I'm a dev with 15+ years in the field and have worked on and released multiple games and demos.
Over the last few years, I've been building a game called Ikon.
Ikon is a multiplayer online realm (with dedicated headless servers) where players become evolving creatures called Ikons. You explore a living world, hunt wild Ikons, battle other players, and claim eggs to unlock new forms. Each Ikon grows differently, with customizable abilities, mutations, and builds that let players shape their own playstyle.
Think creature collection, but you are the creature.
This project has been in development for a few years now and already has a solid foundation in place. The core systems are built, the design documentation is robust, and it's been iterated at its foundations to focus on the player experience.
I did have to step away for a little over a year due to cancer, and during that time my previous team sort of fell apart. I'm now in remission and back at it, fully focused on pushing this forward.
Before that break, I spent time testing the concept with different communities, especially players from games like The Isle, Beasts of Bermuda, Path of Titans, and even fans of Pokemon and Palworld. The response was consistently strong. There's clear interest in this kind of experience, which gives the project real potential.
The current team includes myself, our Art Lead (creature concepts, models and animations), UX Designer, Audio Engineer, QA, Community Manger as well as a full Marketing Team.
Visually, the game is similar in style to those of Pokemon or Palworld. It is heavily stylized.
Here is a screenshot from the current game.
What I’m looking for:
- Community Moderators - Social-savvy management, especially for community building and moderation. We have a fantastic and experienced Community Manager you'll be working with to keep Ikon fun and safe!
- Concept Artists - Concept artists for level design concepting would be fantastic. Please ensure you can work with the stylized look of the game and keep it consistent.
- Level Designers - I have a bunch of fancy pretty assets you are welcome to use and we can get/make more if needed. Consistency in style is very important, and an understanding of creating large, performative, natural worlds. We are aiming for hand-crafted maps that may or may not support some procedural generation, but we're largely going hand-made. The map is currently 4km x 4km and we are using UDW, UDS and a really nice landscape material. You're welcome to play with any of it.
- VFX Artist - This game is loaded with some pretty epic abilites - fire attacks, thunder attacks, all kinds of stuff. I have a bunch of VFX packs but having hand-made custom ones would be amazing and really tighten things up. Huge bonus points if you know how to do stylized effects!
Absolutely no AI whatsoever is to be used in this project.
Important:
Please drop your portfolio in the thread. No DMs please.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask!