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Messages - LikeTheWhirlwind
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Name: Bruno Sommer
Email: bruno@stardock.com
Linkedin  http://www.linkedin.com/in/brunosommer


Who I Am

Some of you may know me as from my day job as a Lead Gameplay Engineer on the Sins of a Solar Empire series (http://www.sinsofasolarempire.com) by Stardock Entertainment (http://www.stardock.com/games/) and Ironclad Games (http://www.ironcladgames.com/).  

I've been in the game industry for 4 years now doing PC game development, primarly real-time strategy titles.  I have a B.S in Computer Science and a minor in Game Development from Michigan State University.  My primary specialties are C/C++ development, gameplay programming, technical design.

In my spare time I develop indie games with a small group of other industry veterans.  We hope to someday make this our full-time gig.  We're headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.

What I'm Looking For

The success of this project is highly dependent on having a high-quality and memorable art style that is fully integrated into the overall gameplay vision.  I would expect any candidate to have great aspirations regarding indie game development and would want them to have an interest in taking on some design and art design responsibilities.

Beyond that, my ideal artist is:

- Skilled in either

                - clean 16-bit style pixel art

                           OR

                - a unique 2D style of their own (think Binding of Isaac or Castle Crashers)

- Able to create game art in the following areas:

                - relatively small tile sizes (40x60px for a medium size character)

                - 3/4 top down perspective (Zelda perspective)

                - humanoid character animations

                - monster/non-humanoid character animations

                - indoor and outdoor environment tilemaps

                - interface and menu art and design

- Is opinionated about art styles, fonts, game design

About The Project


******************************************************
***  Note: All art is placeholder. Most sprites are Link to the Past rips  ***
******************************************************





Overworld is a 2D action-RPG roguelike.

The player has been entrusted by their god with a quest of dire importance; the fate of the world rests in their hands. The player will explore a deadly and randomly generated world, filled with procedural dungeons, cities and other points of interest.

By defeating monsters, solving puzzles and completing quests, the player will level up their class, gain abilities and specializations, and will find powerful equipment, items and weapons.  The player will need to use make optimal use of their skills and knowledge to survive in this harsh roguelike world.  Death and failure are not only likely, but expected.

Key Features:

- Action-oriented combat

- Randomly generated overworld with biome system

- Randomly generated dungeons

- Randomly generated quests

- Large loot pool: tons of rare and unique equipment and weapons to discover

- Many character classes to play and master.

- Rare and powerful character classes to unlock

- Many unique enemies and bosses to fight

- High difficulty and permadeath


A more thorough overview can be found here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zJE2ZzdM7Zf67Wqd73uM-9fXDWfpWRRRRMDKZ4Ed410/edit


State of the Project

We're about 7 months into development.  The game is in a very playable state with a good horizontal slice of gameplay focusing on the first 10 levels. (If you want to try the latest build, drop me a line.)

We're aiming to enter into the 2014 IGF and will likely try to get a booth at the Indie Megabooth at PAX East and Pax Prime 2014.

Working features:

      - Random map generation
                  
      - Combat and Physics
                  
      - Item and loot system
                  
      - Class system

      - Quest system
                  
      - Monster and NPC AI

Technical details:

      - Using the Empire engine, our custom C++ 2D game framework

      - Empire is built on a DirectX and OpenGL capable renderer

      - Empire is designed to be easily portable to non-PC hardware
                     - Durango, PS4, Wii-U or Ouya are possibilities

      - Data files are plain text XML for easy modability

                     - Compiled to binary for faster loading in release builds

How To Apply

Email me at bruno@stardock.com with your portfolio, or Deviantart, etc.

Also feel free to email me if:

               - You any other questions about the project

               - You'd like to play the prototype version for any reason; I can send you the installer

               - You want to chat about Zelda, Nethack, roguelikes, C++, indie development, etc

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