Hi guys,

My name is Zach and I've been developing games for 10 years - the last 6 of which were as an industry professional.  I'm most recently the owner and founder of a small studio called Digital Drifters Entertainment and we're in development on a mobile game.

I've shipped titles as a Producer on current consoles, PC, iOS, Android and the late-great PS Vita.  I have a degree in Computer Science and have worked professionally as a level designer and 3D artist in addition to Production.  As for my company, my co-workers are more skilled than I am, and have similar experiences shipping games.

Among my list of work, I've recently shipped two mobile games using Unreal Engine which were posted three seperate times on the App store's front page.  With that publicity I was able to come in contact with key developers which will guarantee a certain level of exposure upon the release of any game we develop (so long as it looks and plays beautifully).

That gets me to the main point of this post:  I need a 2D artist/animator to create artwork for one of our latest titles, temporarily named ElephantFly.

We are about 80% done with the game, and are really only interested in introducing an artist to the team once the game is nearing completion and we're working on things like GameCenter, networked play and in-app purchases.

As far as art style, we're looking to cater to the "lowest common denominator".  This means we're looking for the typical Angry Birds/Zynga-style art.  Shiny and new looking.

The gameplay is going to be incredibly similar to Burrito Bison Revenge: http://games.adultswim.com/burrito-bison-revenge-twitchy-online-game.html

Our game will involve a few tiled backgrounds and roughly 10 animated animals (Rhino, Giraffe, Crocodile, Chimp, Hippo, Elephant, Python, Bird, Lion, Gazelle) as well as variants on the Elephant (the elephant could purchase visible upgrades such as Rocket Boots, propeller hats, and pillows strapped to his body).  We will need a few different "elephant launchers" as well.  In addition, we'll need to have some impact animations (feather explosion when the elephant hits a bird, dust plumes when he hits the ground, splashed water when he hits water).

The majority of the animal animations will be short and sweet - we don't want to go into crazy detail on the frame count.

We know this is quite a bit of work, and expect it to roughly take a month of your development time (or less, depending on how fast you work).  We know exactly what we want, down to file sizes, types, animation styles, etc.

As this is one of our first launched titles, we aren't paying contract work up front.  Rather, we're paying royalties. 

Now, before you move onto another job post, please understand that the developers who make up Digital Drifters have worked on a combined 9 titles - all 9 of which shipped and were commercially successful.  In our free time, we've made lots of other games of which were also successful and shipped.  Game development is a highly engineered, highly practiced process and shipping this game isn't something we're "making an attempt" to do.  This is a calculated, commercial venture, and we're simply choosing to self-publish and forgo up-front funding.

Because this is still a risk for the artist - and a deferral of payment - we're willing to offer 25% of all royalties we earn, up to a $10,000 cap.  In addition if things work out, we'll be manufacturing games often - always having multiple games in the works.  If we enjoyed working with each other after this game ships, then we can discuss extending/removing the royalty cap on future projects, or converting to contract payment.

I know most of this post is me saying a lot without really saying anything, but there's legal and financial reasons as to why I'm not posting facts/figures/etc.

If you want clarification on any details I've listed, be it work history, the company, the game, art, or our payment structure, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Thanks for your time!

Zach Lehman
Zach at digitaldrifters dot net