Half-Life 2 Mod Team Seeking Level Designer and Programmer

[Sir Alexander]

Hello, I am posting here on behalf of Team Chivalry. We are the team behind the Half-Life 2 modification Age of Chivalry, a first-person multiplayer mod of Valve's Source™ engine with a heavy focus on melee combat and objective-focused team play in a medieval setting.

The initial public release of Age of Chivalry was in late August of 2006. It was a success, and our mod has since undergone several major updates. Age of Chivalry made its Mod Data Base Mod of The Year awards debut back in 2007 as an Editors Choice pick, then got into the Players Choice section in 2008, it also became popular enough in 2008 that Valve Software selected it to be one of 5 mods released on Steam, and recently got an honorable mention in the 2009 MOTY award. We intend to expand on our success to date, to continue improving Age of Chivalry, and to strive to make this mod the best melee combat game ever made.

Here is a link to our homepage, our YouTube account, and our Steam store page, so you can learn more about our mod and download it to take a look at our work yourself:

AoC homepage: http://www.age-of-chivalry.com
AoC Steam store page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/17510/
AoC YouTube account: http://www.youtube.com/user/TeamChivalry

Before you decide to apply for a position on our team, you also need to know that this is something we do just for fun. None of the team members get paid for their work, and Age of Chivalry is distributed on Steam for free. Despite the lack of pay, there are many benefits to working with our mod team. For example, you can expand your skill set by working with other highly talented game designers, and improve your portfolio/resume. Since no one gets paid and we work for fun, Team Chivalry is a fairly laid back environment where, for the most part, we produce assets when and as we can, and we welcome all suggestions to help improve the game.

Now, here are the positions our team is looking to fill right now:

Programmer
We're working on a big update for AoC right now, and are looking for another programmer to join our team to help get it done. Source engine experience would be a massive plus. Experience with client/server hierarchies, and/or GUI development would also be a plus, and experience with Subversion or CVS would make the introduction faster, but is not a requirement.

Requirements:

• Applicants need to own a Valve game that comes with Source SDK Base, so you can actually download and run our mod and it's dev build. Half-Life 2, Half-Life Deathmatch Source, CounterStrike Source, Day of Defeat Source, Team Fortress 2, or L4D would all work.
• Applicants should be experienced with C++.
• We work with C++ in Visual Studio 2008, so applicants should be familiar with that software.
• Applicants should be experienced in game programming, on any engine.

Level Designer
Team Chivalry is seeking a professional grade level designer to join our team. Not just your average mapper, but someone who can actually help the rest of us improve and has a very keen and critical eye. This position is intended for someone who is either already in the industry and does level design on the side as a hobby or someone who is seriously pursuing a job in the industry. We're working on a big update for our game, Age of Chivalry, right now and we want to really take a step back and bring our environments to life. So, any new level designer brought onto the team would initially be working on either recreating or updating one of our existing projects, as well as helping the other mappers in their efforts to do the same.

Requirements:

• Applicants need to own a Valve game that comes with Source SDK Base, so you can actually run our mod, and it's dev build. Half-Life 2, Half-Life Deathmatch Source, CounterStrike Source, Day of Defeat Source, Team Fortress 2, or L4D would meet this requirement.
• Applicants should be experienced and skilled in the use of Valve's Hammer Editor.
• Applicants should be familiar enough with the medieval period to create a semi-accurate depiction of it in the maps they work on.
• Basic knowledge of Photoshop, or a similar image editing software, would be a plus, as it is useful for creating top-down layouts of maps during the design phases.
• Knowledge of other editors, such as Unreal, would also be a plus.
• Skills in 3DS MAX or texture design/creation would be a big plus as well.

Responsibilities:

• Applicants need to be able to communicate clearly and effectively with the rest of the developers, and the beta testers, about what they're working on. They would need to bring any issues they encounter to the attention of those concerned, actively participate in all the team meetings they are able to attend, keep the team informed of their progress, let others know when they want a map they've been working on to be play-tested, and so on. Communication is a huge part of being part of our team.
• Applicants should be able to make the best use of all available assets, and technology, to ensure that the gameplay, and overall quality, of their assigned maps meets (or exceeds) the high standards set for the next version of AoC, and complete their assigned tasks in a timely fashion.
• Applicants should be able to document well thought out designs for new or recreated maps, and find images from different sources (internet, photographs, etc) for use in map concept art, and mood-boards. The purpose of this is to help them, and others, visualize their creations, and to help communicate design options.
• Passion or interest in the medieval times era is a plus, as is someone who regularly plays and enjoys our game already.

If you'd like to apply for one of these positions, just send your application to [email protected]

Thanks for reading,
Alex