Hello, I'm James, head of Dreamboat Games. We're a brand new studio working on our debut title, Pursuit of Life. We already have a team of about 10 freelancers working on the project, which has been in development for over a year now. The project is entirely funded, directed and produced by me. I can't really afford to pay another programmer on an hourly basis, but what I can afford is to work out some sort of rev-share agreement with the right person.
That being said, this is not a job for a starving freelancer that needs to be paid hourly so they can make ends meet (though if you're ever actually starving I can and will help you out financially during development). This is more of a role for a student or someone with a fulltime job that has spare time to work on a promising indie game with huge upside potential. Someone with a few years of experience programming in Godot that is looking to push their skills to the next level with a commercial project.
Bare with me as this will be lengthy post—and I expect that the right candidate will have read it all. I'll do my best to be succinct. I'll start with information about the game and then I'll share details about myself, the team, and the role.
About the Game
The game is a top-down 2D city-life sim about becoming successful—whatever that looks like for you. You start out as a recent high-school graduate living with your parents. The game begins with your parents coming to you to have "the talk" about finding a job and finding your own way in the world. The game is pretty open-ended, with several life paths the player can go down depending on their taste and interests. The game will launch with 5 life paths:
- Retail: Work your way up from part-time sales associate all the way up to corporate CEO—if you can make the tough decisions required to make it to the top. Take over the mega corporation or set out to start your own retail conglomerate.
- Cooking: Start out as a host or server and work your way up to Head Chef. If you have bigger ambitions, start your own chain of restaurants. Just make sure everything is up to code or you'll find yourself out of a job or business quicker than you can crack an egg.
- Athletic: Anyone can work out at the gym, but champions live at the gym. Join one of two warring fitness clubs or start your own club. Represent your club in competitions until you are the reigning champion of 1, 2 or all 3 sporting leagues: Fighting, Body Building, and Basketball.
- Music: Go from busker to world famous recording artist. Meet people along the way who can help your career or sabotage it. The music biz can be cutthroat but opportunities are abundant if you invest in the right relationships. Always give your best performance, you never know who's in the crowd watching.
- Entrepreneur: Work your way to the top of any of the other paths and eventually you'll wake up as an entrepreneur in one industry or another. Or, work your way up from a humble lemonade stand to a revered business tycoon. All paths lead to the entrepreneurial path, and this is what the game is ultimately all about.
Each path comes with it's own set of characters, quests, branching narratives, romantic interests and more. The business model is buy once and enjoy free updates for life. By "for life," I mean for the lifetime of the game; as long as game sales support it. The post-launch strategy is to release new paths and path updates as free expansions for as long as games sales support development. Basically, like Stardew Valley.
Outside of the 5 core paths and their associated gameplay. The game is intended to be a friendship/dating sim. The player is expected to build friendships with path NPCs as they advance along their path—some of which can be romanced. Take NPCs on dates and hangouts or attend and host parties and events to build relationships more efficiently. One of the core design goals is exploring the ways relationships can enrich our lives.
Other than that, you have your typical RPG/Life Sim elements: minigames, character customization & player housing, fame/reputation, exploration & collecting, simulated/sandbox economy, etc.
The first thing you need to know about me is that I am already a full-time game dev at a AAA studio. Now, I'm not going to name the studio because I don't want to use that for any sort of promotion but the the point is: I know what I'm doing. I've worked in the industry for over 5 years and have been a hobbyist developer since I was old enough to watch teen movies.
I first started planning the project in December 2023, but I didn't start prototyping until around March 2024 with the first member of the team, TheMotleyProgrammer. We prototyped for a few months and then started building the underlying systems needed for a simulation game. We did that for about a year until I expanded the team and began full production in May 2025, that's when I expanded the team to what we have now. The members of the team are:
RULY - Director/Producer/Investor - This is me. I'm leading the project and paying most of the team out of pocket. I don't write much code but I review and merge every PR. I work 1on1 with every member of the team daily to make sure the work meets my vision and quality targets.
TheMotleyProgrammer - Head Programmer - Motley is in charge of the codebase and has 4+ years of experience programming in Godot.
Oracle - Programmer - Oracle supports Motley in building out the systems needed for the game.
Jake - Game Designer/Narrative Designer - Jakes works closely with me on the game design tasks.
Puffer - Level Designer/Environment Artist - Puffer is responsible for crafting those beautiful game scenes you see above.
Diana - Character Designer/Pixel Artist - Diana is responsible for the character designs and animations.
Licinio Souza - Character Designer/Pixel Artist - Licinio focuses primarily on character portraits.
Rory Laws - Music Composer - Rory is an award winning composer specializing in motion pictures. He's already completed over an hour of original music for the game.
Ssnxw - Community Manager/Player Support - Ssnxw is a friend of mine who is so passionate about the project that they've agreed to help manage the community so me and the team can focus on development. Ssnxw has years of experience working as a community manager at a certain game studio.
About the role
Like I said, this isn't an hourly role. I'm looking for someone who believes in the project and is willing to treat it like an investment until launch. I am offering a rev-share agreement on the net profits of the game. It's a milestone-based deal where you unlock a higher rev-share percentage for each milestone the project reaches while you are on the team. We can end the contract at any time and you walk away with the percentage you earned, no questions asked. After the game launches on Steam, you'll collect a royalty check for as long as the terms of the agreement describe.
I need someone with at least 3 years of Godot programming experience, preferably in Gdscript. Someone who is a self-starter and in it for the long haul. We have a strong concept and a great team with the experience to bring it to life. All we are missing is you! If you made it this far and are still excited then I want to hear from you. Reach out to me on discord @ ruly5201. I don't care if you see this post 6 months late, I want to hear from you. Reach out to me!
