Role: Programmer who also wants to design. Part-time, remote.
Scope: A small first prototype: one character, one weapon, one small area with a path through it, Basic and Alternate attacks, Dodge, one telegraphed enemy, manual control and Idle automation both working, one upgrade, and save and load. Nothing online yet. The shared world is the biggest job in the whole design, and it waits until the basic game is fun. We settle in week one what fits in the hours.
Payment: Paid trial month, paid regardless of what comes after.
After the trial: If it fits, we talk about a real partnership and work out the terms together.
Engine: Open. Your call, with reasons.
Stage: Full design document, plain-language guide, UI sketch. No code, no art, no engine locked.
About the project
Project: CENEFIRE (working title)
An Idle game you can actually play.
Project: CENEFIRE is a full action RPG with an Idle game built into it, set in a shared online world. PC first, with mobile planned. Three ways to play the same character. Active, you’re in the fight yourself, reading the enemy’s tells and dodging. Idle, the setup you’ve configured fights for you, against the same enemies, in the same world, under the same rules, and you can take over any time. Offline, your character stays in the world and keeps working for you, within limits and for a set time. None of it is a separate mini-game. Gathering and crafting work the way combat does, death costs the same whether you were at the keyboard or not, and the people around you are real players.
The look
Illustrated and stylized, not pixel art. The goal is the look of the hand-painted 2D games I love, brought into 3D. It’s a third-person ARPG whose camera zooms all the way out to the classic angled bird’s-eye view, which is where it starts. The exact rendering is still being worked out.
Where it came from
I love idle and incremental games and I love ARPGs, and they always sat on separate shelves. Then I found a game that actually tried to blend them, and that was the moment this started. I love MMOs too, so of course it had to be a shared world. Looked at narrowly, this is a selfish project. I’m building the game I actually want to play. I just don’t think I’m the only one who wants it.
Where it stands
The design is all written down, not just in my head. There’s the full Devs GDD, with every rule labeled by how settled it is, a record of every decision, and a plain-language Reviewers GDD written for this conversation. There’s no code, no art and no engine locked. No code because I can’t write it, and because I wanted the design to be real before asking anyone who can.
Who I am
I’m a gamer, new to game dev and new to the industry, and tired of waiting for someone else to build this. I carry the concepts, the systems, the world, the story and the art direction. What I lack is the practical skill. I’m not a programmer. I’ve used AI to help organize and consolidate my thoughts, and I’d rather say that up front than have you find it in the documents. The ideas and the decisions are mine, grouped together with assistance for convenience. I run this project, not the AI. I’ve worked on it every day since September and I’m not stopping.
Who I’m looking for
A degen like me, honestly. A developer who wants to design too and shares the passion, someone who’s already a big fan of these genres with the hours to show for it. Someone who’s comfortable with how I’ve used AI so far, and with using it as a tool going forward, not as a way to make the final product. Someone who’ll tell me when something won’t work and bring the reason with it. “Sounds cool” isn’t what I’m looking for.
The ask
Read the Reviewers GDD: [Reviewers GDD]. Then come back with one thing you’d change and one thing you’d build first.
Discord: WhoolieFox · Reddit: u/Whoollie · Email: [WhoolieFox@gmail.com](mailto:WhoolieFox@gmail.com)
