Photo by Ben Hershey on Unsplash

Photo by Ben Hershey on Unsplash

We’re the tiny company that makes Highland, Weekend Read, Writer Emergency Pack and AlphaBirds.

Over the past few months, we’ve been developing a roguelike deckbuilding videogame in the vein of Slay the Spire and Balatro.

When we say “developing,” we mean on paper.

We have the concept and the mechanics, which we’re really excited about. What we don’t have is the experience to actually make the killer version of this game.

(Our little company is great at making productivity software in the Apple ecosystem, but the game we’re envisioning should be broadly available across platforms, including Steam.)

So we’d like to bring on an outside person to take the lead on this.

Here’s what we’re looking for.

The Gig

  1. You are probably a solo coder or a partnership. We’re not looking to hire a company of coders-for-hire.
  2. It’s fine if making games isn’t your “real” job. We work with a lot of people who could be described as advanced hobbyists. If you’re doing this on nights and weekends, that’s fine. If you’re in college, that’s fine.
  3. We can talk about the degree to which you get paid regularly versus owning a sizable chunk of the game. We’re going into this knowing the game could never get finished, or tank upon launch. We want to make this a good experience for everyone.
  4. International is fine. We can figure out how to structure the deal.
  5. We’re completely agnostic on which game engine you want to use. We see this as being multi-platform, single-player.

Skills and Experience

  1. You’ve made and shipped at least one game. More is better. What we’re looking for is quality and attention to detail. It’s fine if the game was a flop. Was the user experience inviting? Did it have cool elements? Do you have good taste?
  2. You have a solid grasp of the whole package, from graphics to gameplay to animation to sound. It’s great to subcontract out specialties, but you need to know how it all fits together.
  3. You’re good at self-directed work. We’d want to check in at least weekly, but most of the time, you’ll be working on your own.