And Now, a Shameless Plug

This is going to be a quick post just to advertise something. A small group of friends and I are working on a game with XNA Studios, and we plan to release it on the XBox360's Indie Game marketplace sometime after winter break, depending on what roadblocks we hit along the way. This post is going to serve two purposes: One, to kind of explain what we're going to be going for with the game, and Two: to look for some extra helping hands.

First of all, the game. It doesn't even have a title yet--which is why this post is going to be short, but there will be longer updates once we make progress--but the general consensus between myself, Alex (the programmer), and Jess (the potential designer) is to make a game that satirizes the survival horror genre. Your character wakes up inside of a large house--possibly a mansion--with no recollection as to how he got there. He must use his sharp wits, ingenuity, and survival skills to unravel the mystery of how he got there and how he's going to get out alive. He will also need to be good at finding really obscure puzzle solutions.

An idea we've been throwing around is to make each "level" randomized, to make the game a somewhat different experience each time you play it and to make keys and such appear in different places. If we can figure a way to make a coding work, we'll do it. Otherwise, it'll probably be linear, and you'll have to defend yourself against hordes of monsters. We're looking at a 2-D platformer game, but that's uncertain as well. We don't plan to start production until mid-December.

Secondly, the call for help. I'm mostly going to be handling level design and story-writing. Jess will design the characters and the actual graphics. Alex will be writing the code, and I will attempt to help him with that with my somewhat slim coding knowledge. We are basically looking for anyone who can help with design and drawing sprite-sheets, etc. We are also looking for someone to do music. You should be able to make ambient tunes, preferably. Finally, the more coders the better. Any other help would be greatly appreciated, and hey--there's even potential profit! The more people we have working on the game, the less chance of that, but XBox Indie Games sell for at least 1 dollar (which is all I plan to charge for it). With any luck, we could pull in some chump change at least, and if we even only make $1 profit each, it would serve as inspiration to try harder next time.

So, yeah, that's all I've got for now. Again, any of you out there willing to lend a hand, we'll gladly accept. Expect a legit post sometime in the near future, readers! (all two of you)