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Hey all,

My development team is looking to add a dedicated writer to work on our CYOA style narrative. You'd be responsible for scripting events and branches within a few engine/project limitations we'll fully discuss.
 

Our team of 7 includes a wide variety of talent and our concept artists are:

bit.ly/zackdunn - Characters

http://hybridgothica.deviantart.com/gallery/ - Environments

We already have a well established Game Design Document and 22 page narrative to help you get on board with our concept.

Inspiration for this project is from P.T., Layers of Fear, Visage, The Stanley Parable, SOMA, and Amnesia.

Compensation is based around a rev-share model, however the studio has a substantial startup fund to cover development costs, advertising, fees, etc. We work through Skype off a loosely based SCRUM model and most of the other members of the team have their own part-time jobs.

Anyone interested feel free to reply here or directly to my email with a link showcasing your most relevant work.

-Joseph

cirralisis at gmail.com

I nearly pissed myself looking up "zach Dunn horror" on google.

i really need to amp up my spooky game.

When you work with him you either get used to it or discover fabric diapers.

Are you looking for any particular kind of story? Slow-burning, fucked up, messy, Hitchcock-teasing?

We're shooting for 1-2 hours of gameplay, but 10+ hours of content. So, lots of branching in the same environment (a house) leading to more branching and a procedurally generated unique experience for each playthrough.
 

The house itself is practically one of the characters and changes based on the branches you end up with. If you write CYOA storygames you'll understand the type of narrative we're creating.

I understand the type of narrative, but I'm trying to understand what kind of horror you're after. There's a lot of ways to go about instilling the presence of spoop. That's just as much of a gameplay mechanic as a story one, so it's good to know how the spooky elements are supposed to act so the story and the game can work together.

With the amount of content we're trying to create there's no one type of horror we're going for. In general we're shooting for psychological (with the antagonist watching you from places you just came from, or things appearing behind you that weren't previously there). The way the narrative has been written thus far, it branches early on into 5-7 overarching plot-lines (like a demon controlling your family members, your father becoming schizophrenic and locking your mother in the basement, etc...) and then each of these allows the player to have distinct experiences/encounters and a conclusion based off the path they took. There are several other features we're doing differently than other games, but I'm going to hold off discussing them for now.

Like I put in the original post, we're heavily influenced by P.T. and Visage. The horror itself is similar in style, with the added dimension of being able to influence your experience.

I would apply, but I'm not as...uh...interesting and impressive as some of the others here. And I don't have many achievements. Good luck with your search though! It sounds interesting, and I like Zack Dunn's art ^-^

Appreciate it, the team has a lot of talent.

Anyone is free to apply, but a previous work submission is required for application.

I have some writing on other sites. I can find them and show you in PMs. :)

Yea, go ahead and send your most relevant and I'll let you know.

I might be dense, but what is VR P.T?

VR I am assuming is Virtual Reality. P.T is a horror game I've played before, and it could mean that's the style of game they're going for. However, you'll have to ask Cirralisis as this is just guessing ^-^

P.T. is the Silent Hill demo at E3 where Hideo Kojima, Guillermo Del Toro, and Junji Ito filled every SH fan's pants with fear-jism. VR are those TV-Goggles that youtubers wear for double the immersion.

Just watched the playthrough... Poor Daryl never seems to catch a break. He finally gets away from the zombies and now ghosts are trying to kill him. 

Sorry, limited by character count in the headline.

VR - Virtual Reality, we're targeting PC, PS4 and XONE in 2D, as well as the Rift, PSVR, and Vive.

P.T. - Playable Teaser, a Silent Hill demo released in 2014 that introduced the world to a new style of horror game.

Okay thank you! ^_^

If anyone on here has read a story game that would fit well within the given description (including horror, not killing off the player, and branches that don't end immediately), please let me know so i can PM the author.

Also, I'll be updating this thread once the position is no longer available.

She's off doing something with the military but @simplesabley is the closest you're getting to a quality slow-burn horror piece. 

http://chooseyourstory.com/story/the-secret-of-daphne

Do you know if she's a reservist or if she's active? Because they're vastly different. (Branch differences in the amount of time they waste are large too)

I'm aware of the difference, thanks. I have no idea.

Didn't mean to sound condescending, I appreciate the info.

No worries.

I think she does translating? I'm not sure, she might do something else, I just read that she was a translator and that she does stuff with the military in separate things.

Seems she got on a year ago for an hour to update her profile and hasn't been on since.

Was she recommended because her options branch into other stories instead of just killing you off?

Not an expert on Secret of Daphne, only read a path, but I do know the heavy supernatural stuff is saved for the second act, there's quite a few ways to finish the game without dying, and it's well-written. She is arguably the best Horror Writer here, by this example. (Or Steve and Malk are, if their thing turns out to be better in my opinion. Haven't read all the way through yet.) However, if you'd rather the supernatural monstrosities, dead baby jokes, incest, murder, cannibalism, and pyromaniacs with Aztec fetishes come early and hilariously, you could always ask Endmaster to write for you. Now there's a guy who'll make a load of paths without killing you!... Everyone else is probably more likely to get the axe...

Well, if she's unreachable I guess she's not really an option. I posted earlier what the main writing styles are that we're looking for (including horror, not killing off the player, and branches that don't end immediately). Seeing as it isn't exactly like most of the story games on this site, the best writer here might not be the best for our team.

We've been doing some procedurally generated prototyping this week (without art assets, because we're still in a pre-development phase). Here's a video showcasing our "infinite hallway":
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i1fksulspy2tqb8/2016-11-14_03-58-35.mp4?dl=0 

If what you're specifically looking for is a CYS horror game where the main character has no chance of dying anywhere in the game, you'll be hard-pressed to find that here. CYS games do generally tend to have some options that lead to the main character dying if they make a wrong decision. That said, I wouldn't call not killing off the playable character a "style of writing." People can have choices that lead to the main character dying in some of their work and not in others.

From what you're describing, I think this is the closest thing I've found to the sort of game you're looking for. Unfortunately the author hasn't been active since 2015 and I wouldn't know how to contact them.

http://chooseyourstory.com/story/the-free-hand

Honestly, this is very similar to the environment we're working with. 

After playing through The Free Hand a couple times I'll say it's incredibly well-written and they do a good job bringing the player into the experience and allowing choices. Also, it's the closest I've seen so far to what we're looking for.

Where we differ is that The Free Hand's progression tree is shaped like an Evergreen with some branches very short (like the first ending) and some going on 4x as far. Our play through's will be shaped more like tree roots or a Menorah, each be about 1-2 hours and feel like the full game. Also, our's is a bit more of a slow-burner, allowing for tension to build up between horrific events.

Notice the progression choices seemingly available -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i72qLAusxI

This position is now closed, but I'll be sure to post a link here once we get closer to release. Appreciate everyone's help.