I would like to offer my services as a professional programmer, writer and designer to dedicated and organized teams, and I do stress the "dedicated and organized" part. I am really a professional freelance programmer with real world experience. Most of my recent work has been in stand alone software and website design, you can see my client's testimonials under the "Online Resume" link provided at the end of this post.
What am I Offering?
A simple enough question with a fairly simple answer. I am offering my services as listed above. I can program any aspect of a video game, I can design mechanics and write story lines and dialog. I am willing to provide any or all of these services to the right team.
Am I expecting compensation?
Yes. I no longer accept profit sharing offers. I offer custom editor and library creation for flat rate purchase at about 1/3 the going rates. I also work with hourly contracts starting at $15/hr. I accept direct up front payments via PayPal or you can secure your payment and my work through vWorker (the online resume link below will allow you to pitch me a project there). I'm sorry to sound rude on this topic but I have seen my hard work go to waste (and my pockets go empty) way to many times from profit sharing projects on Game Dev, honestly it's not worth my time any more. The most common response I hear when I say I am no longer accepting profit sharing work is "You will make more money once we sell the game". Again sorry for the rude undertone but if you are confident that your game will sell then take out a small business loan, pay me now and put more money in your own pocket later.
What Technologies / Gaming Engines do I use?
Over the years I have dabled in many different technologies, programming languages and engines. At this time I am almost exclusively interested in using XNA as it opens the doors to posting a game to the XBox Live Indie Market. This is a very large market that is turning out to be a veritable gold mine for any and all games that are posted to it. Not to sound negative but my research and numerous studies online are proving now that stand alone PC games simply are not where the money is anymore. This coupled with the restrictions of mobile gaming are what is leading to my decision. For paying customers I am also available for any of the engines, languages or technologies listed below.
- Languages:
- C / C++ / C#
- PHP / ASP Classic or .NET
- Java / Javascript
- Engines / Technologies:
- XNA 3.0 / 4.0 (4.0 Required for XBLI)
- Flat Red Ball (An XNA Engine)
- Ogre3D / Axiom (Axiom is the C# Port of Ogre3D)
- TorqueX (Notice the X, I am not familiar with previous C++ versions)
- SDL
- Unreal Development Kit (Paid projects only)
What Genre's Of Gaming?
This is a slightly more difficult question to answer as it really depends on the request. Most importantly, PLEASE read and understand this next sentence. I will only join an MMO team with up front payment, no profit sharing. This is because of the intricacy of what is involved with developing and MMO and the simple fact that almost every indie built MMO fails to ever make it off the ground. My time and talents are valuable and I wish only to dedicate to projects that will go somewhere.
So onto the lighter note of what I might make myself available for in a profit sharing environment. At the top of that list would be RPG and Action RPG's. However there are chances I can become interested and join up with a team that is undertaking any genre of game that does not include MMO's or FPS. The best I can ask or suggest is send me your pitch and we'll see where it goes.
What am I looking for in a team?
Dedication, drive and productiveness from every team member. This means that I will only be interested in joining a team wherein every single member is active and actually contributes content to the project. Please keep in mind that independent development teams have no need for a team leader who can not produce assets and or content as well. I mention this due to it's importance to me, for me to consider a team I will expect that the team leader does more them just get everyone together and toss out incomplete ideas.
What stage of development will I be interested in joining?
I prefer to join early on in the design stage, but I will join at any point should I find the right team to work with.
What if your team doesn't fit these categories but you still want my help?
I realize that I sound very picky in the above statements and there will not be a lot of teams that fall into these terms but I do believe that every team should have access to a professional who can help their project get into motion. However I simply can not join into a project with a team that does not fit these categories for free. I personally have experienced to many team break downs because of not matching up with these criteria, for this reason I will request up front payment from teams that do not fit. My rates are reasonable and we can use an outside staffing service to guarantee both my work and your payment. I say this because I myself have done way to much work for way to many projects that have never seen the light of day. I simply can not spend months building frameworks and demos without graphics and story anymore.
In Closing:
Please excuse the hesitant or extreme pickiness of this post, the best thing I can say is that I am a dedicated developer who gets work done (and I can prove it). I am looking to complete and sell a game, it's really that simple. Below I list some quick demo's that I have pieced together recently to show that I am capable of game programming, and under that a link to an outside staffing agency I use to make my living. Between the example demos and the resume you can see my talent, skill and proof of my abilities to complete projects. Under that are all of my contact details, serious inquiries will be made by E-Mail and followed up with messenger contact. I more then likely will ignore anyone who does not attempt to contact me via messenger. Think of it like a test, the first way to prove to me that you are serious is to contact me so we may discuss any potential work live.
* For all demos use arrow keys to move, space to attack and escape to exit *
* These demo's are built using XNA 3.0 which you must install before they will work *
Simple 2D Shooter Game - (Based off XNA Tutorials)
Simple 3D Shooter Game - (Based off XNA Tutorials)
2.5D Space Shooter Demo - (Custom Space Shooter Demo made with FRB)
Close Encounter Tech Demo - (This is NOT my game, this was a tech demo made for one of my clients a while back, I do not hold rights to the game I use this demo as an example only)
Unreal Level Walkthrough - (Whilest learning the UDK I slapped this together. Simple demonstration of level design and Kismet scripting)
Online Resume
Contact Me:
- E-Mail: Dan@Digivance.com
- AIM: DigiDayor
- GTalk: DigivancePro@gmail.com (Not an email address)
- MSN: Daniwan@Digivance.com (Not an email address)
- Skype: DigivancePro
Thanks for your time
~ Dan Mayor
