Metroidvania/RPG Hybrid Game - Looking to recruit dedicated spriter

[CriticalGames]

Untitled Metroidvania/RPG Hybrid Game

Description - A game which attempts to fuse elements of the RPG genre and Metroidvania sub-genre. The player explores the thousands of years old ruins of an Alien prison complex, finding new items, weapons and power-ups, fighting for survival against enemies in turn-based battles (not the DBS), and interacting within the memories of a dead Alien warrior. In addition to mixing gameplay elements, the game often swaps between two perspectives – Top Down and Side-Scrolling.
Genre - Science Fiction with a little bit of Fantasy
Platform - RPG Maker XP

Story
Many thousands of years ago, an Alien vessel landed on this planet. However, it was no ordinary vessel – it was a prison, used to hold a strange and unimaginably powerful life form referred to only as ‘The Beast’. As life on the planet was very early in development and, by the Alien’s standards, was uninhabited by intelligent life-forms, it was chosen to be used as the prison site. However, something went wrong. Their prisoner escaped. The Aliens managed to trap the Beast again, but at a great and terrible cost – not a single man, woman, or child survived the battle. As for the Beast, imprisoned once again, it decided to bide it’s time – to wait for the life forms of this planet to evolve and grow. And grow they did. As the structure fell slowly to ruin, the life forms on the Planet evolved at an exponential rate.

In the present day world, the player takes the role of a boy exploring the woods with their friend. They come across the ruins of this strange Alien structure and enter it. Unbeknownst to them, however, is exactly how dangerous a place they’ve entered and that what they learn and experience there will change everything.

Characters
Player Character – This is you – a young boy with an adventurous spirit. You have silent protagonist syndrome (at least in the current design) so there’s not a whole lot to say here.
Player’s Friend – This is your best friend –a tomboyish girl who is slightly older than you and a skilled athlete and fighter. She may be a bit hard on you at times, but she’s a good friend and happy to teach you the basics. You may be adventurous, but she’s an explorer – curious about everything she encounters. When you find the Alien structure, she can’t resist going inside to get a good look.
Alien Warrior – The Alien who you will play as during the Memory Module sections of the game. He is a strong fighter, serving as a prison guard, and also quite clever. His sections are where a majority of the RPG-style interaction comes into play, as you play through the final day of his life – the day when the Beast broke free.

Screen Shots
Note that no graphical assets seen here are in any way, shape or form final, and the game is only at the tech demo stage - just testing the basics out.


Early tech demo of the battle system. The interface was made by me in Paint, and is definitely not final.


Jumping across some logs in the Forest during the tutorial section of the game.


Your pet mouse Atlas does some exploring in this simple tech demo. Think of his short sections like the Morph Ball puzzles in Metroid games, but with the trial and death style of gameplay adopted by games like LIMBO.


Features
- A unqiue fusion of different genre elements (RPG and Metroidvania).
- A new turn-based battle system. I don't want to go into much detail on this, but I'll just say that it's a system about managing energy to maximize damage - you cannot just sit back and spam anything.
- Explore the dark, haunting, and atmospheric ruins of the Alien prison complex. Then, use the Memory Modules to travel back in time and see the structure as it once was, as well as interact with other Alien characters.
- Find numerous items, weapons, and power-ups to increase your strength and abilities. These in turn will give you access to hidden passageways and secrets.

Team
Game Designer: Joshua Hallaran

Level Designer: Luke Gillespe

Composer: Allen Elezeid

Information
My name is Joshua Hallaran and I'm the founder of Critical Games, a new indie game developer. My first commercial game (a one-man effort titled 'Path of Thanatos') was released three weeks ago on numerous websites, and for the past little while I've been working on my next project.
Note that this project is very, very early in development. I’ve being tech-demoing the battle system, and I’ve got the overall design document written out – but there’s not really much to show. So, you may ask, why put up a topic at this stage at all? Well, to get this project going, I’m going to need some help.

Recruitment
I am looking to hire a dedicated spriter to take care of the graphical requirements. In terms of graphical style, I'm thinking some kind of marriage between the dark and atmospheric environmental graphic style of Super Metroid and the tall, versatile and easily discernable style of character sprites used in Chrono Trigger. It's also worth noting that as the perspective shifts, two different charsets will be required for a few things (mainly the player character). There are seven different areas in the game, and each would require its own tileset. Additionally, four of those areas would require an alternate 'Past' tileset. It will be a lot of work and require some artistic creativity and dedication, but it will also be a great chance to work on a fun and unique project.

As far as payment goes, I'll be blunt - I don't have much money. What I can offer you, however, is a 20% royalty payment on every copy of the game sold (10% goes to the order processor, 30% goes to the referral site, and the remaining 60% is divided equally between the spriter, a level designer who is joining the project next month, and myself).

If all this sounds good to you and you have the skills, either send me a PM here on Spriter's Resource, or alternatively email me at criticalgames@tpg.com.au
Any samples of your past work would be great to see, too!

Thanks for looking at the game!