Hello

I was in the gaming industry a long time ago, but left and for the last 10 years I work as system developer full time. I have never stopped programming games though. The latest prototype I am working on (on my spare time), that I need a team for being able to complete, is a 2D RPG Isometric game pretty similar style wise to settlers. Since the game is in a very early stage there is a lot of room for ideas, focus, scope changes so I prefer people that have a lot of ideas and experience joining.

Summary:

The game is a Settlers style game with moba style characters and campaigns that offer attack choices similar to Darkest Dungeon. It kind off looks like Civ2 or settlers where you are “playing on the map” and in real time. Just so you know it is not a flashy modern game with tons of animations and 3D effects and stuff, but good visuals ARE important regardless.

Team Needed:

I seek a 2D graphic artist for that can make maps, monsters, icons and animations for RPG.

I also seek a designer, someone with long background in RPG that preferrably have been involved in rpg projects before. The person would complement my programming having great talent in storytelling, design, level design that can make the game appealing.

If the game is finished and released we of course have contract for sharing the revenue. I only work on this during spare time (a few hours a week), which also means there is no pressure or anything to get this game finished too soon.

Frankly, what I need help with is making the game more appealing and have a clear way of attracting attention right from the bat, rewarding the player so he/she wants to “just play this map see if I can beat it, because I want to continue the campaign”. I have spent around 200-250 hours already, but I do not want to show a screenshot because the visuals are not good enough yet and I know how easy people get put off.

The Game:

• Campaign: The game is meant to have campaigns with a map where you choose a scenario where to “attack" next, kind of like Darkest Dungeon. Campaigns could either be roguelike or “continue until you beat” style, the meaning is that different campaigns have their own rules
• Scenario: scenarios plays similar to a map in Settlers, but there is not focus on building but on Heroes, levelling them up, finishing quests, attacking Dungeons, xp, Loot etc. Each Scenario lasts around 10-60 minutes where ,depending on the campaign, you get some kind of reward or standing bonus after the scenario (Gold, Silver, Bronze depending on how fast you won for example or just unlocking something in game)
• Base: You have a Home base (Keep) where all your Heroes start, you can recruit, resurrect Heroes (respawn timer), upgrade you City Walls or other buildings
• Heroes: You have Heroes that you can send out from Keep on the map walking around exploring, fighting, questing etc. Heroes move in real time on the scenario map, encountering random enemies, get quests. You also get Keep quests that you can assign to whatever Hero you prefer. In that sense there is strategy, some quests are hard, you can die so should you wait before you assign? You have certain Heroes as Carries that you want to level up for the end game as well. You can manually control some aspects of the Hero (not directly controlling movement), using abilities, assign support heroes to join them, retreating and click on nearby quests or Dungeons to “attack” them. But this micro will be stripped away from you when your Keep expands. The meaning is that when you have more Heroes on the map you will sacrifice the micro. There is a also a cap on max heroes on map that increases as you level up your Keep. In the end game when you can have 10 Heroes simultaneously on map you can no longer click to fire spells manually but it is left to the AI. Your job is now only as manager, recruiting heroes, sending out Parties of Heroes.
• Hero Classes: 10-20 Hero classes ranging from Warrior, Bard, Pyromancer, Hunter, Viking etc all with different stats and abilities. Some are carries, some are easy to start with, most are unlocked when you upgraded buildings or beat maps etc
• Tower Defence: Hoardes will invade the keep, and in those battles some of your Heroes will die. You can resurrect Heroes if they were not too old when they died.
• Victory: you win a scenario when you have conquered all the Boss Dungeons (maps have 1-3 Boss Dungeons). You win a campaign when you have conquered all the key spots on the map.

Conlusion:

For this type of game, I think it is important with good campaigns with story and level design that just have cool content in it. The scenario maps should offer some unique content (quests, events, terrain, monsters etc etc.) that means they differ so you cannot use exact same strategy on every map. I need help with making the kind of visuals and sound that “talks to the player” and give the player great feedback.