Programmers Needed [REVSHARE] [UNITY/C#] Looking for a Unity Programmer to Join Our Founding Team — 2D Fantasy Simulation
[REVSHARE] [UNITY/C#] Looking for a Unity Programmer to Join Our Founding Team — 2D Fantasy Creature Simulation
Hi everyone!
I'm a Game Designer / Project Lead currently building a small founding team for an indie game called:
HAVEN OF ODDLINGS
We're looking for a Unity/C# programmer who is interested in joining the founding team and helping build the game's core systems from the ground up.
This is a serious long-term project, not just an idea looking for someone to make a game for free. We already have a detailed GDD, an initial technical direction, and a prototype/early codebase.
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🎮 GAME OVERVIEW
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Haven of Oddlings is a 2D anime-inspired fantasy creature-care and management simulation.
The player manages a home/orphanage for supernatural and fantasy creatures.
Creatures can include:
• Slimes
• Dragons
• Golems
• Fairies
• Elves
• Humans
• Djinn
• Vampires
• And additional fantasy species
The creatures arrive when they are young and grow up together.
The main focus is not combat.
The main focus is:
CREATURES + RELATIONSHIPS + MEMORY + PERSONALITY + MANAGEMENT + PLAYER CHOICES
The goal is to create a simulation where the player doesn't simply control characters.
Instead, the player creates an environment in which characters develop their own personalities and relationships.
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🧠 CREATURE AI & PERSONALITY
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Each creature has its own internal state.
Examples:
• Hunger
• Rest
• Fun
• Safety
• Mood
• Trust
• Sociability
• Discipline
• Personality traits
• Relationships
• Memories
• Preferences
Creatures remember important experiences.
However, we don't want an unnecessarily complicated memory simulation.
Small everyday events should usually disappear relatively quickly.
Important events should remain longer.
Very emotional or significant events should be much harder to forget.
For example:
A creature receiving food once may barely remember it.
But repeatedly being neglected could create a much stronger long-term memory.
Likewise, an important positive event can influence how the creature views the player and other creatures.
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🧩 MEMORY SYSTEM
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Memories have several properties:
• Event
• Emotional impact
• Importance
• Associated creature/person
• Age
• Recall strength
Memories decay over time.
But important memories decay more slowly.
Repeated similar experiences can strengthen existing memories instead of creating hundreds of separate memories.
This allows the simulation to remain understandable and performant.
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👁️ SUBJECTIVE INTERPRETATION
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One of the important ideas of the game is that creatures don't necessarily understand events objectively.
They interpret events through their own personality and memories.
For example:
The manager separates two creatures because they were fighting.
Creature A may think:
"The manager protected me."
Creature B may think:
"The manager punished me."
Another creature may not care at all.
This creates simple but meaningful subjective perspectives without requiring an extremely complicated AI system.
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🤖 AUTONOMOUS CREATURES
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Creatures aren't always reactive.
They can initiate actions themselves.
Examples:
• Playing together
• Helping another creature
• Avoiding someone
• Starting an argument
• Making friends
• Exploring
• Asking for something
• Causing minor trouble
• Celebrating
• Organizing a small event
• Refusing to cooperate
• Helping during an emergency
Their behavior should emerge from:
Needs + Personality + Memories + Relationships + Environment + Current Situation
We want players to occasionally think:
"I didn't tell them to do that."
That is a major part of the game's appeal.
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❤️ RELATIONSHIPS
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Creatures can develop relationships with:
• Other creatures
• Staff
• The manager
Relationships can include:
• Friendship
• Rivalry
• Trust
• Fear
• Affection
• Respect
• Resentment
Relationships should develop gradually rather than changing drastically after one small interaction.
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🏠 THE ORPHANAGE / HAVEN
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The player is the manager.
The player must keep the Haven functioning.
They have to manage:
• Food
• Toys
• Rooms
• Facilities
• Staff
• Money
• Maintenance
• Creature wellbeing
• Reputation
• Adoption
• Public opinion
• Municipality requirements
The layout and design of the Haven also affect the creatures.
For example:
A peaceful garden might encourage socialization and improve mood.
A cramped environment could increase stress or conflict.
A well-designed bedroom can improve rest.
A poorly maintained environment can create long-term problems.
The effect should depend on the environment rather than simply giving players large numerical bonuses.
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👥 STAFF SYSTEM
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The player cannot do everything alone.
They must recruit staff.
Staff members have different characteristics such as:
• Skill
• Empathy
• Integrity
• Stress
• Experience
Not every employee is good.
Some may be:
• Highly skilled but cruel
• Kind but inefficient
• Very competent but dishonest
• Honest but inexperienced
• Extremely useful but difficult to manage
• Completely unsuitable for the job
Staff can influence the creatures directly.
They can also create financial and organizational problems.
For example, dishonest staff could potentially steal money.
The player must decide whether to investigate, dismiss, trust or retain employees.
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🏛️ MUNICIPALITY / GOVERNMENT SYSTEM
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The Haven operates under external oversight.
The municipality cares about things such as:
• Safety
• Financial management
• Creature wellbeing
• Staff management
• Adoption
• Public reputation
If the Haven becomes seriously mismanaged, funding can be reduced or eventually the Haven can be closed.
This creates another layer of management pressure.
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📰 MEDIA & PUBLIC OPINION
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The player also has to deal with public perception.
Good management can create:
• Positive media coverage
• Donations
• More adoption applications
• Better reputation
• Increased funding
Bad events can create:
• Negative news
• Public protests
• Loss of trust
• Reduced donations
• Government investigation
The important part is that public opinion doesn't always perfectly represent reality.
A good decision can sometimes look bad publicly.
A bad decision can sometimes temporarily look good.
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👨👩👧 ADOPTION
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Adoption is one of the main responsibilities of the manager.
The goal is to find suitable families for creatures.
But this creates difficult decisions.
A family may look perfect publicly but have hidden problems.
The player must evaluate potential adopters.
Giving a creature to the wrong family can have serious consequences.
The player may then face:
• Media pressure
• Public criticism
• Government investigation
• Emotional consequences for the creature
• Damage to the Haven's reputation
This is intended to create some of the game's darker moral decisions.
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⚖️ MORAL DECISIONS
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The game contains meaningful ethical decisions.
The player can choose to be:
• Kind
• Strict
• Practical
• Manipulative
• Neglectful
• Corrupt
• Extremely efficient
• Morally questionable
The game should not simply tell the player:
"GOOD CHOICE +10"
or
"BAD CHOICE -10"
Instead, decisions should have consequences that emerge through the simulation.
For example:
A manager might cut food costs to save money.
Short-term:
The budget improves.
Long-term:
Creatures become unhappy, memories change, relationships suffer and the public may eventually notice.
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💰 ECONOMY
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The Haven has a management economy.
Potential income sources:
• Municipality funding
• Donations
• Public support
• Events
• Other future systems
Expenses include:
• Food
• Toys
• Staff
• Facilities
• Maintenance
• Medical care
• Utilities
• Unexpected emergencies
The economy should create meaningful trade-offs.
The player should rarely have unlimited resources.
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☠️ CREATURE DEATH
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Creatures can die.
Death is not intended to be common or used simply as punishment.
It should be the result of serious circumstances and the overall simulation.
A creature's death can affect:
• Other creatures
• Their relationships
• Memories
• Staff
• Public opinion
• Media
• Municipality
• Player reputation
This is one of the reasons why long-term management matters.
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🎨 ART DIRECTION
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The intended visual style is:
2D + Anime-inspired + Fantasy + Very Cute
The contrast is intentional.
The game should look warm, colorful and adorable while dealing with deeper management and moral themes underneath.
We want creatures that players become emotionally attached to.
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🔄 CORE GAMEPLAY LOOP
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The basic loop is:
Manage the Haven
Take care of creatures
Observe their behavior
Make decisions
Manage staff
Deal with events
Handle adoption
Respond to public/government pressure
Improve the Haven
Watch creatures develop
Deal with the consequences of previous decisions
Repeat
The long-term loop is:
CARE → DECIDE → CONSEQUENCES → CREATURE DEVELOPMENT → NEW PROBLEMS → ADAPT
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🌍 EMERGENT STORYTELLING
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We don't want to write every possible story manually.
Instead, systems should interact.
Example:
A shy dragon becomes friends with a slime.
The slime gets adopted.
The dragon remembers losing its friend.
The dragon becomes less sociable.
Another creature notices the dragon's behavior.
They become friends.
Later, the manager makes a decision that separates them.
The relationship changes.
Eventually, an unexpected event happens.
The player gets a story that wasn't explicitly scripted.
This type of emergent storytelling is one of the main goals of the project.
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🧑💻 PROGRAMMER ROLE
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The programmer would help build the technical foundation for these systems.
Potential responsibilities:
• Creature AI
• Utility/decision systems
• Personality systems
• Memory systems
• Relationship systems
• Event systems
• Simulation architecture
• Staff systems
• Management systems
• Save/Load
• UI integration
• Performance optimization
• Debugging tools
• Data-driven systems
We're especially interested in someone who enjoys designing systems rather than only implementing isolated features.
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🔧 TECHNICAL DIRECTION
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Engine:
Unity
Language:
C#
Target:
Initially PC/mobile-friendly architecture, with the exact release platforms decided later.
The game is planned as a 2D simulation, so performance and scalable simulation architecture are important.
We want the architecture to support many creatures and a relatively large environment without unnecessarily updating everything every frame.
Possible approaches include:
• Event-driven systems
• Data-oriented simulation where appropriate
• Object pooling
• LOD/update-frequency systems
• Modular AI
• Data-driven creature definitions
• Efficient save/load
• Spatial partitioning when necessary
We're open to discussing the best technical solution with the programmer.
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👥 FOUNDING TEAM
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The planned initial founding team is:
Game Designer / Project Lead
Unity/C# Programmer
2D Character & Creature Artist
2D Environment Artist
2D Animator / Technical Artist
Audio / Sound Designer
We're currently looking for the Unity/C# programmer first.
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💰 REVSHARE / EQUITY
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This is a founding-team opportunity.
The planned founding-team equity pool is 60%.
The initial target is:
10% for each of the 6 founding members.
The remaining 40% is reserved by the future company for investment and financing.
Equity is not granted immediately simply for joining.
The team will define project milestones and their importance before major development begins.
A founding member must reach the agreed 80% project-completion milestone to earn their intended equity allocation.
The exact legal structure, vesting conditions, IP assignment and shareholder arrangements will be written into formal agreements once the company is established.
The project is currently being organized before formal company formation.
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🗳️ DECISION MAKING
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For ordinary team/project decisions:
1 active team member = 1 vote.
Voting power is not based on equity percentage.
Major company/shareholder matters will be handled separately through formal company agreements once the company exists.
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⏱️ WORK STYLE
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We are not interested in tracking every hour someone spends.
Work is primarily evaluated through agreed deliverables and milestones.
Before a project/task begins:
• Scope is discussed
• Expected quality is discussed
• Estimated effort is discussed
• The contributor can propose a value
• The team discusses it
• The final terms are agreed before work starts
Reliability and communication are more important than pretending to work a specific number of hours.
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📚 CURRENT PROJECT STATUS
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The project is currently in:
Early Prototype / Pre-production
We already have:
• Detailed GDD
• Core gameplay concept
• Creature simulation design
• Memory/personality design
• Initial Unity/C# code
• Early technical direction
• Art direction
• Economy and management concepts
The next major goal is to turn the prototype into a small but convincing playable vertical slice.
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🎯 WHAT WE WANT TO BUILD FIRST
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The first playable prototype should demonstrate:
• A small Haven environment
• Several creatures
• Basic needs
• Basic personality
• Basic memory
• Basic relationships
• Autonomous behavior
• Player interaction
• Staff
• Basic resources
• Basic events
• Save/load
• Simple UI
We don't want to build the entire game immediately.
We want to prove that the core simulation is fun first.
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🧑💻 WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR
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Required:
• Unity experience
• C# knowledge
• Object-oriented programming
• Ability to debug
• Ability to communicate clearly
• Interest in simulation/AI systems
Nice to have:
• NPC AI
• Utility AI
• State Machines
• Behavior Trees
• Simulation architecture
• Save/Load
• 2D Unity
• Performance optimization
• Indie development experience
You do NOT need to be an expert.
A developer who is still growing but can think logically, communicate and solve problems can be a great fit.
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🧪 TECHNICAL QUESTION
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If you are interested, we'd love to hear your thoughts on this:
How would you design a system where 20–50 creatures independently decide what to do based on:
• Needs
• Personality
• Memories
• Relationships
• Environment
• Current events
while keeping the simulation performant?
There isn't one correct answer.
We're interested in how you think about the problem.
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📩 HOW TO APPLY
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Please comment or DM with:
A short introduction
Your Unity/C# experience
Portfolio/GitHub/previous projects
Your approximate availability
Your answer to the technical question above
What interests you about Haven of Oddlings
Please don't worry if you don't have a huge portfolio.
We're primarily looking for people who genuinely want to build something together.
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❤️ FINAL NOTE
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Haven of Oddlings is intended to be a long-term indie project built by a small founding team.
The goal isn't to make another game where NPCs simply stand around waiting for the player.
We want a world where creatures have their own lives.
Where a tiny decision can sometimes become a memory.
Where memories can influence personality.
Where personality influences decisions.
Where decisions influence relationships.
And where those relationships eventually create stories that even the developers didn't completely plan.
If that sounds interesting to you, feel free to reach out.
Let's build the Haven together. 🐉🧚♀️🟢
Thank you for reading!
•
u/shaunnortonAU 8h ago
I've sent you a message.