   Sekultara needs- Digital painter,Concept artist and Writer.
Team name:ZiCorp Studios Ltd (UK registered Limited company)Project:SekultaraTalent needed:-Concept artist:-As a concept artist you will be responsible for helping with designing the ships and weapons that will be used for in game images,backgrounds and pre-rendered animations.An understanding of modular design is a major bonus.Digital Painter:-As a digital painter you will be responsible for creating a range of painted images for in game use. These would range from commander portraits to space and ground battle scenes to 'event' images and images to help narrate the story lines.Proofreader/writer:-We need a proofreader come writer to read through our current story lines and ideas and help us convey them in such a way that would help immerse the player in to the Sekultara Universe, while still sounding interesting and informative to the average gamer.Brief Description:Sekultara is a browser based space strategy game, which focuses primarily on space combat between fleets. It will contain certain resource management and diplomacy elements meaning there is something for everyone's style of play. Objective and alliance (clan) based game play will keep things moving and encourage players into combat with each other. Schematics and upgrades for pilots,fleetships,buildings and weapons can all be discovered and customizable fleetships enable the player to create ships that fit there needs and style of play.An achievement system and  story driven game play elements will encourage a player back for more.Below are some snippets from the story and descriptions.'The history books show it was my father's great uncle that piloted us away from the place they called Earth. It was over 100 years ago, Earth Date 2480, the war to end all wars. The United Federation had managed to seize control of much of planet with only a single major continent not under their control. It took until 2483 to capture Europe.Everything ran smoothly for a few years, governments were running their countries well, fair trade, equal pay, zero poverty. That was of course until the elections of 2491 when George Walmo was sworn in as the president of the United Federation. Only a few days after gaining power he announced the launch of the United Stellortia Program. It was set to inject tracking chips to be placed in all citizens.Toward the end of 2491 protests turned to mass violence and the governments had to act, many of them working together, realizing that overthrowing the United Federation by force would not be a success they looked to the Sekultaran Corporation for help. They already had working technology for long distance hyperspace travel. It was 3 years later in 2494 that the first citizens were evacuated.It did not take long for the United Federation to detect the evacuation activity, it took only a matter of days to re-activate the ancient Proton Defense System, it was on November 24th 2494 at around 13:20 that the defense system was fully operational, however one of the proton injectors failed causing a vast number of proton beams to be focused underneath the Atlantic Ocean eventually penetrating through to the Earths core.Large amounts of lava started to reach the surface of Earth. Realizing what was wrong the United Federation gathered all who it saw as important and evacuated themselves. It was rumored to be around a week later that the Earth split in two, Rumor has it that was a wonderful place, full of bizarre creatures and wonderful green landscapes, picturesque beaches of pure paradise. buts its all rumor, rumors I find hard to believe because all I've known is war.''After Four days of fighting the guns fell silent, everyone in the underground bunker was scared, had we won or has Kane's forces just killed the last of our men on the walls,we just had to sit tight and see who opened the bunker door. It was an infantry man of Suno. Our men had won. We learn quickly that many infantrymen had died ,including my father. However the victory was hailed as heroic and prompted the peasant warriors to fight harder as now they had a believe they were fighting along side living gods. Victories across all three planets mounted,on Feodosia the capital planet the attacking forces made it into the grand Palace of Suno, the central symbol of power and rule, but they were held back in the massive throne room.Stories were told that Elko himself killed many a man, piles of bodies gathered at his feet as he cuts them down in hand to hand combat. other stories say Elko took several hits only to 'heal himself' and continue fighting like nothing had happened.'Target Aim:-We aim to release the game as a free to use browser game. However an option for subscription membership to enhance the gaming experience further is planned. Also planned is an in game market which will allow players to buy upgrades,schematics,weapons and fleetships using the in game currency which is 'credits', however a limited number of 'credits' can be bought using real money via micro transactions.We are also intending  to make the game compatible with a wide range of other  browser software,however our immediate priority is the PC/MAC browser market.Compensation:Currently the project is on a volunteer basis and all work you do make towards the project can be shown in portfolios and on your personal websites etc.Overall the project currently has no money and all the equipment (servers) have been bought by Paul out of his own pocket.However if we do get some investment then we will negotiate a figure with you for your work that you have done up until that point.Current stage of development and schedule:-We are at a Pre-Alpha stage of development having just carried out our first weekend of major testing to try and balance the basic base stats for the main units and weapons in the game.The game will be put through phased testing as more is added to it, it will then be tested by various members of the team with intermittent arranged 'mass' testing sessions.We are shooting for a possible Q4 2009 public release,however this is dependent upon the teams  'real-life issues' and inevitable set-backs.media:-(note:- All screen shots are from our current round of testing and layouts, looks etc are absolutely not representative of the final product)Current in game test screen shots:-Technology:-Servers:-    Senktra (Master Alpha Server)o Dedicated Server with:o Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.4Ghz)o 2048MB RAMo Running CentOS 5.2 Kernel Linux 2.6.18-92.1.22.el5Programming:-Python 2.5.4  UtilizingWSGI to maximize performance and allowing the game server to run as a processArtwork:-Artwork is currently being done largely in 3dstudiomax and Photoshop. However due to the nature of the game any 3d package can be used.Any decent painting package can be used for the concept art and painting.Team Structure:-Paul 'mzchaos' Cowper:- Director,designer,head ProgrammerJohn 'Bronco' Hedges:- Designer,3d artistChristoph 'Burstup' Weiss:- Audio/Composer.We also have a small team of testers to help us both with suggestions for the game and for giving us feedback on game play mechanics and balancing.Previous team experience:-As a team we have never done a project together. However all three of us have got professional experience in our relevant fields. Paul's day job is a Technical Developer within the laser tag industry developing the software and game formats for multiple laser tag systems that are in use around the world.I have worked as a 3d artist in the educational software industry and have done odds and ends for various mods and side projects.Christoph is a former rapper,now a DJ and composer who is  quite well known on the music scene in his native Austria.Contacts:-Website Zicorp:- http://www.zicorpstudios.com//  website Sekultara:- http://www.sekultara.com/  Interested? just email Paul or myself at the following email address,some occupying work samples would also be preferable.John:- Hedgeart[at]googlemail.comPaul:- zicorp[at]zicorpstudios.comyou can also Private message me via these forums.Any other feedback/comments also appreciated,even if your not a concept artist or painter please feel free to email us if you feel you can add to our team.Positions for the testing team are however closed for the time being, but again drop us a line and we'll note your email for when we are looking for new testers to help with the project.We look forward to hearing from you.[Edited by - Bronco78th on May 28, 2009 6:03:15 PM]
  Hey guys,just an update.We have got ourselves someone that can do both concepts and digital artwork to a very high standards,so we are still after someone who can either concept or paint well.We are also in need of a Writer to help us document and create descriptions to help immerse the player into our universe.heres some artworks for the fleet weapons:-   John   ;  A shameless bump,Still looking for painters,concept artists and a Writer/proof reader.Progress has seen to be a bit slow as of late,however there has been alot of things going on,adjustments and optimizations to the base code and databases,lots of maths calculations going on in nailing exactly how resources and such will equate, so lots of behind the scenes type stuff going on.Heres a few new fleet unit weapons as well.  Regards,John   ;  Con fay? Do you mean Convey?Give me a shout. I am a writer, published and not by myself. Mr.Patrick.Quinn@gmail.com   ;  Awesome looking screens, I look forward to seeing more as progess deepens.   ;  I've sent an e-mail to you expressing my interest. The graphics look great by the way!   