Pretty neat idea and fun reaction-based puzzles! Would be fun to see more environment effects that made levels different too.

Hmm, couldn't quite get the level to complete, once hit by the player, the goal just jumps around randomly.  The idea is pretty cool tho! 

Pretty neat on all fronts, nice gameplay, cute art, good scope and physics, well done! Would've been fun to see further emphasis on hero being "secondary" by wandering off because they got motion sick or something from all the flying around. 

Thanks for the feedback! Agreed that it would've been nice with more strategic choices, we had quite a few in mind but as it usually goes run out of time. The cards autoplay themselves when the monsters reach max level and impatiently jump out :) 

Nice concept! Wish there was a bit more info on different monsters and combos. 

Nice art! Wish the apples were a bit more dynamic and you had more time to get them, often there wasn't enough time to reach them.

Nice graphics! The concept would really benefit from more enemy types with different post death effects and synergy. 

Can't seem to start the game with "Space" in the flowlab, regardless if fullscreen or not.

Cool, I'll shoot you a DM on discord :)

Hey! I am a low-poly 3D artist who also does game design and basic pixel art, as well as level design (although that's limited to Unreal). I know a bit of Unity as well, but at a pretty basic level.

Looking to team up with a programmer or join a team for the upcoming Ludum Dare next week, with focus on a relatively small scoped project as these things tend to get out of hand quickly, so this time I want to ensure we really do something small that we can finish rather than another grand idea that is half-done 🙂

I've previously participated in multiple game jams, and also released a couple of games, here's my itch profile: https://araklaj.itch.io/. If interested, drop a short line about yourself and how I can contact you. I'm located in Sweden, so would prefer working with people from similar timezones.

Bump! Only looking for concept artist now :)

Bump, still looking! 

The Project

Malaise (working title) is s sci-fi survival game inspired by old-school movies such as Alien and Pitch Black, where few survivors find themselves in an alien environment facing an unknown sentient threat. The game is done in a slightly retro-futuristic look, attempting to capture the clunky sci-fi tech of the 70's and 80's.

The idea is that you pick one of several movie tropes scenarios to try and survive, such as stranded on the planet, waking up in cryopod, being left behind, etc, and combine it with one of the AI enemies and a goal, such as signalling a ship to come pick you up or to destroy research material. As you try to reach the goal, AI comes into play to stop you, which is the focus of the game as it acts on its own off-screen, hunting and stalking the player, building up the suspense and waiting for the best moment to attack them. 

Currently, we have a working prototype with following features among others (recorded in dev environment):

- Player controller

- Player stats such as stamina and energy

- Working inventory

- Various useable and placeable items such as flare gun or beacon

- Interactive components for looting and storytelling

- Basic AI (WIP art) that hunts the player, communicates with each-other and reacts to light

Our goal is to make a vertical slice demo within next few months to test and evaluate the concept, for which we are now looking to expand the team.

Who we are

We're currently a team of three people, a programmer, a composer and me, an artist/designer. We're all around 30 years old, located in EU, pretty chill and have a laid back approach to game dev while still getting things done. 

All of us have a few years of experience in both game dev and our corresponding skills, having released games previously or done some successful jams before. 

The project is in a stable state at this point, having been in slow development throughout this year, with proper documentation, sync meetings and discord for communications.

What we're looking for

We're looking for friendly and motivated people to work with on the game. You are probably from EU or close by to match our time zones, and have a couple years of experience. You are also active on discord as it's our primary method of communications. 

Concept artist

To help us define and develop the alien world of Malaise, we're looking for a concept artist. You don't need to be great at realistic details, or details at all, as we value conceptual vision above nitty-gritty details. We can create those ourselves, but need someone pointing us in the right direction, establishing the environment, enemies and tech of the game.

It's also great if you're interested in 3D and to help model the environment, but not a must, this could also be a separate role.

3D Environment artist

Someone who can help creating environment art for the game, and knows or is willing to learn the substance designer. We're not too demanding on the visuals, so if you're intermediate with art but haven't had the chance to build your portfolio or fully develop your skills yet, come learn and develop  with us! 

Programmer

As we are getting done with base game features, we need a programmer who can among other things dedicate themselves to developing and implementing our AI in the game, including its behaviour and combat. You need to preferably have some previous experience with AI in Unreal Engine 4 for this role.

Animator/Character artist

To bring our AI to live, we're looking for an animator and/or character artist. It's great if you can both model and animate, but this could also be two separate roles. You will be responsible for our player character and the enemies, likely including import and set-up of animations in the engine.

How to apply

Please reply with some information about stuff you've done, and means to contact you, preferably Discord. We'll get back to you asap!

It's hard to keep up, but not impossible, just gotta build enough traps! :) 

About me 

Hey! I'm a 3D artist and generalist designer (game/level designer and some scripting) in early 30's, looking for a programmer to team up with for a shorter summer project for fun. I have intermediate skills when it comes to art, doing a range of styles from low poly to stylised-realistic, mostly sticking to environmental art. I can also do basic pixel art and UI.

The project

You know all those projects you start with aim of doing something quick for fun, and it just scope creeps, dragging on and on? Had enough of that. I've done a few jams, released a couple of games, but been in a bit of a creative rut lately so with my summer vacation just around the corner, I'd like to do a smaller project with aim to have something finished and released within a couple of months. I can't stress enough that the aim is to have something small in scope that is feasible to release within few months on itch/steam, and maybe iterate on if we feel like it afterwards.

I love roguelikes, dungeon crawlers, coop games and experiential stuff, so most of the ideas I'd like to work on are an ungodly fusion of those, but I am also open to yours if you have any!

Looking for

I am looking for a programmer to team up with who has a couple years of experience in Unreal Engine, as I know the engine, but could also consider unity although I haven't used it that much before and would be less of help outside of art. 

You are located somewhere inside of, or near, EU timezones, know general concepts and how to implement them, can quickly prototype ideas even if with spaghetti code, has some basic interest in game design, and easy to communicate with. You should also have a bit of a commercial mindset to be able to stick to the scope and kill off features that bloat the game. 

Alternatively, if you are already working on a project that fits the above criteria, get in touch! 

Also possibly looking for an animator who knows the 3D software -> Unreal pipeline and can create, import and set up their animations, with a bonus of character/creature modelling skills.

Contact

If you're interested, please respond with short info about you and how I can contact you, preferably on Discord :)

EDIT: Found someone, thank you!

What kind of project did you start on?

Hey Erick, sent you a friend request on Discord. 

Still looking! Open to animator only as well as we have a character artist interested. 

Hi! We're a team of three people getting together to make a novel concept of a competitive survival game (no it's not like RUST/DAYZ/Ark/Don't Starve/etc, far from it), more akin to a mix of STALKER and Death Stranding with a pinch of RTS/Battlerite. 

It's a rather small scoped proof of concept that we wanted to participate in Finally Finish Something jam for the fun of it, and then develop it further if we see it working out. 

The team currently consists of a gameplay programmer with a couple years of experience, a low poly artist and level/game designer (released some games and done few jams, and a composer. 

Although we considered scaling down the concept even further, we would really like to aim for a more complete first version and now looking complete the team with three more people:

Multiplayer programmer 

Someone to be in charge of implementing the multiplayer aspect of the game in Unreal Engine and Blueprints/C++. It is limited to a handful of people (like 1v1, maybe 3v3) and will probably be locally hosted to begin with to save us time and reduce scope. Of course you're welcome to participate in developing other parts of the game too if you're interested, but since multiplayer is challenging enough of its own we wanted to find someone to fully focus on that part to begin with. 

Character modeller/animator

Someone who would be responsible for modelling, animating, and preferably importing/setting up in unreal our couple characters for the game, very similar to The Wild Eight in style and complexity. The role isn't strictly limited to characters alone, but we don't want to stretch too thin here same as with programming. 

Concept artist

It would be awesome if anyone is interested in contributing with simpler/abstract environment sketches to help us establish general mood and creative direction. 

---

Expectations

We're by no means veterans or experts, and we don't expect you to be either. But we have few years of experience in our fields and know the ropes, so we count on you knowing your way around the basics and delivering within resonable time since we're participating in a jam. 

We use Discord for our communications, and we're all responsive and don't go randomly MIA. Since we're all from EU, we would prefer to stick to the somewhat close timezones. And of course, we're doing this in our free time and while we're serious about it, we also want a relaxed atmosphere and try our best to keep it up.

If you are interest, please leave a method of contacting you and maybe some info about yourself and stuff you've done before, or if you have any questions!

Hey Caleb, I'm an artist looking to team up with a programmer, starting small and then working our way up and expanding if we feel its working out. There's no established project, but I got a solid concept and released some games before so I can promise you proper structure and planning. 

You can read more details here: https://itch.io/t/856334/programmer-artist-looking-to-team-up-with-a-unrealunity-developer-and-possibly-an-animator#post-1593906

Hey all. I'm an artist and designer with some developer background. I've released couple smaller game projects commercially, took a break, and now I'm itching again to start creating. I'm looking to team up with someone to start small, improve and develop projects first as a hobby but with serious ambitions, if we click and concepts work out. I've learned from my mistakes not to jump headfirst into a multi-year project and want to approach this properly :)

The project

I primarily have couple of concepts for adventure/RTS/survival games with roguelike elements that I'd like to develop. They're pretty untried takes on the genres, which in itself doesn't guarantee anything, but might be more interesting to work on than another DayZ copy. One is an action roguelike game with building mechanics and emergent storytelling, another one is a mix of RTS and survival with bit of inspiration from Dark Souls and STALKER. 

 Both are reasonable in scope and designed to be tested first through a ~two month long project to get to know each-other, but expanded and iterated on if successful. I have the core concepts figured out but open to details and exact implementation. Of course, I am also open to your ideas within few other genres if we share the vision. I'm also interested in smaller online experiences, not only single-player. 

I would like to take as "proper" approach as possible (within reason) on this project to reduce risks and avoid losing motivation early on. We will make sure the concept is solid and tested before jumping head first into development, we will design/plan ahead and develop project in stages, slowly expanding on an already solid core from a previous stage. We will aim to properly release any concept we believe in, scaling back until the scope is reasonable. We will pay attention to promoting the game, and building interest early on. You are someone who agrees all that is important, even if you're not interested in doing all that yourself as I will organize and do the most.

Looking for

I'm looking to team up with a programmer who has some experience of the entire dev process, and few years of programming. I strongly prefer working in Unreal Engine, so you probably know C++. Another great bonus is if you know/interested in networking. Also potentially looking for an all-around animator with focus on 3D. You're decent with 3D animation and maybe can do basic 2D. It'd be great if you also do modelling or concept art to help out with the art when possible, and know how to import and set up your stuff in Unreal. 

You (and me):

• Active and communicative on Discord.
• Preferably within EU timezones or have a weird day cycle so our working hours sync up often enough.
• Have a stable life situation, but want to give indie dev a serious try and can dedicate some time to it every week.
• Have a basic interest in game design.

What I offer:

• I am not limited to art and design, but have tech and management skills.
• I can take and give feedback well, and easy to work with.
• A decent sense of style and quality that I push my work to live up to.
• I will work to fill in the blanks on the team to my best capabilities, and learn where necessary. Need someone to set up localization or help offload scripting? Sure.
• A serious interest in games as a medium and want to explore its different possibilities.
• High attention to details, I won't halfarse it and call it a day.
• I'm good at planning, creating and following documentation.
• Given it all works out, I have ambitions for larger scope and more serious projects.
• I am persistent in my goals and will follow through despite temporary hardships.
• I'll try my best to help you improve and deliver.
• I find game dev exiting and want to explore cool stuff, including your ideas.

About me

I'm a 30y old guy from Sweden. I come from a mixed background of development and design, worked as producer/game designer and UX designer, and now continue focusing on design and art. I love odd indie adventure games you can often find on itch.io (A Short Hike, Endless Express, A Night in the woods, Dicey Dungeons), roguelike games, griefing-free survival (The Long Dark/Subnautica/STALKER), artsy weird games, and anything that gives off that kind of a magical journey in a weird world feeling. Like watching a studio Ghibli movie, you know. 

 My skills are low-poly/stylized 3D art, level design, scripting, game design, project management, quality control and a fuckton of persistence. I'm not a pro but past the basics, have motivation, decent taste and looking to develop my skills further together with someone else I can rely on, possibly buildings a long-term team but starting with a few smaller projects. It's important to me that we share same general.. attitude to games. 

 I do 3D, and have participated in a few game jams as artist/designer. I have released two games commercially. One called Ninja PvP, an arena game now lost to the world of ad-filled web games sites, but available somewhere on google images, where I worked as a game and level designer. Another game, which I took all the way from concept to getting a publisher to release, is Empathy, where I was kinda jack of all trades ranging from level design and tech artist, to producer and project manager, to gameplay scripter and game designer together with a smaller team. 

 None of them were a roaring success or made me rich, but were an invaluable experience to learn from and improve. Now I think I got better approaches figured out and want to put them to test.

Contact

If you're interested, drop a line about yourself and how I can contact you. The project is an unpaid shot at something serious, and contracts will be put in place to compensate everybody on success.

Great idea on the tutorial implementation, thanks for the feedback! I've edited the short description to give players a hint for now, given we're past deadline. 

The controls are described on the game's page here: https://bramvanelderen.itch.io/test-drive :)