Hi everybody,

since late 2004 I have been working almost without pause at a brand-new shoot'em up (working title: "uniVERSUS") which, I hope, should appeal to many.
The point I'm at now is critical, as I badly need graphics and level design.
As for graphics, since there are four different kinds (backgrounds*, sprites*, cutscenes and terminal GUIs** - *most urgent; **the current graphics can be considered final), the work can be done also by several graphicians (but, of course, no more than one pixeller per kind), provided they can make their styles match/blend nicely. Graphics are 2D and must be the result of a human hand driven by a human mind - I mean, no stuff where automated calculation is evident. Hand-pixelled graphics are preferred.
As for level design, I need people that have fantasy and patience to learn technical docs.
Anybody who wants and is able to seriously commit himself/herself to a demanding yet very interesting and promising project is invited to contact me privately (email: saimobvq%interfree:it). I will answer to each and every application and, of course, I will eventually choose those who impress me most and with whom communication is easier.

Now, I guess that such an announcement would be rather uninteresting if I did not disclose any other information, right?

uniVERSUS is a vertical shoot'em-up which aims at being highly innovative while sporting, at the same time, a great oldskool style - in a nutshell, it wants to be a "retro-innovative" game.
It is created with passion, love, careful handcraftmanship and a touch of bedroom-coding insanity; it features fresh ideas never seen before in the genre; it is based on and enriched by complex techniques and mechanics, which, however, do not affect playability in a negative way as the gameplay is engineered to let the player always feel in command and truly enjoy the progress through carefully designed levels.
It targets both newbies and experts of this semi-forgotten genre and, even if the reasons will be inevitably different, it hopes to provide both with lots of pure fun.

uniVERSUS is intended to be released commercially for AmigaOS 4, Linux, MacOS X, Windows XP and possibly other platforms (with AmigaOS 4 receving a "special treatment" as a helping push in this difficult moment) - note that, although developed mainly on AmigaOS 4, uniVERSUS is constantly tested on other platforms as well, so this is not just wishful thinking.
Compensations of all the team members (me included) will be proportional to the amount of work done and to the sales income.

Those who aren't happy with just words (who can blame them?) can surf to the project website and download a WIP demo for AmigaOS 4 or Windows. It is very important, however, to keep in mind that the lack of decent graphics and proper levels does not allow the demo to show the real potential, so I absolutely recommed to read carefully the enclosed design documentation.

Enjoy, and remember that my mailbox is ready to be crammed by your applications!
saimo


Edited by saimo - 28 November 2006 at 8:13am

Hi again,

I'd like to inform you that the currently available version now features the following improvements with respect to that released at the time of the announcement:
* the spaceport is now 99% complete: spaceships can be built from the scratch, parts can be bought/sold/mounted/dis-mounted/re-mounted, etc.;
* there are new weapons and spaceship setups;
* there is a brand new scenario (Lithlet);
* joystick/joypad support has been added;
* finally there is a configuration utility;
* lots of internal improvements, bugfixes, etc.

You can download the latest versions from the website, where you can also find a new section showing many screenshots.

Unfortunately, development has slowed down considerably (practically stopped) in the last two weeks because of lack of collaborators - honestly, it looks like the project is going to die soon. I'd love if you could help in any useful way to keep it alive.

Cheers,
saimo