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Hero of Allacrost
Team Name
The Allacrost Project
Project Name
Hero of Allacrost
Brief Description
Hero of Allacrost is a single-player, 2D RPG. The game is modeled after SNES-era RPGs like Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger, but we have implemented our own flair of modern features and graphics. We are a well-established project and have been around for over 18 months now.
Target Aim
Allacrost is cross-platform and will be available on all flavors of Linux, BSD, Windows, Mac OSX, and whatever else we can compile it on. It is also designed to support multiple languages, from English to Portugese to Japanese. Additionally, the game is not-for-profit and open-source, licensed under the GPL.
We are aiming for as broad of a target audience as possible, and hope that people from all walks can enjoy this game. This game will be of special interest to those who favor gameplay and story more than state-of-the-art 3D graphics.
Compensation
Because we will not collect any revenue for this game, we cannot offer you financial compensation. However, all of the current staff are quite content with putting forth their efforts into what we believe will someday be a great game to share.
Current State of the Project
Here are the major accomplishments to date:
> Developed organized approach to development (wiki, task lists, CVS, schedules, milestones, etc)
> Wrote extensive documentation including engine documentation, coding standards, developer's guide, etc.
> Programmed the foundation of the game (35,000 lines), including:
-> Sound engine based on OpenAL
-> 2D graphics engine based on OpenGL w/ support for advanced effects (lighting/fog, image warping, particles, etc)
-> Joystick support
-> Basic map mode and character dialogue
-> Basic battle mode code
-> GUI code (windows, text boxes, selection menus, etc)
> Created much of the soundtrack (15-20 songs so far)
> Created about 15% of the artwork, including sprites for main characters, a couple of full-screen backgrounds, a good deal of tile artwork, etc.
> Built up a talented team of several programmers, artists, and two musicians
So, up til now we've spent a lot of time getting organized, building up a good team, and writing a lot of the foundation code. Now we're at the point where all of those basic things are in place, and we're gearing up to start producing a "game". In other words, in the upcoming months, the game should start taking shape as we create new content and gameplay at a fast pace. In order to meet all our goals though, we're going to need some more help with programming and artwork. Our next major goal is to make a public release of our first playable demo, even if gameplay is only 15-30 minutes long.
General Team Information
Communication and feedback are a big thing on our team and everyone is encouraged to comment on any work or ideas that are shared. We are very flexible with our work schedules and loads. All that we ask for is for people to give up what time that they can afford to. If a staff member becomes disinterested in what they are currently doing, we'll work to find something he or she enjoys working on.
Personally, I joined the project 6 months ago as a programmer, and I've found this project to be a real pleasure to work on. We have a lot of great discussions on the forum, and for those who like getting involved, there's plenty of opportunity to discuss ideas and contribute to the design/story of the game, as opposed to some projects where you are handed a list of tasks and expected to silently churn away. We often have programmers talking about art, artists talking about music, composers talking about design, etc. Of course, if you prefer working on tasks by yourself, you're not obligated to participate on the forums.
Technology
We don't have any requirements for artists, musicians, or developers to use any specific tools, as long as it gets the job done. Allacrost uses the following languages and APIs:
Programming Language: C++
Data/Scripting Lanuguage: Lua
Low-level general access API: SDL
Graphics API: OpenGL
Image library: DevIL
Audio API: OpenAL
Text rendering: SDL_ttf
GUI for map editor: QT3
Our programming staff concurrently develops on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X and Hero of Allacrost presently runs on all three of these platforms.
Talent Seeking
1. C++/Lua Programmer
We are seeking one programmer who is extremely knowledgeable about Lua and particularly Lua/C++ binding, to help us extend our data/scripting engine. Almost all the programmers on our team know Lua at a basic to intermediate level, but we could really use someone who knows it inside out. If you are not experienced with Lua, but are willing to learn, we would also invite you to apply to our team.
Our code is very well-structured and the team is very communicative about our design ideas. As a programmer, it is important that you can communicate with the team (we don't want any "lone-wolves" on our team, sorry). You are expected to comment your code well and, eventually perhaps, write documentation on how to use it as well.
Code and Documentation Examples
Hero of Allacrost - Developer's Quick Start Guide
This gem teaches all of the fundamental information a programmer needs to know to use the Allacrost engine and how the engine operates. This includes: singleton classes, game modes, main game loop operation, processing user input, and basic usage for the audio, video, and data/scripting engine components. I highly recommend you check this documentation out if you are interested at all in working with us.
Hero of Allacrost - Code Standard
This is our official code standard. It may look rather restrictive at first, but we are actually rather flexible as long as your code is consistent (braces can go wherever, indentation can be as long or short as you like, etc).
Hero of Allacrost - Technical Documentation
This documentation was generated by Doxygen (which we use in our code commenting) and covers the entire code base head to toe. It also includes UML graphs, inheritence diagrams, and the latest snap-shot of our entire code base.
2. 2D Artists (no limit)
We need as much help as we can get with creating 2D artwork. Specifically, the art you create would fit into one of the following categories:
> Map tiles (32x32 pixels)
> Map sprites and animation (32x64 pixels) and other map objects (trees, creatures, etc.)
> Character battle sprites and animations (64x128 pixels)
> Enemy battle sprites (64x64 pixels and up)
> Battle background artist (1024x768 illustrations)
> Other battle art like visual effects (fire, etc.)
> Misc. art such as GUI art
The main area we need help with is battle artwork- character/enemy sprites, and full-screen backgrounds. We also need help with artwork for effects and GUI. The only area we don't need much help with is map tiles, since we recently found a very talented/dedicated tile artist. However, even if the only thing you want to do is create tiles, feel free to contact us anyway as we can really use any help we can get
We maintain a high level of quality for our artwork and you can expect that the first draft of a piece you submit for review will be met with some criticism (typically, the third draft or so becomes the final, approved version). We use the PNG format for all of the artwork categories listed above. Also, note that we do NOT use palettes, so you are not limited to 256 colors, although typically most artists use much less than 256 colors anyway.
Sample Battle Artwork - by Sylon
Sample Map Tile Artwork - by gloomcover
Sample Map Tile Artwork - by Josiah Tobin
Sample Map Sprite Artwork - by Safir-Kreuz
Sample Map Sprite Artwork - by Jon Williams
http://www.rajsharma...ost/soldier.png
Sample Character Portraits - by Safir-Kreuz
http://www.rajsharma...la-Portrait.png
Website
Main site:
http://www.allacrost.org
FAQ:
http://www.allacrost.org/index.php?faq
Story:
http://www.allacrost...index.php?story
Artwork:
http://www.allacrost...?multimedia-art
Screenshots (these are very outdated):
http://www.allacrost...ltimedia-screen
Music:
http://www.allacrost...ultimedia-music
Forum:
http://www.allacrost.org/forum/
Contact Information
Please send e-mail to jobs_AT@allacrost_DOT.org to apply for a position. Please also include the following information in your e-mail:
1. A little infomation about yourself and who you are
2. Background knowledge and experience
3. Your availability (even if only a few hours a week, we will still consider you)
4. Demonstration/proof of your skills (links to past projects, sample code/art you've done, etc.)
5. Why you want to work for the Allacrost project in particular
Please answer all questions in as much detail as possible.
Thank you very much for your time!
Sincerely,
Raj Sharma
Programmer/HR, Hero of Allacrost
