Hello there! 
My name is Justin and I’m the founder of a very small development group called Natural Games. We’re currently only 2 people, that’s why we’re looking for people who want to join us to create awesome games for free (though we’re thinking about taking money for our current project). We hope to get more and more members from all over the world soon for our current project and maybe for future projects, too. We’re currently working on a huge project which I’m going to present here. But first, you can read some information about the group and our aims if you’re interested.
Small overview about my portfolio:
I have started with game development about 3 years ago. My first project was a mod for Amnesia - The dark descent (HPL Engine). Unfortunately I got bored of that and gave it up. After that, I decided to work with the UDK 3. I learned a lot and got used to it really fast. And then, after the UE4 was available, I immediately started working with it. And now we finally started our first project with it.
THE TEAM
[spoiler]
Unfortunately, it is difficult to find developers these days who are willing to work just for fun and for the feeling of having something great done. We don’t want to take money for our projects yet, because we don’t know how far we can get. If we’re pleased with our work, we may take money and would split that fairly. Currently, our “team” has only 2 members, that’s why we try to find more people now. We also don’t care if you don’t speak English so well - we neither. As long as we understand each other, everything is fine
Our aim is to create games not only with good graphics. We want to make games to make people happy, scared, angry, sad or whatever is needed to give them what they want. All we do is done in our freetime and for no money, even though we hope that we can become a bigger and more popular development group someday.
This is our team yet:
Jan - Model designer
Justin (Me) - basically everything else but mostly level-design
All the other positions are still free (see list below)
[/spoiler]
THE PROJECT
[spoiler]
A few months ago we started with the planning of our first project. We decided to make a dark-atmospheric horror survival game with more content and functions as in other indie horror games. We thought that we either create a good game, or we don’t develop anything at all. That means we don’t just want to add one jumpscare here and one blood decal there. We have spent many hours to make a plan for our project that fits these conditions and here are our results:
Summary of the plot [STILL IN PROGRESS! NOT THE FINAL VERSION]:
[spoiler]
**[Introduction]**The player gets into the role of a police officer who has moved with his wife and their child Katy, after his wife has died tragically. Except of that horrible incident, the man and his daughter tried to live their life like before. But it wasn’t possible. The pain was just too deep. The man found out that there was an old woman living in their new hometown, who was rumored to perform occult rituals. He didn’t believe in those kind of rituals, but his desperation forced him to ask her for help. He just asked her to bring his wife back to life. He never thought about the risks, nor he heard about them. He didn’t believe it would work anyway. But it did, she was alive again. But it wasn’t really her, he knew that. She wasn’t acting like his so beloved wife. She was so apathetic and Katy, their daughter, was even scared by her. The man knew this couldn’t go on like this. He went back to the woman to undo his mistake, and blamed her harshly for making it only worse. The woman did what he wanted. She broke the spell, the wife disappeared. But that was not enough. Driven by anger she cursed the man and summoned the darkness to take over his entire live. The man tought it was finally over, but the curse unfolded it’s power.
// That’s what should be told at the beginning of the game. Maybe in form of text/dialogues, pictures or small animations. Everything what follows now is connected to the introduction //
**[Main part]**After a few days, Katy began to act weird. She started to be more and more quiet. She drew pictures of her and dark shadows and shapes. Of course the man was worried, but he didn’t find any explanation for that. And when he thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. One day he has awaked, but Katy was gone.
// The rest of the story is still in progress and we’re also editing the introduction. At this part, the player starts the game. Small background information: What actually happens (though the curse) is that the man and Katy are now trapped in the town but far in the past. The player finds out that horrible things happened in that time and experiences that in first-hand. The most important objective from this point is to find the child. Therefor the player has to explore the whole city which consists of 18 currently planned Levels. Next to this objection the player can collect several items and notes to find out what happened in the past to get a better ending. While exploring the different levels there are traps, enemies and puzzles waiting for the player. We also want to make the game atmosphere more and more darker and bloody after time.
[/spoiler]
Names for the characters, locations and the game itself are not yet determined.
Basic information:
Developer & publisher: Natural Games
Genre: Survival horror
Platforms: Windows (maybe more in future)
Estimated play time: 7-12 hours
Development software: UE4 4.11.2 +
Estimated release: depends on how many members we get in future. Currently we think about 2-3 years or even more…
Audience: 18 YO
Features:
- Puzzles
- Solving mysteries by finding notes, records and by exploring the different levels -> special rewards for reaching 100% of a mystery
- Interesting, carefully planned story which is still in progress
- A few quick time events
- Psychological elements - using primal and usual fears and psychological methods i.e. alternating atmosphere (safe places, hunted by enemies etc.)
- Special, hidden levels which contain additional data for the mysteries
- Player can get hunted by enemies (maybe some “bosses” where the player can fight back)
- Discovering a dangerous and horrifying world
- Several difficulties including “nightmare” (if player dies, the game is over -> some unfullfilled quicktime events will trigger that aswell)
Future plans:
Website
Demo or trailer of our game
[/spoiler]
WE NEED
[spoiler]
We create the games in our free time. We want to have fun while doing that. If this is what you want to do aswell, then feel free to join us! If you’re a beginner in game development, you can also join us! We are happy about every help we can get and we will try to help you become better and better over time.
Here you can find a detailed list with descriptions of the positions which are still available.
[spoiler]
We are searching for free workers with knowledge in the following positions:
Game-designers (0/1)
As a game-designer you will elaborate and draw sketches of the content i.e. characters, levels, weapons etc. You are making the “rules” and designing the content of the whole game. It’s very much like being a film director.
Level-designer (1/2)
A level designer creates the maps. It may sound easy, but it is a hard job. You are working together with the game-designers and the concept artist. Together you are deciding what will be in the level and where. You’re creating the blueprints using the visual scripting system. For the code, we need programmers.
There are different sub positions we need here:
- Blueprint artist
- FX artist (particle systems)
- Texture designer (creating textures, implement them into the UE)
Music and sound artists (0/2)
You’re creating the music and/or the sounds. If you apply for this job, please tell us if you want to create music only, sounds only or both. You don’t need to play an instrument for this job, but you need to have knowledge with music and sound editing.
Programmer (1/1)
As you know the Unreal Engine 4 uses Blueprints “instead” of code. Well, not really instead. Behind every blueprint there is a lot of code and for advanced functions which are not standardly in the engine we need to write our own code. If you apply for this job, you need to have knowledge in C++. The visual scripting is the job of the level designer.
Model artists (1/3)
You are modelling every mesh which is used in the game. Every house, character, weapon, enemy etc. If you’re a beginner: make sure to read UE4’s export/import pipeline for the modeling program you’re using. You will also have to rig the character and enemy models. If you would like to, you can also animate the skeletal meshes. For more information read the text below ↓
Animators (0/2)
We need you to animate the skeletal meshes like enemies or some NPCs for our game.
Beta testers (0/∞)
Being a beta tester isn’t always fun. We are giving you a list of things that you have to test out, sometimes more often in a row. There are many things you have to regard of. And this work is very important, because after your tests, we’re going to publish the game.
Graphic artists (0/1)
You are designing all the UIs for the game, from the main menu to the layouts of the inventory and so on. The level/game designer will implement it then. We also need you to design a logo for our group and if possible a short intro.
Story writers (1/1)
You are writing the story of the game. In our case, the story is already more or less written. But we still need somebody to edit it or may change some parts.
Voice actors: English and German (0/3 per lang)
We would like to publish our game in two languages: German and English. For that, we need some voice actors to speak the dialogues. It is very important that you have good equipment for a good audio quality! If you apply for this job, please send us a small example of your voice act.
**Translators (look below) **
If we want to publish the game in more than one language, we’ll need translators who will translate the dialogues, notes, interfaces and so on. We currently need: English-Spanish and English-Russian translators
[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]
Of course we want to finish the game as early as possible, but we don’t want to stress anyone. Life is hard, nobody will be forced to work 20 hours a week. If you’re interested in one of the positions or if you have any question simply contact me:
Name: Justin Falkenstein
Email: justin.falkenstein@outlook.com
Skype: naturalgames
Please also tell us if you’re interested in joining our group for future projects or just for this one.
Thanks for reading. Have a great day! 