sounds by punching melons in the studio, it was hilarious )
Hence, this will be a free to play game most likely embedded on our respective websites.

Compensation:
Since this is a portfolio piece and I have no intention whatsoever of making money (directly) out of this, I am not offering a percentage or payment of any kind.
If you discuss it with me beforehand and I'm satisfied that you complete the work in good time (less than 2-3 weeks) I may be willing to make a *small* goodwill payment to you (£20-£30 or many pints if you're local ) as I'd like to get this project complete and online as soon as possible and art is the only aspect I'm seriously behind on.
In any case, you will of course be credited on the title screen of the game and I am more than happy to link to you and send any suitable enquiries about artwork I might get your way.

Technology:
The engine uses AS3 / Box2D. FilterForge have kindly allowed me to use textures generated on a 30 day trial. As an artist you may use whatever you want to product the graphics I'm looking for. I require sprites in PNG format and backdrops containing 3-4 layers (for scrolling) again as PNGs.

Talent needed:
I need an artist, perhaps pixel artist, to produce a small amount of sprites and backdrops. If you have what I need already and would be willing to contribute it, I'd be overjoyed!

Team structure:
I handle all the programming and the bulk of the music composition. I've also called in help from my brother and good friends who are musicians and foley artists themselves, although they're not part of my "Team" in this instance.

Website:
PLEASE keep this to yourself because it's hosted on my bands website and I don't want every man and his dog visiting.. The website is:
www (dot) combyne-arvester (dot) co (dot) uk (slash) members (slash) cnc

Contacts:
I'd rather not publish my email to avoid getting spammed half to death, but please feel free to PM me on here and I'll get back in touch usually within the day, I'd be happy to PM you my email address also!

Previous Work by Team:
None

Additional Info:
See the website above for a playable demo of the game. What I need from you as an artist is graphics for the warriors you see in game (one for each theme, presently: avalon, egypt, antartica) and also three backdrops for each theme, which are layered to provide a sense of perspective in the game. The warriors should be facing sideways, but ideally with the body facing towards the viewer a bit to again give a sense of perspective (imagine looking at someone throwing a javelin or brandishing a sword from the side, theyre looking to the right but with body facing towards you)

You can see that I have rubbish substitutes in place (programmer art wooo ) if you give the game a spin, I have also recycled the same background for each theme and just shifted the hue a bit, to give a rough representation of what I'm after.

Feedback:
ANY - Even if its hilariously abusive, and even if you're not an artist feel free to go on the site and give it a spin Comments are quite welcome. I'm not looking for bug reports as I'm well aware of most the problems, they are however welcomed.

Thanks in advance guys

driftingSpaceMan

Oct 5, 2011 at 10:52 AM

Three things:

1. Your Computer player is much too slow.
That needs to be improved to make the game more playable. As it stands, it seems to get a bit boring (no offense, I'm actually pretty impressed; not many people can finish a game, boring or not, so kudos). Your HUD is also a bit confusing... it could use some streamlining. That's secondary, though. Also (less crucially), it's annoying that I can't pan by dragging the ground (I have to click the sky).

2. Art quality is often all or nothing.
If the graphics you are using now can be used legally (are they in violation of copyright, or are they OK?), you should leave them as it is, or just fudge them together from other public domain mixes.
Replacing only the soldiers and the backgrounds will not improve the visual appeal of your game. Why? The art in the game is mixed and generally inconsistent (this is nothing against you, I know it's hard to gather art resources), but that alone makes the game an art direction fail.
Art direction fail can be OK! That just means that if people are playing it, they're playing it because of the awesome physics and game play, not because of the art.
If you want to improve the visual appeal of the game, you'll need to contract an artist to re-make (or harmonize) all of the graphics, including the HUD. That can probably be done for anything ranging from £100 - £300.

3. Monetize!
Your game is Flash. Put Mochi ads on it, and get it on a few web portals. If you fix the AI speed, streamline the interface, and (maybe) fix the panning issue, and give it an art overhaul, you can probably make £100 off ad revenue for the lifetime of the game. Which means, you can probably afford to hire an artist if the price is right for said graphic overhaul.

I you can fix the issues mentioned in #1, PM me and I can probably ask around for you and hook you up with somebody who can harmonize the art for the game and finish what you need for £100 (some less experienced artist here may even offer to do it for less, but take that with a grain of salt- a failed attempt would be a waste of money).

Cheers!

lmlPezlml

Oct 5, 2011 at 11:32 AM

Three things:

1. Your Computer player is much too slow.
That needs to be improved to make the game more playable. As it stands, it seems to get a bit boring (no offense, I'm actually pretty impressed; not many people can finish a game, boring or not, so kudos). Your HUD is also a bit confusing... it could use some streamlining. That's secondary, though. Also (less crucially), it's annoying that I can't pan by dragging the ground (I have to click the sky).

2. Art quality is often all or nothing.
If the graphics you are using now can be used legally (are they in violation of copyright, or are they OK?), you should leave them as it is, or just fudge them together from other public domain mixes.
Replacing only the soldiers and the backgrounds will not improve the visual appeal of your game. Why? The art in the game is mixed and generally inconsistent (this is nothing against you, I know it's hard to gather art resources), but that alone makes the game an art direction fail.
Art direction fail can be OK! That just means that if people are playing it, they're playing it because of the awesome physics and game play, not because of the art.
If you want to improve the visual appeal of the game, you'll need to contract an artist to re-make (or harmonize) all of the graphics, including the HUD. That can probably be done for anything ranging from £100 - £300.

3. Monetize!
Your game is Flash. Put Mochi ads on it, and get it on a few web portals. If you fix the AI speed, streamline the interface, and (maybe) fix the panning issue, and give it an art overhaul, you can probably make £100 off ad revenue for the lifetime of the game. Which means, you can probably afford to hire an artist if the price is right for said graphic overhaul.

I you can fix the issues mentioned in #1, PM me and I can probably ask around for you and hook you up with somebody who can harmonize the art for the game and finish what you need for £100 (some less experienced artist here may even offer to do it for less, but take that with a grain of salt- a failed attempt would be a waste of money).

Cheers!

Thanks man I appreciate it, #1 is certainly on the cards, all my mates who play the game have said that repeatedly Cheers for the advice as well I really appreciate it, sadly I don't have that kind of money so I'll either be looking for people similar to me in the respect that they're looking to do portfolio pieces, or it looks more likely that I'll end up tracing round the sprites (the warriors are the only copyrighted part) myself to come up with something similar, doh!
I will certainly bear all this in mind though man cheers. By the way, what is the panning issue?

driftingSpaceMan

Oct 5, 2011 at 1:57 PM

By the way, what is the panning issue?

Panning is horizontal scrolling. When one presses the mouse button and moves the mouse left or right to scroll to see more of the field- this doesn't work in the grass for some reason, and really should work there (unless there's some good reason it doesn't).

If you don't have £100, I can ask around to see if somebody would be willing to take the ad revenue instead of upfront payment. With advertisements, it would take a few months or a year to make back that £100, but it's likely to come around eventually if the game play is sound.

Let me know when you finish the game play and I'll show it around for you to some other professional artists I know; the answer may be no, but if it's fun to play, it can't hurt to ask.

Cheers!

lmlPezlml

Oct 5, 2011 at 2:09 PM

Thanks again, coincidentally I'm working on it at the moment and will make it so that panning works on the grass! Will certainly be in touch, I'm hoping to have this game live within the next few weeks

lmlPezlml

Oct 5, 2011 at 3:43 PM

EDIT: have improved the AI and removed copyrighted graphics

_mark_

Oct 10, 2011 at 11:52 AM

Maybe try asking on places like Open Game Art? If this isn't intended as a commercial venture, you may be more willing to get people to help you, providing graphics under a Free licence (although this may be more likely if the game itself is released under a Free licence ... you say it's free to play, there's no harm in considering making it free as in speech too, if it's not intended to make money for you?)

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