project-lumen

[project-lumen]

what are our chances to get selected? is there a limit to how many people you will accept?

also, is there a certain artstyle we have to follow if we apply for artist?

Hi! Thank you for your questions!

So our current plan is 12 character artists so each can take care of a Lifer's talking sprites, however, as we contact our first picks, we might add more if they wish to be helped with a specific season's sprites, it's up to them to decide which seasons they want to take care of and whether or not they want additional help. For background artists we are looking for around 5 and around 7 writers, however if we pick someone who asked to be a character artist as well as a writer, they will not count toward the 7 writers count but will be allowed to do the work of a writer too! :D

For artstyle, I think we’re still somewhat discussing but the current plan is each character artist will get to use their own art style, but adhere to a colour palette and aesthetic. For background artists, they will have to follow each season's style. An art guide will be out between today and tomorrow to give you all a better picture.

- Kori

[project-lumen]

I am so excited for this project!! I don’t have any questions, I just wanted to thank everyone involved for starting this. I have applied, but whether or not I get accepted I still plan on supporting this as much as a can, whether it involves helping to brainstorm ideas, help with organization, or even just as a supportive audience member excited for it to come out. Thank you guys so much for starting this! It’s such a lovely contribution to a community made up of love and passion for storytelling.

Hello, and thank you so much!

Thanks for applying, and seriously, THANK YOU FOR THE SUPPORT! Personally, and this is just me, but I didn't actually think that within four days we would've caught on SO much! We're all really glad that people are seriously into this concept and really want to see it happen <3

- Arto

[project-lumen]

Will the project be organised/developed on Discord or on an alternative platform?

Thank you for asking!!

It is organised mainly through a private tumblr community.

-pinkish

[project-lumen]

are there age limits / age requirements?

as in do you have to be older than a certain age?

As per Tumblr's T.O.S., you must be at least 13 or older to use the platform, so we will be using that as our minimum!

And as long as you are younger than 99 years, you should be good to go :]

(Sorry to you all eldritch immortal folks :[ )

- Definitely not Kori

[project-lumen]

How does the application process go on your side of things? Or what are you looking for when considering people?

Anyways, I’m super excited to see how this goes!

Quoting Mumbo:

"The process is actually quite simple."

When considering people, we are looking for passion and willingness to work together as a team. We are searching for those who can contribute to our silly game solely fueled by their love for the Life Series, whether it be with ideas, designs, lore, art or music!

We have a good ol' spreadsheet with the form responses, classified by the work each person wishes to do, we will decide based on that, for art apps we will assign each one a Lifer depending on who's their favorite (will contact them with offers to draw other Lifer if there are repeats) and will choose based on reason for joining and familiarity with the Series, for writing apps we will decide mostly based on their familiarity with the Life Series and reason for joining and most likely will accept most, if not all those who offered to help in other areas :]

Thank you for the questions, and we are all very excited to share this project with you all! I am truly flattered by the reception we are having!

-The professional yapper (aka Kori)

note: please do not let me answer any other asks or I'll be sent to the air jail/lh

[project-lumen]

when will acceptance/rejection notices be sent out?

also, is project lumen the official name of the actual game, or does the game have a different name?

The applications will be open until January 8th and the announcement of the new members will go live on the 12th, so be sure to stay tuned and send in your applications! :D We will be contacting applicants from the time the form closes to give them more instructions and settle final details

And Project LUMEN is only a placeholder/codename, the game will definitely have a different name, we just needed a way to easily identify it while we come up with the final name :3

Thank you very much for the questions by the way!

-Kori

[project-lumen]

Meet the team! (ft. everyone who is contributing so far :D)

🎧🌎 Arto, they/them (@artooftheghosts) --- Musician by blood, hobby artist, procrastinator, marching band kid, silly guy, local skykid, ice cream sandwich enthusiast (the food, but also the youtuber!), polandballer nationstates folk, AND many many more fandoms I refuse to list!

"Ladies, gentlemen, and all or none between! Arto of Artoznik here, live from Arizona, USA, tinkering with the music and some character designs of Project LUMEN! Here to help with concepts and ideas and a lot of the lore (Watcher Child we love you). Thank you Kori for making a public post about this and accepting my completely unprompted request to join!!! I love it when people just talk to me in general, so even if you're not into the project, come and say hi :D"

🦜💛 Pinkish (or any variation, pink, pinkie etc), any pronouns, @pinkish29 —- artist, writer, intheskibidiwood creator, and above all else pro slime rancher!!

“Hello!! I’m Pinkish, and I’m working on art, character design, lore-making, brainstorming and concepts. I’m super stoked to be involved in such a cool project <3! I love all things bird, and mantis, I also adore chats, so feel free!!!”

🌌✨️Kori/Lyrien, they/he (@kaos-lyrikourai) --- Programmer, concept artist, 3d sculptor, chaotic thespian menace, math enjoyer, and videogame enthusiast extraordinaire, among many other secret trades

"Greetings and salutations, folks! I will be the Captain of all the other technical stuff regarding the development of Project LUMEN, aka the code and mechanics, as well as some of the concepts, art and other bits and bobs here and there! I'm very excited to have y'all's company in this videogame making odyssey, and if you have any queries or suggestions, I will be more than glad to answer them the best I can! Cheers and good travels, folks! May the stars be ever in your favor and thank you for faring with us."

[project-lumen]

What if you aren’t sure how much you can contribute (like if you have real life stuff going on, or just don’t have a lot of time)

Or, by the application form, if you could be a background or a character design, but you aren’t sure which one?

Or if your art style doesn’t fit with the theme?

Or if you’re an aspiring writer/artist, but not a professional one (not one of the best that is to say)?

Hi hello hello, thank you for the ask, those are important questions to answer, so, here we go :]

Project LUMEN is a passion project, and all members of the team have stuff going on irl, as such, we do not expect you to dedicate all day every day to the project, just as many contributions as you desire or are able to help us with. Just remember, this is all for fun! Think of it more as a group project haha

The background/character artist thing is supposed to be more about general art, and we will contact the folks as we decide to give them further instructions. Background artist is more about general backgrounds, like menus and UI. And character artists will each be in charge of drawing a Lifer's talking sprites, using their very own style and methods. As such, we will not request them to adapt to the game's chosen artstyle unless they want to help with other art such as overworld/battle animations, UI or items, as we wish to keep the game varied, but not inconsistent.

And as for art or writing experience, we are not looking for that and your level of expertise will not impact our decisions, we are just looking for people who are willing to aid us with this, any and all contributions are truly appreciated, whether it be just ideas, script snippets, dialogues, art, or something else. This is by no means meant to be a serious project with strict deadlines or anything of the sort, this is solely fueled by our love for the Life Series and is a tribute to the wonderful community surrounding it and their passion and talent.

-Kori + Arto

[project-lumen]

A few questions: Do any of the organisers have coding or game-dev experience? Do you guys have a turnaround or schedule for the production of this game? What will your game be based in?

Hi, thank you for your questions, and I’ll try answer them to the best of my abilities !!

Kori does, and plans to code (‼️)

As for schedule, we have a pretty loose one in mind, since this is a passion project and all, it's more of a roadmap with no defined dates. We are currently putting in all our efforts to completing the Third Life portion, starting with character designs and the groundwork for programming, so we can then move on to actual sprite work, and meanwhile start modeling backgrounds, then get the sprites and backgrounds into the game, fix details, then release an early alpha version to get your thoughts and comments, take the feedback, improve the game, repeat the cycle and continue developing until we have the final release. There will probably be the pre-alpha version with just the Third Life content, and then an alpha version with more content, a beta, and then the final release. When? No idea, soon enough, we hope.

As for your final question, I am assuming you are referring to coding language? But please do correct me if I'm wrong, the current plan is to use C# in Unity for our game :D

Pinkie (and Kori (mostly Kori))

[project-lumen]

Have you ever wondered how the Life Series would look like as a videogame?

Then I bring to you…

Project LUMEN: APPLICATIONS OPEN!!

Ever wanted to relive the stories woven by the Watchers, exceeding the limits of what Minecraft is able to offer? How about venturing in a perilous journey full of twists and turns, and most importantly, loooooooooooore?

Well, why hello there! To kick off the start of 2025, Kori, Arto and Pinkie here, and we are proud to present “Project LUMEN”! Our newest scheme to conceptualize and develop a video game based off the traffic-colored hearts we are all so familiar with. An ambitious project, that’s for sure, and that is why we are opening applications to join our little team, right on time to welcome the new year! :]

(way more info under the cut, get ready)

Once a pile of jumbled, senseless ideas, Project LUMEN has evolved into a more fleshed-out collection of story beats and mechanics. An RPG-like game revolving around the tales within the Life Series, a collection of death games ran by the mysterious deities that call themselves Watchers. The player takes on the role of the Watcher Child (affectionately referred to as WC), following and guiding the Champions chosen by the Watchers themselves through challenges and enemies. Featuring unique leveling systems, DnD inspired classes, and, most importantly, the ability to impact the story with the choices you make… because, after experiencing all the Life Series seasons from both the Watcher and the Player side, maybe you’ll have a change of mind. After all is said and done and seen, the world is yours to shape, Watcher Child.

Right, so that’s a basic summary of the concept we have, now here’s a little preview of what we have written for the prologue :3

Chapter 0: ‘The Watcher’s Apprentice’

The player takes the form of a Watcher in training, an ageless child, the Watcher Child. The most powerful and ancient Watchers, unexplained cryptic creatures that live up to their name by watching all, talk about a new series of experiments they have been running, called “The Life Series”.

The only rundown that the WC was given was that a carefully selected group of talented players were asked to test their little Life game for them, where they each have only three lives. Whoever survives last, wins. There were no rules as to how they could play the games. The Watchers then add that they, along other WCs, will be observing from the viewpoint and thoughts of one of the players. This is so the WC can get an idea of the Watchers' work. Of course, our little WC was ecstatic and ever so curious about this new idea.

Fast-forward (and after a couple of tutorials showing off the bare basics of the battle mechanics in the actual game), now our WC was standing in a circle with other apprentices just like them. The Watchers then hold a deck of mystic cards in front of each of them, and everyone picks one. When the cards are revealed, our WC sees a glowing, red card with a person on it. The card simply said, "THE SUN".

Huh, I wonder who could that be…

Now, we get into the thick of it: who are we searching for to join our team? Well, there are some requirements that the potential members should fulfill, here’s a comprehensive list of key points:

We are mainly looking for artists to help us with designs, sprites, backgrounds and UI. Although, we also welcome any writers willing to help us with developing concepts and adding more ideas!

Every person who applies should be involved with the Life Series fandom, we want to build a team with people as passionate about this Minecraft series as we are!

When answering the Application Form, please type in your favorite type of flower (in case you do not have one, just write 'sunflower') in the "Anything else to add?" part, this is only to ensure you've read the announcement :]

Welp, glad you asked. The current plan is, while the applications go on for a week or two, constantly post pieces of concept art and just story bits on this blog, then all the people selected to join the team will be added to the blog as members. We plan to post updates, concept art, sprites and small lore drops periodically on that blog to hopefully garner an audience, and it will also be open for asks and suggestions so that, even if some users aren’t part of the team, they can still help bring this absolute beast of a game to life. Ideally we will work on a small demo experience first with placeholders and stuff to just get the mechanics right and get some testers, and after that, use all feedback, polish the art, deliver a beta version for playtesting, then fix the last details and then release the full version on itch.io, that’s our roadmap. :D (there's the possibility to also publish a browser version to Newgrounds with mobile compatibility tho, so mobile users do not fear!)

Well, Project LUMEN is a very, very hefty task, a big plan to undertake, and, in all honesty, too much work for only three people. Also, talking from experience, having other person involved in development has helped LUMEN to give gigantic steps, helping to ground ideas and give inspiration, now, imagine how far we could go if we had more people in this squad. We are not only looking for artists, we are looking for people whom we can brainstorm with and throw concepts around to polish them and grow the game even more. However, we also wish to keep the team directly working on the game fairly reduced, we are thinking 3–5 people more, but depending on the amount of responses we have, we might consider expanding that number.

The spirit of the game is to be made by the community for the community, we want to offer a quality game, and, by working together, we will be able to make Project LUMEN the best it can be. Though, you need to be aware that this project is solely fueled by the passion we have for the Life Series, and we will not profit off it at all. Please, take into account that this is likely going to be a months-long project, and only apply if you are willing to put in the effort in the long-run, that’s all we ask for.

On the bright side though, by joining in the developing of the game, you’ll be able to contribute to it as much as you’d like, change anything, add anything! You’ll have your rightful spot in the credits and probably a cameo in-game, the team may be small, but we know that, with the right people, we will be able to get it done (cleo is in the storyline too dw).

Application Form!