Eponasoft is seeking a tile artist for our current project, which is a dual-presentation action/RPG in the vein of XZR (Exile in the USA). The game itself is not open source, but we will be releasing the game engine under the BSD license after the production is finished so others may utilize it for their own projects.

What makes our current project unique is the specific limitations of our target hardware. We are focusing our efforts on the PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16, and as such, there are strict hardware limitations to take into account. We use a metatile engine, so all tiles are 16x16 pixels in size. However, color rules are of the utmost importance. The hardware features a 9 bit color encoder, which gives us three bits for each R G and B. To represent this in 24 bit color, it is necessary to construct palettes based on increments of 36 (like RGB 36,72,180 for example). Also, there is not one large palette but sixteen small palettes; every tile must fit into one of these small palettes. Each palette is made of 15 unique colors and 1 common color. One of the palettes is already used for the font, which leaves 15 palettes available for world tiles.

A dual-presentation game is one that makes use of two different gameplay styles. In this case, the game features both side-scrolling and top-down areas, very similar to XZR. The top-down areas are primarily for towns and feature what would be considered "typical" traditional RPG graphics. The side-scrolling areas are the "battle engine", so to speak. All towns are connected by side-scrolling battle areas. There are no battles in the top-down parts of the game.

Naturally, we are looking for tile art to fill both gameplay modes. The top-down areas use a character model of 16x24, and the side-scrolling areas use a character model of 32x32. For the top-down areas, tilesets similar to the size model found in RPG Maker 2000/2003 tilesets are what we're after. There are no "inside the house" areas, only outside views. We leave a lot of the details up to artistic expression, but there are some specific tiles and tile constructs that we do need. Houses with both open and closed doors are of utmost importance. Houses are made of stone in some areas, wood in others. Rooves are made of straw for most houses, but tile for some. Also, there is need for a cathedral for one particular area; it does not require any specific type of decorations so it's in the hands of the artist. Aside from the buildings, there is a need for town walls; brick and wood are both required by the design. Additionally, the details, such as stone roads, grass and desert (and a few variations for realism), trees (evergreen, maple, oak, and palm are needed, as well as a couple of different dead trees), rotten logs, tree stumps, deep wells, wood piles, flowers of various colors (up to the artist), animated ground torches, a round fountain (town square type of fountain), wooden barrels (two different tops for variation), and any type of statue the artist might think of (these do not have to be specific, as the area that requires them does not name the figures). Snowy variations of these will be needed as well, but I might be able to do the modifications. More will likely be required later, but these are the ones we need to start with. Each top-down area is limited to 224 in-memory tiles at once, which allows for great variation of tilework.

As for the side-scrolling areas, things get a lot more specific. Each area is limited to 128 unique tiles (uses VRAM area 0x1000 to 0x2FFF, this is so there is enough VRAM for enemy sprites and the HUD). For outside areas, the common color is going to be the color of the sky; all tiles have to include this color in their palettes even if they don't use it. Outside areas need to have ground tiles suited to the area: there are grassy, rock road, desert, and snowy areas. There are no slopes, but there are plenty of cliffs so there's plenty of jumping. Both large and small trees are required; tall trees should include branches that can be jumped upon, small trees simply sit in the background and are not jumped on at all. Also, there needs to be large trees that sit in the foreground... these trees cannot be jumped on but have graphic priority over all sprites. Water pits are required for some areas; these are always 1 tile deep, so only 1 water tile is ever needed for these areas. Similarly, an ice tile is required for icy areas. Foreground tufts of grass 1 tile in size would be a nice touch, as would flowers in the same sense. And then, there are the underground and "castle" tiles. For underground, what is needed are tiles with a mostly brown theme... think of an area with many stalagmites and stalactites. Rope tiles will be needed in these areas, as well as wooden-type ladders of both 1 and 2 tile widths. Of course, the ground should be somewhat lighter than the background in the cave and castle areas. Animated torches for the background are needed; three frames are sufficient but more are supported. Of course, all types of bricks with assorted variations are needed for the castle areas; uneven stone bricks are going to be the most used. Windows that show the parallax background are needed for the castle areas; these can be 1 tile or many tiles. The important part of the windows is that they have to use the common color for the transparent areas. The parallax background will show through on any pixels that use the common color, which is why it is important to plan the palettes carefully. Anyways, other required tiles are chains (including areas where they go in and out of the wall), marble and stone pillars (both full-length and short that can be jumped on), bookshelves, statues of plate armor (about four tiles tall), and wall banners. Again, there may be more needed later but these are the ones that are immediately needed.

We have released a prototype build of the side-scrolling engine on our website using placeholder graphics derived from various RM2K-friendly tiles.

As for licensing... since we will be releasing the game engine under the BSD license, we're looking for a similar license here. Of course, exclusivity isn't required, but we are willing to offer a healthy profit share from sales of the final product. The reason the game is being sold is because burned CDROMs are not nearly as effective on the hardware as properly pressed discs, and the hardware isn't getting any younger, so the game will be properly pressed to CDROM, and this isn't free (otherwise it would be totally free). The reason we are not open-sourcing the whole game is because we want the story to be fresh and surprising when released; we may eventually open-source the whole thing but this is not presently in our plans.

So that just about wraps it up for this post. I hope it follows all the rules for this forum. :)