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requirements

I don't care where you went to school, what studio you worked for, or if your portfolio makes Activision wet. I care about one thing:

Can you network 100+ players, create scalable architecture, and move fast?

If yes, you're hired.

what you'd build

The game is stylized low poly and the GDD is mostly done. So you'd focus on building rather than designing.

Examples of work we need:

• 100-150 player networked multiplayer: use modern networking. Inventory, money, XP and characters survive disconnects (like Rust)
• Production & crafting: place a machine, let it run, collect what it makes and sell it (like DarkRP)
• Physical inventory: items exist in the world that can be carried, stored, dropped, stolen
• Vehicles: driving, tire/fuel/damage, trunk storage

Most of our systems are heavily inspired from:

what we're looking for

• Strong Unity, especially networking. You know Unity inside out and multiplayer architecture.what this meansWhat "especially networking" means

  Real large-scale multiplayer. Not 4 to 16 player co-op.

  makRP is built around 100 to 150 concurrent players in one persistent world. The networking has to stay stable when that world is busy. Players fighting, driving, carrying and dropping physical items, changing world state, all at once.

  Player state, inventory, and money have to stay correct across disconnects, reconnects, crashes, latency, packet loss, and server restarts.

  You should know replication, authority, ownership, relevancy, synchronization, bandwidth, interpolation, persistence, networked physics, and server performance well enough to decide what actually needs to be networked and what does not.

  The game also has to stay fast as player count and activity grow. Our specs are low. If all 150 players got in vehicles and drove at once, it should not lag.

  You should be able to profile multiplayer bottlenecks, spot systems that will collapse at scale, stress test them, and design around bandwidth, CPU, memory, and persistence limits before they become problems.

  We're not looking for someone whose networking experience ends at importing a multiplayer package and syncing transforms.

• Oversimplifier. Our game is basic on purpose like Garry's Mod / Perfect Heist 2. Create simple systems, not complex ones.
• You spec work for other roles. Tell the modeler what a prop needs or an animator what states exist. You don't need to know these jobs, just enough to communicate.

the deal

• Location + Hours: work whenever, wherever. Just hit your deadlines.
• Length: long-term. If it goes well, we build the next game together.
• Communication: Discord + Trello. No meetings.
• Benefits: none yet. New indie studio, small budget.

how we use AI

I've seen plenty of spaghetti code slop and AI generated assets built on other people's work without their consent.

I'm not here to debate the morality of it. People can do whatever the hell they want.

But in the end, it's a tool like anything else.

We use it to move faster.

Game dev is full of tedious bullshit that slows everyone down. If AI can write 100 lines of code or create a blockout in ten minutes instead of two days, we're going to use it. In fact, it'd be stupid not to.

However, we don't use it for creativity.

I think Garry Newman put it best:

AI is like using porn. Use too much of it and you lose the ability to think.

So we use it to accelerate our workflow and production. But we still do all of the design and creative work.

we're not another game studio

I want to be upfront about how we work because it's not how most studios work.

There's no 9-5, no weekly meetings, and no manager breathing down your neck.

I don't care when you work or what time you wake up. All I care is that the work gets done, you hit your deadlines, and you communicate.

Some days you may work like crazy. Other days you barely work at all.

Both are fine as long as things keep moving.

Prioritize taking care of your health. Go outside, turn off your phone, play, and spend time with your family.

Most people sacrifice health and happiness for work. That's how you end up hating your life.

We know because it happened to us on our first game.

That same philosophy is why we want to keep the studio small.

continue reading collapse

My brother and I used to believe big games require big teams.

Then we saw Schedule 1.

A solo developer built an entire game that beat most AAA titles.

Same thing with Minecraft, Garry's Mod, Stardew Valley, Hollow Knight.

The most innovative games usually have small teams.

And now AI allows small teams to move even faster.

But I want to be very clear about something:

We're using AI to make our team better, not to replace you.

We aren't going to hire you, have you build makRP, then replace you with AI or cut you loose when the game ships.

That's dumb.

A lot of studios are mass laying off their development teams. You may be wondering if the same thing could happen here.

I can't promise anyone a job forever. Nobody can. But what I can say is this:

We're keeping our team small from day one and only hiring people who want to work with us long-term. There shouldn't be layoffs because:

1. the game needs constant updates
2. we'll develop other games after makRP
3. the team is intentionally small so there's nobody to cut

If you're great at what you do, work well with us, and we're making enough money to keep building games, we want you building the next one.

Our rule is simple:

Do great work and we'll pay you more.

When the game makes money, you get paid more through performance-based bonuses.

I've always hated when a company make millions and keeps everyone's pay exactly the same.

Also, if you create a system and make it much better than we asked for, you should be paid more for it.

Speaking of pay, we are funding makRP entirely out of pocket.

No investors, publishers, or whatever shark tank bullshit nowadays.

I'm sick of watching these guys take over a studio, strip out everything that made the game fun, and pack it full of microtransactions just to maximize profit.

Fuck that.

We'd rather risk our own money and build the game we dreamed of making.

Growing up we played DarkRP for hours and had some of the best moments of our lives. It's the one game we wished someone made a standalone for.

So we're making it.

If this sounds like the kind of studio you want to help build, come work with us.

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