About the role
This position has been closed or filled.
Important Details
- Project: Unannounced 2D action-metroidvania (Godot 4.x, PC + console)
- Type: Independent contractor — scoped to a single initial project, with ongoing work likely
- Rate: 30–60/hr — matched to other contract art roles, negotiable on experience
- Commitment: Part-time, flexible scheduling, milestone-driven
- Location: Fully remote, US East Time Zone Preferred
- Start: Immediate
About the Project
A solo developer is building a commercial 2D metroidvania in Godot. Movement, combat, and room-to-room traversal are built and playable. A contracted character artist is delivering animation frames and a composer is on the music. Environment art exists and has an established look; the role requires extending this existing work.
The position is for one defined project to start, with the potential for a steady pipeline of rooms and biomes.
What You'll Do
- Style-match existing environment art: Core requirement. Art has an established palette, line treatment, and level of rendering. Work must sit next to existing assets without reading as a different hand.
- Build assets that are ready for parallax: Backgrounds are composed of multiple depth layers scrolling at different rates.
- Layers delivered separated, not flattened — each depth plane as its own file with clean alpha
- Horizontally seamless tiling where a layer is meant to repeat, with no visible seam and no obvious repeated landmark
- No baked-in cross-layer lighting or shadow that breaks when layers slide against each other
- Enough overscan/bleed at edges that a layer never reveals its boundary at the camera's extremes
- Authored sharp at full resolution: Depth-of-field blur on distant layers is applied in-engine with a shader; do not pre-blur anything.
- Deliver modular, composable pieces: Rooms are hand-composed from sprites rather than tilemapped. Requires reusable chunks (platform segments, wall and ceiling pieces, props, set dressing, trim) to arrange into new rooms.
- Work within a console memory budget: Floor target is Nintendo Switch. Design within provided budgets for source resolution, atlas packing, and unique textures.
Requirements
- Portfolio showing 2D game environment art, ideally for side-scrolling or platforming games.
- Demonstrated ability to match an existing art style.
- Working understanding of parallax construction and layered background composition.
- Strong fundamentals in composition, value structure, and color.
- Clean file hygiene: layered source files, consistent naming, organized delivery.
- Reliable async communication; able to work from written briefs and self-manage against a milestone.
- Willing to sign an NDA and a work-for-hire agreement.
- No generative AI, at any stage of the process.
Nice to Have
- Godot experience, especially Parallax2D / ParallaxBackground setup and importing assets.
- Familiarity with metroidvania and action-platformer environment conventions (Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, Ori, Gestalt).
- Comfort with atlas/texture budgeting for console targets.
- Interest in lighting and atmosphere passes (fog planes, light shafts, ambient particle sheets).
- Ability to iterate on layout as level design changes.
Terms
- Independent contractor (1099 for US-based); scope defined in a written SOW per project.
- Invoicing on completion, pay is Net 15.
- Revisions beyond the SOW estimate are billed hourly.
- Work-for-hire — delivered assets and IP assign to the project on payment.
- NDA required before receiving builds or unreleased art.
- Credited in-game as Environment Artist.
How to Apply
Send an email with the subject line "Environment Artist — [Your Name]" and include:
- Portfolio link — call out the 2–3 pieces most relevant to layered, side-scrolling game backgrounds.
- Your rate and availability.
- Tools and delivery format used, and how you typically hand off layered assets.
- One example of work where you had to match someone else's established style, and what you did to get there.