Character animator(s) needed for a game that's very far along in development

chapter11studios · Fri 26/03/2004 16:41:20

I'm the lead developer and project coordinator for a design team called Chapter 11 Studios, which is currently working on a Wild West comedy-adventure called Rise of the Hidden Sun, in the mold of Indiana Jones with a healthy mix of Monkey Island.

Rise of the Hidden Sun is a cartoony adventure (visual style similar to Runaway or Broken Sword I or II, as you'll see from the screenshots below) set in the American Southwest in 1869. It stars a down-on-his-luck cowboy turned treasure hunter named 'Rattlesnake' Jake Dawson, and it's a mix of adventure, intrigue, exploration, and humor.

You can see from our website that we're far along in development. Now we're beginning to recruit character artists because we are ready to start the actual coding of the game. Here's our website: http://www.chapter11studios.com

What we're looking for: A person or persons to contribute character sprites, custom GUI, et cetera, for the game. The storyline is 100% complete, the puzzles for much of the game are finished, and we have a great headstart on all of the background screens. What we don't have right now is enough animators to keep up with the pace we've set for ourselves. If you're interested, please e-mail me at chapter11studios@yahoo.com. I'd love to get some people from this board on the design team!

Here are some screenshots to give you an idea of what the game will look like:

And here's a sample sprite. I'm undecided on the dark outlines, although I think it gives him a sort of CMI look against the painted backdrop that I kind of like:

Meowster · Fri 26/03/2004 20:08:23

Aweeeeesome.

I would offer, but I am afraid nothing I could do would ever be equal to beauty like that. So cool. So awesome.

Mr_Frisby · Sat 27/03/2004 02:48:25

:oWow, I just peed my pants. :

Eggie · Sat 27/03/2004 12:19:02

My God...it's all so pretty...

Igor · Sat 27/03/2004 13:00:01

I'd like to compliment your work. Absolutely beautiful! Great backgrounds and character work.
Not only is the game shaping up brilliantly, but i also like the way you are working- i almost can't believe it's just "amateur" project ("underground" would be probably better word here

).
Actually, i'd love to join your team, but sadly don't have time...
Anyway, my hat goes off to you!

James Kay · Sat 27/03/2004 13:59:52

Same here. Bloody gorgeous, so keep up the good work!
Simply cannot invest the amount of time that characters would need to match this level of quality, sorry.

edmundito · Sat 27/03/2004 23:45:54

Oh, are you Evan Dickens, chapter 11 boy?

Darth Mandarb · Sat 27/03/2004 23:56:34

I would love to be involved with this project ...

Sadly, as most have said, Time is a commodity I don't have a lot of, but I wouldn't mind giving it a go. Even if it's only a limited part!

My style is slightly different and I don't know if it'd fit in.

If you're interested you can PM me with more details and I can give you some examples of my work.

~ d

Esseb · Sun 28/03/2004 03:56:29

Josh Roberts. Hover your mouse over his nick and check Net.

chapter11studios · Sun 28/03/2004 04:36:38

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your encouragement and enthusiasm for our project. Also, thanks to those of you who took the time to PM me with suggestions for other places I could check for animators as well. I'm heading offline for a few days (vacation, finally!) and won't be around to respond if anyone else decides to write to me. But I will respond when I return.

Oh, and netmonkey, I am not Evan Dickens, although I have worked with Evan in the past for AdventureGamers.com. My name is Josh Roberts.

-Josh

edmundito · Sun 28/03/2004 08:19:53

oh! I thought Evan was working on that game. I must have gotten confused

Kweepa · Sun 28/03/2004 12:43:52

Looks pretty nice.
The character and storyboard art on the website looks terrific.
And the skim of the plot I read on the development threads sounds interesting.

I have some comments about the backgrounds:
They all look very monochromatic. I'm not sure how that fits in with a comedy adventure.
The level of detail doesn't really demand 640x400. If you dropped it to 320x200 you'd make the character art 4 times quicker (to manufacture, not design). I think it would improve the backgrounds too (call me crazy).
A lot of scenes look quite "narrow angle" (small field of view) and seem to call for a lot of character scaling, which AGS isn't very good at, particularly if you use line art. It will be interesting to see how characters move around in these scenes.

Looking forward to it!

chapter11studios · Wed 31/03/2004 06:41:51

Quote from: SteveMcCrea on Sun 28/03/2004 12:43:52
I have some comments about the backgrounds: They all look very monochromatic. I'm not sure how that fits in with a comedy adventure. The level of detail doesn't really demand 640x400. If you dropped it to 320x200 you'd make the character art 4 times quicker (to manufacture, not design). I think it would improve the backgrounds too (call me crazy). A lot of scenes look quite "narrow angle" (small field of view) and seem to call for a lot of character scaling, which AGS isn't very good at, particularly if you use line art. It will be interesting to see how characters move around in these scenes.

I should probably clarify my earlier statement that this is a comedy-adventure. It is, but the focus is the adventure aspect of it (similar to BS1). It does not, however, take itself so seriously that there's no room for jokes and poking fun at itself. From that perspective, I think the backgrounds serve the setting nicely. It's a cartoony backdrop, but not exaggerated. It will actually be 800x600, by the way.

Re: the narrow angle of some of the background screens, you're right, and this is actually an unfortunate mistake we made with a few screens early on that we're currently in the process of redrawing. The big mistake was trying to sqeeze too much into each screen, making it necessary to change the scale on some of the important objects to get them to fit. In the end, I decided to redo those screens that were affected (only three in all, thankfully) rather than try to scale the animations for those screens.

-Josh