Looking for a pixel artist for an almost finished FOSS clone.

Looking for a pixel artist for an almost finished FOSS clone.

Hi there!

I'd love to get a pixel artist to help finishing the project. The game in question is "openKB", which is an open-source 1:1 reimplementation of the original King's Bounty.

About.

King's Bounty was a 1990 turn-based strategy/rpg game, which served as a precursor to the more popular "Heroes of Might and Magic" series of games.

"openKB" aims to replicate the game fully, complete with the ability to read/write original savefiles, ability to read the graphics/sounds/data from the DOS version of the game and provide a 100% similar experience.

Unlike similar games (openxcom, opendune2, remeniscense) and like some other similar games (freeciv, openttd), it also aims to provide a free asset pack, so it could be distributed freely and openly.

Once that goal is reached, new features might be added.

Project status.

The game is almost done. Our team was working on it for about 3 years already. There are bugs and platform-specific issues, and several important gameplay chunks are missing, however, it could realistcly be finished in one month. There wasn't much progress as of late, because our pixel artist left, and morale went downhill. 

However, it will definitly go uphill if you join us :)

What we have.

Our artist covered about 40% of troop graphics, and about 20% of villain portraits.
There is also a complete tilemap, along with some minor random UI pieces.

Current assets:

http://sourceforge.net/p/openkb/code/ci/master/tree/data/free/

What is needed.

Our current style is CGA-like. If you intend to provide ALL the graphics for the game, you're free to choose your own style.

Please note: all your work should be dual-licensed under CC-BY-SA or GPLv3 (code itself is GPLv3, if you care).

Game icon.

64 x 64 png. To be used on project website as a logo and a favicon, to be used as application (executable) icon and as window icon on platforms that have that (Windows, OSX, Linux).

Should decipit a knight riding a horse, with a flag in his hands. Knight could be a girl :)

Reference art:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/heroes-of-might-and-magic/screenshots/...
http://www.mobygames.com/game/kings-bounty/cover-art/gameCoverId,25290/
http://www.mobygames.com/game/heroes-of-might-and-magic/cover-art/gameCo...

"Hi-res" screens.

320 x 240 title screen. It should say "Royal Reward" (that's the name for the free asset pack in general) and have some royalty-inspired item, like a crown or a scepter.

288 x 184 character select screen (with 4 characters present on it).

Reference art:

 

"Mid-res" screens.

This includes 6 "theme" backgrounds (castle, town, dungeon, plains, forest, cave, hill) 240 x 102 px
This also include 4 character-class portraits (knight, paladin, barbarian, sorceress) 96 x 102 px

Character-class portraits and character select screen might share graphics.

Tiled graphics.

48x34 pixels. There's a need of a 79-tile tileset, hero spritesheet and a minor "combat" tileset. Villains, creatures and several UI elements all share those dimensions.

Creatures.

There are 25 different troop types, with 4 frames of animation each.

 

Villain portraits.

There are 17 different villains, with 4 frames of animation each.

See also:

http://sourceforge.net/p/openkb/wiki/Resources/

Note, that this list is kinda incomplete, and doesn't answer all your questions. Feel free to ask for clarifications and I would gladly provide them. I'll probably update this post with more details and more reference art soonish.

If you want to try the game out:

As of now, the process is pretty geeky. If you're on linux, and have an original DOS version of "King's Bounty" it will work just fine, as long as you're comfortable with git/configure/make.

Note: you'll also need a savefile from the DOS game, as "Start a New Game" feature is not currently complete (don't worry, it will be).

http://sourceforge.net/p/openkb/wiki/CompileGuides/
http://sourceforge.net/p/openkb/code/ci/master/tree/

Contact.

I'll try to idle on the #opengameart IRC channel. I'll also monitor this thread/forum, and ofcourse will answer to any feedback on the openKB sourceforge site.