PleasingFungus's Devblog

Artist Wanted

Update, Feb. 5th: I’ve received a large number of applications, more than enough to find the artist I need.

Two pieces of news. First: the game I’ve been working on for the last year has an official name, We Traitors Five. Second: I’m looking to hire an artist!

We Traitors Five is a puzzle game, where you start from scratch and build up to eventually making a computer*. It’s inspired by Zachtronics games (e.g. SpaceChem, Shenzhen I/O) and by my own older game, Manufactoria, in that it’s a ‘creative’ puzzle game about building and experimenting. Mechanically, though, it’s pretty distinct from other games out there.

In the game, you play as a member of a fictionalized version of the Traitorous Eight. You start out with nothing, and you’re racing time to build the first modern computer* and change the world. The actual people involved in that era were recklessly optimistic, and that spirit is something the game is trying to capture: not an accurate depiction of the historical events, but a version of the times as the people involved imagined them.

At present, the game looks like this (programmer art alert!):

The art style that I imagine for the game uses 60s-inspired bright, flat colors: something like the colors (not the fonts) in these pictures, or the character designs (NOT the UI!) from Evil Genius. I’m not looking for a ‘pixel art’ style.

A non-comprehensive outline of the art I need:

• The ‘modules’ that the player builds their machines from (seen above). There are about a dozen different types of modules, ranging in size from about 100x100px to about 150x250px. Four of the module types are variably sized (can be resized vertically), so those will need to be modular.

• The UI for the main game: about 25 ~32x32px buttons, about half a dozen mouse cursors, and backgrounds/artistic flourishes for the various UI sidebars.
• Waist-up portraits for 4-6 characters, probably about 250x400px.
• Backgrounds for the puzzle select screen (the ‘blackboard’) area: roughly 5000x768px of ‘electronics labs’, progressing as the player travels to the right from ‘extremely bare-bones’ (pipes coming out of the ceiling…) to a more professional look.
• And, of course, a logo for the game.

Ideally, I’d like to have initial concepts done within a month of when you start working, and the finished art done within three months. These aren’t hard requirements, but time is important.

Big plusses for a potential candidate are a professional/freelance art background and/or a sample modules for the game. Neither are required, obviously. 

If you’re interested, email me at pleasingfung@gmail.com. Include [ART] in the subject line. You must have a portfolio (more than a couple of random pieces!) and billing rates, though of course you can give a general range - we’ll get into specifics if you’re chosen. Reasonable revenue split offers will also be considered. (I’m not interested in free work, sorry!)

If this isn’t for you, but if you know someone else who might be interested, please pass the word along!

I’ll update this post when the position is filled.

Update, Feb. 5th: I’ve received a large number of applications, more than enough to find the artist I need.

*Technically, a CPU.