Developing an Xbox Live Indie Game - Need help!

Hello everyone,

I'm working on an Xbox Live Indie Game and I need some help.
The game will be in the jump 'n' run genre and is scheduled to release at the end of 2013.
Title of the game is not given yet.

I am working on it since a half year but it's impossible for me to get it finished alone, because I have no experience in some sections.
Currently I am working alone on that project and I'm doing all the pre-production, programming, marketing and publishing.
The target are core gamers, with allowing the casual players to have too of course.
For the game I'm also developing a 2D engine it will use.
But in some sections like graphics and soundeffects I need some help because I have no experience in that, my drawing skills are awful.

I'm developing the game with XNA Game Studio 4.0 in C# and we also have access to xbox only components like creating containers,
show message boxes with the Guide (e.g. When you want to return to dashboard it asks you yes/no) and more.


Don't take this too serious, this is NOT an official job.
This is a free time project, I am doing it in my free time too.


You will get a payment based on how much you did on the game and how much we earned, you get percents of the total earning.
Microsoft takes 30% already and then we have another 100% pot to split
I can't say how much the game will earn, it could be everything from 10€ to 100 000€.
But it won't be a very high value on this one because that's just the game where we get started.


Positions I'm looking for:

Graphic Artist
Sounddesigner
Songdesigner
Co-Programmer

You need to get the tools for what you want to do yourself, and I don't care what you are using, I just want to see a working result.
Please note that we have strict copyright rules, so do not take pictures or soundeffects from others. Even when it's open source/public domain,
ask me before. I take anyone who can do this, and if you're just 14 years it's no problem too, it's even an advantage because this means you have more time.


Graphic Artist:

The most graphics are for the mapsquares, 48x48 pixel blocks which are used as a block to map in the game.
Others things are stuff like menu graphics, creating an own font, ...

Sounddesigner:

The format most likely will be .wav and it's very easy to let them play in the game,
but I need the good sound effects before that.
I can adjust many things on the sound by code such as volume, pitch and pan and if it should loop or not (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd282355(v=xnagamestudio.31).aspx).
Sounds will be a lot of things, when navigating in menu, everything in gameplay, ...

Songdesigner:

I need background music in the game, in the menu and in gameplay, and it shouldn't sound completely random.
Maybe we can get something what already exists here, my personal favourite about epic game music is epic score.
I am willing to pay for songs, but not much actually, so it really could be we are on our own here too.
The songs just will be beats in the techno, dubstep or similar genres.


Co-Programmer:

I can tell you, creating every single line code of a very large project...sucks.
When I have a problem I have to find a solution alone all the time and I absolutely don't know if my solution is good.
A "second brain" would help a lot, it also would shorten the time the game needs.
The programming language is C#, Xna Game Studio is very easy to learn if you know C#, so C# knowledge is enough.
I'm working with reflection in some parts (not in the game project, that would slow down gameplay massively), multiple large projects (total lines of codes 16.000 at the moment),
and all the stuff in C# like inheritance, abstract classes, enums, ...


Don't be shy, especially on the graphic part, you don't need to have photoshop experience, sometimes the stuff I see on an paper is amazing already.
You learn a graphics program like Gimp, Paint.Net or Photoshop in a few days, the graphic skills is the most important part.
I know how to deal with the 3 programs above, but I have no talent in painting

I'm in an education to an IT specialist and I'm doing it in my free time, the most time on weekend.
The game isn't very big, it could be done in spring if I wouldn't have to work.

Let me know if you want to do this thing with me or if you want to support it.
Especially if you want to work later in one of these things stated above, this will help you in your career too.

Wrong english spelling (C) by me.

Best of luck b0x, it must be amazing to work on your own game. I have a friend who did coding at Uni and does it for a job, he's been playing around with making games but I don't think he has the time to commit to it fully just now. Wish I could help, but my coding was terrible at school and can't do particularly much else:(