Hello everyone, we have some general news about the project and some information about the next demo, as well as another call for recruitment.

The Current Situation

First of all, let's update you on what has been going on since the last blog post. Over the past year, the project has undergone some major changes in management and development. We have reviewed the project and the team as a whole and have addressed some issues that occurred over time.

In the process, we concluded that we need to revise our focus and make significant changes in order to make the best game we can with the resources and tools we have. The team is now largely under new management and we have made some changes to the project that we want to share with you today.

We have decided to reduce the current scope of the project to encompass only Sweet Apple Acres and Ponyville; this means we're currently no longer planning to adapt the full story of Fallout Equestria. This was of course a difficult decision, but we believe this step is necessary. Focusing all our efforts entirely on Ponyville will allow us to create the type of game we wanted in a reasonable time frame. Any plans to continue the project after this new goal will be decided on once this Ponyville demo is complete.

Wave 5.5

The current goal for the next demo is to focus on polishing and bug fixing, but also laying down the groundwork for future waves. Aside from polishing, examples of changes in this wave include introducing male ponies for enemies and as an option in the character creator, adding radroaches and bloatsprites back into the wild, AI being reworked, and the Ponyville map being further worked on. We have also added and improved various sound effects throughout the game.

We plan to update you on further work that has been done to this wave as we progress. We thank you for your continued support you have given us. If you have additional questions or feedback, please write a comment or message us on Discord. If you want to help contribute to the project then please continue reading below.

Recruitment Call

We are actively recruiting talent for various teams. If you're interested in helping out, feel free to send in an application. Also please feel free to share this with anyone you know who is skilled and may be interested in helping as well.

The most urgent positions we're looking for right now are level designers to work on the map, as well as 2D artists and 3D modelers specialized in architecture and other level art. We’re also now looking for more QA Testers to help polish the game.
For a detailed list, see below:

• Design
  • Level Designer
    • You will use the Unity editor and other tools to place assets and shape Ponyville into a place that's fun for the player to explore.
  • Game Designer
    • You will balance weapons, spells, and enemies, work on the overall user experience, and do whatever else it takes to make this a game that's fun to play.
• 3D Art
  • 3D Modeler
    • 3D modelers especially with skill in creation of buildings and structures for the map. Any software is accepted as long as it can handle FBX model files and PNGs for textures.
  • 3D Animator
    • Animations done both for mechanical things like weapons, and character animations for the player and NPCs as well.
    • We also need people who are able to rig mechanical and organic models.
  • Texture Artist
    • People who can create Albedo, Normal, Roughness, Metalness and Ambient Occlusion maps. You are allowed to draw or bake either of them but should be able to bake normal maps from high-poly models.
• 2D Art
  • Concept Artist
    • Create concept sketches and model sheets of various objects and other things for the 3D team to realize.
  • Illustrator / Graphic Designer
    • Looking for illustrators as well as people with skill in graphic design to create posters, billboards and graffiti to flesh out the environment and atmosphere of the game. This can also include packaging design and illustration for some ingame props as well as icons for various things to use in the menu or on the pip buck.
• Programming
  • Unity/C# Programmer
    • The game is made in Unity. If you know your way around it, and want to help us get the next wave out sooner, this one's for you. In return, we can offer experience working in a large team on a large project.
  • Java Programmer
    • We are using Jenkins to make builds of the game, and we could use some help with some bug fixes in it, and improvements to our productivity. Have a look at Jenkins' source code to see if you have what it takes.
• Quality Assurance
  • Tester
    • You get to tell our programmers what they're doing wrong. Your job will be to thoroughly play test builds of the game to find bugs and ensure features are implemented as intended, and to ensure nothing breaks while using the features as they aren't intended. You will need to be around a lot, as the game is built several times per week and changes must be tested in a timely manner.
• Audio
  If you have no experience, training can be provided for you to become a field recorder with options to continue being trained until you have learned all the skills listed below
  • Studio / Field Recorder
    • There are many sounds needed to for this game but they have to come from somewhere.
      You will go out and record the sounds of our world so we can edit them into the world of Fallout: Equestria.
  • Sound Designer
    • Once we have the raw sounds, a sound designer has to edit them to either improve quality or to create a sound that doesn’t exist in the real world. This role may require you to synthesize sounds as well as use the recordings provided by the rest of the team.
  • Technical Sound Designer
    • This role is the bridge between the sounds and the game engine. You would have access to the FMOD project and be expected to: add the sounds to the project, test the sounds for correct playback in the world and add the events into the game engine. This is not a role that can be taught from zero experience and for us to train you, you will have to be a competent sound designer or have other programming experience.

Final notes

Discord

We've mentioned this one before, but we do also have a community Discord server, where you can chat about the game or anything else and hang out with us. You'll also be notified about streams and updates here easily. Feel free to join over here.

Streams

We have been doing weekly livestreams (on a more or less regular schedule), where a few of our members stream their work process together. You can join us generally on Sundays. We'll also announce on Twitter and our community Discord when we go live.