Freelance Cartography for an Indie Video Game

[hoguean]

Hi all, my name is Jeremy Hogan, I run a little indie video game studio, The Secret Games Company, in London, UK. We are working on an unannounced Bronze Age empire-building game. I posted on here a few years ago in relation to our last game, Kim, which is now on Steam. I ended up hiring Max of Max’s Maps, who I expect would be happy to confirm I am a good client!

I am looking for a cartographer to do some freelance work on our current project, which uses a hex grid, we are experimenting with a tile-based map system at the moment. We may switch to a hand-drawn map (with hex grid overlaid) if a tile system doesn’t produce the desired results but our tests using Hex Kit have been promising.

Hex Kit includes tilesets (why I picked it) and supports different layers of tiles, much like Photoshop. In this very rough mockup of our Mediterranean map using their tiles not ours, the cliffs and coastlines are added by placing tiles, which are mostly transparent, over the base terrain layer, this gives you more organic landmasses: https://www.dropbox.com/s/q83cp1xfn5...rsion.png?dl=0

The first task is to create a draft tileset, which we will use to make some maps in Tiled, from where we will export a high-res map image to display in game. Based on the results, we would then either ask you to polish up this tileset or quote for doing hand-drawn maps instead. We plan to have 16 maps in game at launch so it would be a big job to hand-draw them but they would all use the same style. If we stick with a tile-based approach, we would probably ask for 16 custom backgrounds, which would appear around the outside of the hex grid and could be in a traditional map style.

Our list of tiles and the number of variants for each (linked below) aims to allow for the maximum amount of variety. Different elements, which would all appear on one hex in-game, are split out into separate assets. This allows mixing of e.g. grassland backgrounds with grassland features such that if you have 3 of each, you can make 9 unique combinations. We will also rotate and flip tiles for further variety:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

A complete map should resemble a physical map of the region, Sapiento’s The Hyborian Age is a good reference:
https://www.cartographersguild.com/a...0&d=1431694135
Obviously it is not possible to recreate something like this with a hex tileset but that is the style of map we want to evoke and I think the colours are superb. The level of detail on each hex cannot be that high since they are so small on screen so colour will play an important role.

During the game, we will display empire’s borders and a few other icons over the map. We will need to ensure these elements are clearly visible so that will impact the use of colour in the tileset. For example, the map could be lighter and the borders, etc darker or vice versa or the map could use a fairly narrow palette and the borders, etc could use a similarly narrow palette but in opposing colours.

Finally, the usage rights will obviously be for commercial use, we would want exclusive rights but we would be happy to credit you and for you to post your work online but only after the game had been released (Q1 2021).

If this sounds like something you would be interested to work on, please ask any questions on this thread so others can see my answers too. Then if you're still interested, please email me, jeremy [at] secretgamescompany.com, with the following:
1. A few examples of your work, could include a CV, LinkedIn, portfolio, etc
2. Some info on approximately what you would charge for this work and what further info you would require to put together a formal quote
3. Your availability this year, we are relatively flexible on schedule but could start immediately if desired

Thanks!

[Naima]

Hi I might be interested in this, feel free to contact me directly on deviant art or my mail there ...

https://www.deviantart.com/n-a-i-m-a...aps-and-worlds

tonelstef @ msn dot com

[hoguean]

This is now taken, thanks all.