Content Sherpa group

Parvan

We will be hosting asset competitions, which will earn you a special badge in the forums if you win.

Also, we are in the process of compiling a list of the things we are looking for.

Parvan

Information About Contributing To Cardinal Fall's Development

We welcome everyone who has a desire contribute, regardless of their skill level.

To contribute, please follow the contribution instructions here along with the more detailed instructions for Step 4 (Intent Reply) and Step 5 (Contribution Reply) below.

The project's files can be downloaded here and the install instructions are in the project's readme file.

Please stay on topic. Community replies are welcome, but only if they are directly related to an Intent or Contribution reply. To make one, use the reply button that's directly on the post you're referencing so this thread stays organized. For more general discussions, please start a separate new topic.

Project Requirements

This project has an established quality level, tone, style, theme, and story which can be seen by playing the game's demo. We aim to maintain the same or better level of quality and system requirements as development continues.

This means that, unfortunately, we cannot accept every contribution our community members present to us.

Here is a short, but not exhaustive, list of the criteria which must be followed before we will consider including your content in the game:

Has a similar aesthetic and style without appearing jarring to the player
Fits within the world, which is set in a futuristic science fiction horror setting
Is equal or better to the artistic quality of the demo, with equal being the minimum
Follows industry conventions and is optimized for use in a real-time game
Runs on 10 year old mid-range hardware (E.g. an nVidia GeForce GTX 1050)
Does not have an excessively large file size when compared to similar assets
Was made by you, or with the permission of the original creator which you credited
Does not violate any laws where we are located (The United States of America)

Step 4: Post What You Intend To Create:

To help with clarity, please begin your reply on this thread with the title "Step 4: Intent To Create A XYZ-AssetName" in bold so we know the topic.

Please provide detailed information about your concept so we fully understand what you envision. Providing concept art, examples, or sketches can be very helpful, especially if your idea is elaborate. We strongly encourage it.
After posting, you should check this thread often. Suggestions or input might appear that may alter your plans. For example, it's possible we already have the asset you're suggesting.
Also, make sure you follow the project's requirements listed above.

Step 5: Post Your Contribution

To help with clarity, please begin your reply by clicking the reply button directly below your original Step 4, so everything stays better organized, and add the title "Step 5: Contribution Of XYZ-AssetName" in bold so we know the topic.

Your contribution reply should include screenshot(s) and a link to the content you've made so a Sherpa can inspect it. Please upload your contribution to the file hosting service of your choice (e.g. Google Drive) and follo the instructions on how to structure your content as shown in the section below.
- You may direct message a recently active Sherpa the link and/or screenshots directly if you wish to remain more private.

Step 6: Sherpa's Reply

To help with clarity, a Sherpa will nest their reply directly below your original Step 5 with the title "Step 6: Sherpa's Reply To XYZ" in bold.

Not all content will make it into the project, but that doesn't mean you should be discouraged if what you created wasn't accepted. You will still earn the forum's Contributor badge for your efforts and the experience you gained will be valuable in the future.

How To Structure The Content You Submit

The sheer number of assets in a game project can be daunting. That is why it's important to make sure a project is organized. When you submit a contribution, we require you to follow a few guidelines.

The files you create must be placed in their appropriate directories.

When creating new files, please use this structure: /Content/Imports/YourName/YourAssetFolder/AssetTypePrefix_YourName_AssetName
If your contribution becomes a part of the project, we may move these files into their corresponding project directories.

For any existing files that you modified, you must do the following:

When modifying existing files, you should keep them where they are at.
If there's an ability to add comments, such as with blueprints, you must place comments explaining what the changes do while including your name and date.
You must include detailed information about exactly what you modified.

The content you submit must follow an existing naming convention.

Unreal projects follow certain naming conventions. You should either follow the existing naming conventions already used in the project or this one from Epic.

When you submit content, you should include both the game's files and your source files in the same directory.

For example, if you're making a texture you will likely have two separate assets. One will be the source asset you imported, such as a photoshop (.psd) file, and the other will likely be the asset used by the editor, such as Unreal's binary .uasset format. You should include both of these files. Also, for simplicity, they should be placed in the same directory with the same file name, but with their different corresponding extension.

Finally, when you submit a contribution, you should compress it into a single file with the following naming convention.

YourName_AssetName_FourDigitYear-TwoDigitMonth-TwoDigitDay

Special Instructions For Level Designers

The rules for level designers are as follows:

Each level must be in a separate map file.
They should be named Nadir_SectionName.
They should be placed in /Content/Imports/YourName/Maps.
You should include the MapName_BuiltData.uasset file for easier inspection.
Maps should occupy their own space and away from the others.
Like other maps, the level must be centered on 0 of the X axis.
You cannot modify any existing maps until you're a Committer.
You can base your map off of existing maps through copy and paste.
Your maps must be of equal or better in visual quality to the demo.
Your level design must perform reasonably on a GeForce GTX 1050 or better.

How To Make A Bug Report

Please place your bug reports into the generic bug reports page here.
(If you were granted access to the repository, please make detailed reports on the repository issues page.)

We appreciate the bug reports we receive. They are invaluable, especially since we don't have the hardware to test every hardware configuration that is possible.

Parvan

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about this process, feel free to post them below.

Parvan

We want to allow those who are less technical to participate in the bug reporting process.

General users won't find it easy and convenient to open/create issues within our repositories. Here we allow anyone, even unregistered guests, to post in order to have a more painless bug reporting experience.

Parvan

We would like to keep our rules simple and easy to understand. If we need to expand this further, we will review and revise what rules we have posted above.

Parvan

August 2025 | Expanding The Community

We are in the final stages of finishing a small demo of the game we have been working on internally. Before doing so, we are working on making sure we have the infrastructure in place to support our community when we open this project for collaborative development.

This involves migrating from our Mercurial repositories that run on Kallithea to the newer and more feature filled Forgejo. This move will allow us to take advantage of Git File Locking, which is likely to be a requirement for a larger team while working with binary files.

When we started developing Cardinal Menu, Git LFS was new and most open source repositories consumed a very large amount of memory when working with large binary files. We didn't want to pay for a VPS that had both a large storage capacity and a large amount of system memory. They can be expensive.

There's still a lot of things to set up. And everything takes far longer than it would seem. But we are shooting for a late 2025 release.

We hope to see you on the road ahead.

Parvan

If you're interested in being a part of our community, we would like to know more about who you are and what motivates you to be a part of us.

Please write a brief biography that centers around:

your level of game development experience (none is okay, everyone starts somewhere)
a list of your skills and your level of proficiency (low skilled is okay, we are here to learn)
how you became interested in games and their development
a list of your favorite games and genres, especially concerning their style and gameplay
what motivates you to help with a project that won't pay you in return
and what you like about this project

You're welcome to make this as detailed or as minimal as you'd like as long as you answer those six bullet points.

Parvan

If you find any bugs within anything we do, you're welcome to tell us here.

Please provide as much detail as you can by describing exactly what you were doing when you experienced the issue.

If you can, providing screenshots or videos can be very helpful if the situation calls for it.

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