Position is FILLED, thank you

I’m looking for a UI/UX artist who can also work directly in Unity to revamp and update the existing v1 UI for my indie strategy game, Notoris 2: Warlords.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2766140/Notoris_2_Warlords/

This is not a ground up UI build. You’ll be improving, refining, and expanding an already playable UI system. I’m looking for someone who can handle both the art/design and in-engine implementation, rather than simply delivering static assets.

Art Style

The UI uses an Eastern black-ink / painterly + grunge aesthetic:

• East Asian ink painting influence
• Expressive black ink brushwork
• Weathered/grungy textures
• Dark fantasy atmosphere
• Painterly but modern

Relevant examples of this style in your portfolio are important.

Here are some Inspirations examples:
https://imgur.com/fcYT5ox
https://imgur.com/LuxceAH
https://imgur.com/8OlTwVu
https://imgur.com/2S90abi
https://imgur.com/Z7q71fB

What I Need

• Revamp existing UI/UX (v1 → v2)
• Create/refine panels, buttons, icons, layouts, etc.
• Become largely self-sufficient editing and updating existing prefabs in Unity
• Balance visual quality with usability
• Make suggestions / come up with improvements to current UX

I’ll walk you through the project, existing systems, and any more complex Unity setups. I’m not expecting you to figure out everything alone, the goal is that after the initial onboarding, you can handle most UI implementation yourself. That would be a huge weight off my shoulders as I have other features to work on and I'm bad at + sick of UI :p

Budget

$4,000 USD total for the initial UI/UX revamp.

DM me with

• Portfolio
• UI/UX examples
• Eastern ink / painterly / grunge examples
• Brief description of your Unity proficiency
• Availability / estimated timeline

I am looking for someone with a high attention to detail. In order to weed out spam please mention bologna anywhere in your DM.

This is a special overlap of skillsets, so I’m specifically looking for someone who can combine strong UI/UX + the visual style + Unity implementation.

If that’s you, I’d love to see your work.

I’ve been working on this for a while now, basically trying to make the Three Kingdoms game I’ve always wanted to play.

The easiest way I can describe it is ROTK 8 meets ROTK 11 meets Dynasty Tactics meets Total War: Three Kingdoms. It’s an officer-focused grand strategy game with a big sandbox, relationships, armies, resource management, and tactical combat. The base game is a fantasy homage to the 3k period, but there's also a planned 3k overhaul DLC that I am working on in tandem.

I finally have a playable demo up on itch (with the 3k dlc enabled) and I’m looking for some people who are willing to play it and give me some of the first real feedback on it (Either game mode is fine).

Just to set expectations: it’s very early. There’s currently no tutorial, some systems are still rough/incomplete, and you may have to poke around a bit to figure things out. 😅 (Edit:The game is on itch instead of steam because of how early in development I am. Currently I am looking for a smaller feedback group of ROTK fans. Steam demo will come later)

But the core game is playable, and I’d be good to hear what people who love ROTK/3k think of it before I keep taking it further.

If anyone is interested in trying it out, I’d especially love feedback on:

• Did you have an errors or crashes?
• Does the core gameplay loop feel fun?
• Does it feel like a proper ROTK style game?
• What feels confusing or unintuitive?
• What systems do you want to see expanded or features added?
• What if anything feels like it’s missing?

Demo: https://flyinggeneralgames.itch.io/notr2-warlords

If you give it a shot, even 30 minutes of feedback would mean a lot. I’d love to hear what you guys think.

You can post feedback here, on the itch page or in the
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/S4HrqVX9DD

Hello,

I am looking for a vfx artist that is familiar with Unity and can update our current "burst aura vfx" to look more realistic instead of cartoony stylized.

Current vfx:
https://youtu.be/Zyhjz4cbvSM

Desired Realistic Look Examples:
https://youtu.be/CnSUDc7UYdU
https://youtu.be/On_JDPJMJv0

Unity Render pipeline:
URP

Please include a price quote for this work and an example of any VFX you've done that matches this look (realistic not stylized). Also to weed out generic spam messages, please mention the text in the Description of the 1st Desired Look Example video somewhere in your message.

There's potential for more vfx work after this. Thank you!

After years of building individual systems, I finally hit one of those "this might actually work" moments.

I recently implemented an Auto Play mode for my grand strategy game so I could let the AI control every faction while I watched the simulation unfold at high speed.

I expected it to mostly be a debugging tool.

Instead, I kept sitting there time and time again just... watching.

Cities expanded. Officers formed relationships. Armies marched. Factions rose and collapsed. Wars started for reasons that actually made sense. It stopped feeling like a collection of mechanics and started feeling like an actual world.

It also exposed dozens of issues I had not noticed otherwise. Population growth was too low, everyone was dying off. A few AI priorities were wrong and they would soft lock themselves. Some resources accumulated too quickly, others too slow. Certain events triggered far more often than they should.

But strangely, finding those problems was encouraging.

Grand strategy games are such a strange genre to develop because almost none of the systems are truly fun in isolation. Economy, diplomacy, AI, combat, relationships, logistics -- they all depend on each other. You can spend months polishing one feature and still have no idea whether the game itself is actually enjoyable until everything begins interacting.

This was the first time I felt like I wasn't watching systems anymore.

I was watching stories emerge.

Still a mountain of balancing and iteration ahead, but this milestone gave me a huge boost of confidence that the core concept is finally coming together.

I wana hear from other strategy devs, what if any was your equivalent of this moment?

Any Total War game, what's your all time favorite mod and why?

I may be slightly biased but I'll go first. I loved this skill tree mod for TW:3k which changed the core design of skill trees to work better with the 5 element system while simultaneously giving every unique officer a custom tree, as well as more variants for generic officers. It just made officers feel way more distinct in their talents & roles.

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1791575504

In general, most strategy games treat the ruler as the only character who actually matters. Officers exist to serve your plans, follow your orders, maybe grumble a little if their loyalty drops. I always loved thinking about how in the actual Three Kingdoms period, plenty of officers had their own ambitions, grudges, and lines they wouldn't cross, and a lot of similar games flatten that down into a loyalty stat.

In the ROTK inspired strategy game I’m working on, I gave every officer (not just the ruler) a resource called influence, and let them actually spend it to push for what they want.

A couple examples of how this shows up. During your turn, if an AI ally army looks like it is about to do something you really don't want, you can spend influence to take direct control of that unit. It's not free, so you're picking your moments rather than micromanaging everyone.

Similar to ROTK8 and ROTK13 there is a proposal phase, officers suggest assignments for the next several turns and officers voice recommendations to the ruler. But in those games, once an officer makes a suggestion, it was unclear to me if it was really just advice or if the AI ruler valued the suggestion. 

I wanted officers to actually have a meaningful say. So instead of just suggesting, officers can vote on proposals by wagering influence. The amount of influence spent directly affects the AI admins evaluation step. If a proposal passes and the assignment succeeds over the following turns, everyone who backed it shares the reward. If it fails, that influence is gone. AI officers do this based on their own personality and relationships, not just whether the plan is objectively good, so you'll sometimes see two officers who dislike each other both bet against a solid proposal just because they don't trust who suggested it, and the vote actually fails because of it. Likewise your sworn allies will back your suggestions.

The part I like most is that it pulls the game further away from your typical grand strategy, where the core resources of land, gold, or troop numbers matter most. Here, like in many ROTk games the officers themselves are the resource you're managing. Losing a talented officer's trust may cost you more than losing a province. 

Question for other ROTK fans -- how do you feel about this? Did loyalty ever feel like enough to you, or did you also want officers to actually act on their own opinions instead of just reacting to yours?

I have a confession...

A lot of my indie game's weapon and armor designs were inspired by Lineage II.

But when it came time to add the best bow in the game...

I immediately thought of the Draconic Bow.

The goal was "inspired by" but.. I mean... it's kinda just the Draconic Bow.

Now I'm wondering... if I could come up with a new name before NCSoft sends a raidboss to my house...? What do you guys think? I genuinely can't tell if this is plagiarism or nostalgia anymore.

Position is Filled. Thank you

I'm looking for a 2D artist to continue work on an existing territory map for a strategy game. The original contract artist did excellent work, but is booked through November and I need this expansion completed before October.

Project Details

• Expand an existing 2D world/territory map westward.
• The map is built from a grid of 1024x1024 panels arranged in a 12x7 layout.
  • You will be provided the original source assets to expand upon
• The western expansion consists of 28 new tiles that need to seamlessly match the existing artwork and style.
• Reference images of the current map and desired style are included below.

https://imgur.com/IvcM3P1
https://imgur.com/rpBKQjs

Art Style

Can be described as Gritty, Grunge, Muted color tones, Dark meets high fantasy messy eastern ink

Current project

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2766140/Notoris_2_Warlords/

Budget

• $2,000 total
  • ~ $70 per tile Payments via Paypal

When Applying
Please DM me and include examples of work that are relevant to this project's style.

I'm not an artist myself, so seeing examples that closely match the provided references makes it much easier for me to evaluate portfolios and significantly increases your chances of being considered.

If interested, DM your portfolio, relevant examples, estimated turnaround time, and any questions you may have.

Strong spoken English is a must, as I like to collaborate over Discord voice calls and quickly iterate on feedback throughout the project.