   [PAID] UDK Scripter Needed, Advanced Pathfinding
Project UnboundDescriptionUnbound is a concept I conceived earlier this year and has not yet been worked on. The game will focus on first-person exploration of large, open environments. It will play similar to Mirror's Edge in that the character is more or less auto-pathed and the player simply has to input the right commands to navigate obstacles. Unlike Mirror's Edge, however, the pathing system is open-ended, allowing the player to choose any endpoint from any starting point. The player will earn experience based on an odometer (distance covered is converted into experience points) which will allow the character to access areas that were previously too difficult to reach, effectively opening up more and more of the game world until every inch has been covered. Furthermore, the player must use the mouse to look around and identify upcoming obstacles, creating an element of situational awareness.GoalThe goal of this prototype is to create a solid foundation upon which a team can be assembled and development can begin on a full-scale project. I plan on utilizing UDK because of its indie-friendly licensing, eventually retailing through Steam and similar venues. Console releases are possible if a decent profit is turned on the PC, but at the moment, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. A working prototype will more than suffice for the time being.Compensation:The prototype will be divided into three sections; I can pay $100 for the first two sections, and $100 for the third. In most cases (established portfolio, well-acquainted with others in the community) I am more than willing to pay 50% in advance. Although this is temporary work, completing the prototype also gives you priority in the development team that will hopefully spring up around it. If the project retails, this will entitle you to retroactive compensation for hours worked at an agreed-upon rate. Even if the project fails to retail, but yields something substantial based on your contributions, I will personally compensate you to the best of my abilities, likewise at an agreed-upon rate.TechnologyAs mentioned above, I would like to utilize the Unreal Developer Kit because of its licensing terms, which I will be paying for. Another reason I chose UDK is scale; the Unreal engine is capable of handling some fairly large environments, which will be essential to a free-roaming game. Team members are expected to have their own copies of Unreal Tournament 3.TalentFor the prototype, no animation will be necessary, and placeholder environment models will more than suffice. The key is to create an intelligent and fluid pathing system that can dynamically plot paths through randomly-generated obstacles. Beyond a basic understanding of A* pathfinding algorithms, I'm not sure exactly how one would go about accomplishing this (which is where you come in!). Here is the prototype:Part 1: The player must reach an endpoint which is blocked by 3 obstacles: a tree, a rock, and a low-hanging branch. The order in which these obstacles are placed is randomly generated; the pathing system must be able to identify each obstacle and decide how to get around it. The tree must be sidestepped, the rock must be jumped over, and the branch must be ducked under. Furthermore, the player must receive inputs (left or right to sidestep, up to jump, down to duck) as the obstacles are approached, similar to the timed button presses in DDR, Guitar Hero, etc., which must be executed properly within certain time frames to clear the obstacles.This part of the prototype establishes the backbone of the pathing system and inputs.Part 2: The player must reach an endpoint which is blocked by 3 obstacles: a low hurdle, a moderately high hurdle, and a high hurdle. The order in which these obstacles are placed is randomly generated; the pathing system must be able to identify, based on the character's level, which hurdles can be jumped and which must be sidestepped. The character will gain experience per step taken, so that all the hurdles can eventually be jumped.This part of the prototype establishes character level and obstacle level properties, and how they relate to pathing.Part 3: The player must reach an endpoint in the center of an arena; the arena is littered with random obstacles. The player starts out at the outer edges of the arena and can freely choose the entry point. The pathing system must be able to plot as direct a course as possible from the point the player chooses to enter along the arena's outer perimeter to the endpoint in the center, actively traversing whatever obstacles happen to be in the way.This part of the prototype establishes the free-form nature of the pathing system.TeamI don't have a team currently; after I have a prototype to show, that will hopefully change. I write game structure, such as character creation, combat engines, and so on. Most of these are very long-winded and applied to pen-and-paper systems, but if you're interested, I'd be glad to email you some examples of my work. I have a very limited understanding of the technical aspects of game development, which is why I need someone to help me translate my ideas from tabletop to digital.Contactsemail: senorali@gmail.comMSN: senorali@gmail.comFacebook: facebook.com/spleenkickmcgeePrevious WorkNone.Additional InfoThe game's focus will be on exponentially increasing the size of the explorable world, again and again, to dazzle the player with feats of scale. All surfaces and objects are valid destinations; as long as your level is high enough, you can click them to auto-path toward that surface/object. If your level is not high enough (such as leaping a canyon), you will not begin to run toward it. Because of this lack of reaction by certain objects/surfaces, the player will be led to believe that they are invalid destinations, only to later realize they were simply too low a level to traverse them. The first case is the starting area, in which the player is in a dormant volcano crater reminiscent of Halo's Blood Gulch. It's a fairly large area with a small town and farmland, leading the player to believe this may be the whole world...until the player reaches a high enough level to click on one of the walls and leaps out of the crater, and into the main continent. Eventually, the player levels up enough to leap from one continent to another, hop-scotching across the globe. Toward the end of the game, the player is agile enough to leap from the highest mountain in the world onto the moon. This repeated, exponential increase in scale is the heart of the game.FeedbackAny and all feedback is appreciated.edit: fixed the bold formatting and added additional contact information, nothing to write home about.   