[tech, concept, 3D] Artists wanted for a project entering production. Thread

About the game:
This is a story of a world. As many stories, it begins with good intentions and scientists who screwed something up, pretty badly this time around. That's where you come in. Empathy v.2 (or Empathy for short) is an adventure-exploration game about rebuilding a world through dreams, memories and emotions. You take on a role of a Child traveling in a post-apocalyptic world void of emotions, guided by a voice, on a quest to restore the lost emotional balance. You will be traveling through others' memories (although at this point they are almost indistinguishable from the reality), uncover intrigues and discover the good, the bad and the ugly of humanity in distress.

Our goal with Empathy is to create a warm, feel good, game with a dramatic back-story for those who can read between the lines. The core gameplay centers on restoring a world by visiting other peoples' memories, slowly putting the shattered reality together, piece by piece. We offer a good mix of puzzles and exploration and want the player to feel a sense of wonder as he uncovers the world, looking at it through lenses of different emotions. This mechanic serves as a great tool for story telling, which allows us to show various events in different lights by literally putting the player in the shoes of another character. In Empathy very few things are black and white, but rather different shades of grey. Sometimes lighter, sometimes darker. The game is in first person view.


About the project:
Currently we're a team of three people who been engaged in this project for a year, time which was required for us to test various approaches to telling the story of Empathy through different prototypes. We now feel confident enough with our current design that we want to expand our team and enter the production. We have potential investors for the project, but would like to prepare a solid prototype to pitch them, which requires us to find a couple of artists. There's no compensation for the work we all put into the project, not yet, as we all see it currently as a serious hobby we're all strongly invested into. We want to create a meaningful game with human nature in focus, which has a fair share of exploration and sense of discovery. We love such games as Journey, Stalker, Braid, Proteus, The Void and are inspired by them. So now we are looking for like-minded individuals.

We expect you to "grok" our vision of the game and actively drive it forward yourself. We are looking for people who share the vision and can actively contribute with their ideas for improvements, engaging with the rest of the team and but also act independently. While we are looking for rather specific roles, you are both welcomed and encouraged to engage in other aspects of the game such as game or puzzle design. You are expected to dig into the concept art and design documents yourself and find areas for improvements. We aren't looking to recruit just any artists, but those who share our desire for an atmospheric, cozy game with serious story to it. Those who are gamers and been missing this kind of games to play lately. If you share our vision, we'd love hearing from you as we are looking for the following roles.

Who are we looking for:
Concept artist
We are looking for a concept artist with strong level design focus. While we have all the game environments already established, we need someone with good understanding of level design to focus on smaller scenes and props. Ideally, you prefer working with colors and atmosphere, without sacrificing detail too much. You will be responsible for all the visual scenes in the game, big as small, and refining the art-style of the game. We value technique over skills.

Tech artist
We are looking for a tech artist with good understanding of shaders, 3D pipeline and particles in Unreal 4. You will be working with creating awe inspiring shaders to closely follow the colorful art-style of the game. Preferably, you can also do basic modeling.

3D artist
We are looking for a creative 3D artist to break down the concept art and bring it to live in the coolest way possible. It's preferred if you have some basic knowledge of UE4 (3D pipeline and material capabilities), and maybe can do some basic animations.

Who are we and what do we have?
There's currently three of us. A story writer, me (scripter/level designer/game designer/3D) and a programmer. Both me and the programmer have previous experience from game development, about a couple of years. We just recently moved to UE4 from UDK, and are almost done re-creating our tech prototype in it, where we have most core functions already working. You will be joining an established project where you can freely express your creativity.

Contact:
If you are interested in joining the project, shoot me an email over at contact@empathygame.org. Please provide a short description of you, your portfolio, and why you're interested in the project.
Prototype screenshot of the city:

Edited by: Araklaj

The artwork for this game is just outstanding! Are you guys also looking for someone to compose and produce the Empathy's soundtrack? I would really love to work on this game as I really think it has a unique character and I think would be able to create music that would complement the peculiar world you've envisioned very well. :-)

yaminihi wrote: The artwork for this game is just outstanding! Are you guys also looking for someone to compose and produce the Empathy's soundtrack? I would really love to work on this game as I really think it has a unique character and I think would be able to create music that would complement the peculiar world you've envisioned very well. :-)

Thanks for the compliments! We aren't currently looking for composers as we'd like to have a playable demo done before bringing on anyone to work with the sound, so s/he has something tangible to compose for. Email us a link to your soundcloud, and once we need composers I'll get back to you

Cronnix wrote: Thanks for the compliments! We aren't currently looking for composers as
we'd like to have a playable demo done before bringing on anyone to
work with the sound, so s/he has something tangible to compose for.
Email us a link to your soundcloud, and once we need composers I'll get
back to you

Thanks for replying so fast Cronnix! I usually only use soundcloud to send links to private demos but I've been told enough times to upload public tracks and I really think it's about that I do so. I'll be uploading diverse short demos in the next days in a lot of musical genres to my soundcloud and I'll email you as soon as I have enough to show. But anyway, if you guys want to tell me the kind of sound that you want to achieve I'll make you a specific private demo that matches your music vision for the game, as it's what I'm used to do most of the time. Keep up the great work, I can't wait for more updates on Empathy! :-)

Edited by: yaminihi

I hope the game looks as visually appealing as the art