How Do I start?

Parvan

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

Parvan

How Do I start?

We want to keep the management of our projects as easy and intuitive as we can. Using a top-down management style with creative people isn’t always the best approach, especially with those who develop games for free as a hobby.

You're welcome to stop at any of these steps, but we encourage you to continue as far as you can. Game development is difficult, but practice makes perfect.

Here are the seven (7! ) "easy" steps to earn the contributor forum badge! Here's how to get your name in the credits for one of our projects:

1. Introduce yourself here.

2. Pick a project you want to help us with and read the project's instructions.

For Example: Jane Doe, who happens to be a modeler, stumbled across Cardinal Fall but hasn't created any meshes for a game before. She decided this project was a good fit because she doesn't want to be too committed to a project and there are no formal applications. She was looking for a quick weekend project that could double as an assignment in her design class.

3. Post about what you intend to create by following the instructions in the project's forum thread.

Example: After playing Cardinal Fall's demo, Jane noticed the demo doesn't have a medpack, which is a common item for a game. As a result, she posted in the project's Instructions thread that she intends to create a medpack mesh and included a detailed description of what she intends for it to look like along with some inspirational concept art that she found on the internet. In the thread, a Content Sherpa confirmed that the project does need a medpack mesh, that he likes the concept art, and that she's welcome to create one.
Note: You're welcome to start creating assets without permission at any point, but if you create one without asking, it's possible we may do things like expanding our requirements or we may inform you the style you're going for doesn't fit with the project's vision.

4. Download the project’s files from the direct download page, create your asset while following general industry practices, like keeping the polycount within a target range, and testing it thoroughly.

Example: Jane downloaded Cardinal Fall’s project files and proceeded to follow the instructions. She's never worked with Unreal Engine before, but she's determined to create an art asset that gets accepted into a game project. She made sure to research what a typical polycount and texture filesize was for the mesh she making and compared it to already existing assets in the project.

5. Post your contribution by following the instructions in that project’s forum thread.

Example: In the project's thread and after a challenging weekend, Jane posted a screenshot of her completed medpack mesh and a download link where she uploaded the mesh for a Sherpa to inspect. She made sure to follow the instructions and placed the asset in the correct project directory.

6. After you’ve posted your contribution, one of the project’s content Sherpas will reply about what you’ve created, and you will earn the "Contributor" forum badge even if your contribution isn't accepted into the project itself.

If your contribution is finished, meets or exceeds the minimum quality established by the project, follows the correct tone and style, and conforms to the rules and guidelines, a content Sherpa may grant you access to the repository so you can begin committing your work into to the project.
Example: The Sherpa reviewed Jane's contribution in the Instructions thread, noted its unique and fitting style with a low poly count, and sent her a private message saying she would be granted access to the repository if she wanted. In response, Jane opened an account on the git repository and told the Sherpa her username. The Sherpa granted her push permissions on the project's repository and Jane made sure to read the git instructions.

7. Once you push an accepted commit, you will earn the "Committer" badge. At this stage, you will experience more interaction with the project's core contributors. Congratulations, thank you for your hard work, and welcome to the team!

Example: Even though Jane's college assignment was finished, she was inspired by the process and was determined to go further. As a result, she forked the project's repository and successfully made a pull request for her new mesh. The commit was inspected, accepted, and she was granted the "Committer" forum badge as it was merged into the main branch. Jane felt so rewarded and accomplished knowing that her medpack was put to good use that she decided to help with more aspects of the project and eventually became one of our main artists. Down the road, Jane Doe used her contributions here to build her resume and she landed her first game design job with a small indie company.

For ideas about what kinds of content we are looking for, take a look at the project’s already released content or look for a list of what's needed. Or you can look for inspiration from other games and development projects in general and suggest adding that feature into the project. It’s not uncommon for creative individuals to find inspiration by looking around.

How Do Project Credits Work?

Everyone who submits anything to us in the forums (Step 6) will receive the forum contributor badge. On top of that, everyone who pushes an accepted commit will have their name put into that project's credits.

And even if you contributed content that didn't earn you the ability to push a commit or if a commit you pushed wasn't accepted, but we still used it in some fashion, we will grant you credit. This includes any content from other sources, such as open source content which we found ourselves and put into a project.

Don’t feel discouraged if you aren’t granted committer status. Everyone’s contributions are valuable and your efforts here provide an inspiration for others. All development is a part of the learning experience, no matter the quality.

Parvan

December 2025 | Cardinal Fall Is Now On The Epic Games Store

For Black Friday, Cardinal Fall was released on the Epic Games Store.

Because Epic Onine Services weren't as developed for Unreal 4 as they are on Unreal 5 and we used a plugin called Advanced Sessions for match making, the Epic Games Store version only includes single player. Currently, we are working behind the scenes to release the project on Unreal 5 in order to support cross platform matchmaking. It's not an easy task since it requires re-creating some of the things we have already built.

Parvan

October 2025 | The Steam Release of Cardinal Fall's Introductory Level

Our first early preview of Cardinal Fall was released on Steam just in time for Halloween.

The is an early release that only includes the introductory level. Networking and co-op is implemented, but the introductory level doesn't include any major co-op gameplay outside of finding each other using coordination and having the correct items. If you are looking for a co-op game to play with friends, check back for our future releases. Until then, we recommend you play solo.

If you'd like to help out, you can donate, buy the Donation DLC, or contribute as a developer.

Thanks! We hope you enjoy it.

Parvan

Here is the condensed form of my introduction:

Abilities ranked best to worst: level design, visual scripting, infrastructure management, project management, 2d artist, 3d artist, programming. Level design skills on par with a decent mod team. No industry experience, but many years of casual hobby experience.
Games and game development have interested me since I was young. See below…
Half-Life, System Shock 2, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Dead Space 2, and various strategy and building games like Space Engineers. Oh, and Tarkov, where I will forever be a Timmy.
I like helping with things that are bigger than myself.
I like that this is a nonprofit with long term goals.

For those interested in reading the long version, click on the spoiler button below.

I began my journey into hobby game development when I was 11. Half-Life and its mods were a huge passion of mine, although my first knack at level design was with the JED editor, nothing will ever surpass Half-Life for me. And looking back, if anyone accused me of thinking of Valve as a patron saint for supporting the mod community and enabling independent developers to bypass publishers, I would be guilty as charged.

Outside of Half-Life, my favorite games of all time would be System Shock 2, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and Dead Space 2. I would say certain strategy games, like Space Engineers, were a big-time sink for me, but they didn’t leave lasting impressions like the others did, which I found to be far more immersive. Currently, Tarkov has me held captive as a willing victim. As far as aesthetics goes, Alien Isolation is very high up there, but the gameplay left more to be desired in my opinion. As you can see, I like immersive scifi and horror shooters with a story. My favorite science fiction universe is Aliens.

Half-Life, though, was truly a life raft for me for multiple reasons. At a young age, I became very ill and was eventually diagnosed with a serious autoimmune disease. I withdrew from the real world and preferred to immerse myself inside the Worldcraft editor instead. Life was simpler there. And I could escape into my imagination.

I began as a mapper. Lighting a good scene was a challenging aspect of level design that I often enjoyed. I dabbled in other aspects of game design, such as making custom menus and textures. And, for a while, I began creating a single player continuation of the Half-Life series, which I never intended to finish past the tram ride scene.

As time passed, I moved on from my single player project, having lost interest after finishing the tram ride and the introduction level. I crave immersion and without help from other developers, I wasn’t able to change up the combat in ways that felt fresh. So continuing its development felt stale and I moved onto other things. As a result of realizing my solo limitations, I joined a few small mod teams, while following a few others. But one of the common themes I continued to notice, which wasn’t a rare experience, was the eventual dissolution of the mod teams I followed.

Developing a game isn’t easy. There are a lot of factors involved. Everything from the technical challenges, the skill required, team politics, and daily life continually interfering with a project’s progress often came into play. For me, dealing with health issues has always been a major hurdle of mine. I often found myself without the energy to continue with something as much as I would have liked.

For one of the mod teams I helped with, the hurdle we faced was the project’s lead, who was also the programmer, never making backups. Catastrophe struck with the failure of his hard drive and we lost all of our code. He never told anyone about the lack of backups. And nobody thought to ask. So, in a way, you could say the entire team was at fault. But that’s not how everyone felt.

On an even darker note, another team I followed closely ended up closing following the suicide of the founder. And unfortunately for everyone involved with the project, he took the server down with him and even sabotaged the backups. The team tried to salvage the pieces, but the loss was too great, and they disbanded. It was sad, especially since the mod was very promising and their screenshots showed they had real talent. Despite the mod getting within the top five on moddb at its peak, to this day, ‘just another failed mod’ is a theme of the project’s comments, with few ever knowing the true context.

Perhaps those reading this have had their own similar experiences, which were hopefully not as extreme as the last example. Unfortunately, it’s all too common for game development projects to become abandoned. I imagine the majority of those reading this have projects that sit in the dustbin of their unfinished accomplishments. And if it’s not something that you’ve experienced personally in your journey within game development, I’d be surprised if you were more than one degree of separation from someone who has.

After contemplating my own experiences, and the shared experiences of others, I came to the conclusion that it’s probably more useful to brainstorm something new than it would be to continue on the same path of joining another small hobbyist team that, by all probability, will eventually disband after having released nothing.

At first, I started looking for something similar that already existed. After all, being a pragmatist, I would rather join in others endeavors than reinvent the wheel. I’ve always preferred to be the person who stays in the background. But in my efforts of searching, I found nothing.

It wasn’t that the scene was devoid of developers, they were still easy to find. But to myself, it appeared as if the hobbyist game development community had gone through a culture change. With increasing frequency, more and more projects seemed to be focused on the desire to become the next new indie studio.

Perhaps this was because game development was becoming increasingly more difficult. Maybe releasing a free project wasn’t as appealing to as many anymore. Or perhaps it was a cultural shift with the next generation. Or maybe everyone just observed what happened to most of the late 90’s and early 2000’s mods. They never materialized. I still don’t know the reason. But it definitely appeared that the community experienced a major cultural shift by the late 2000’s and the 2010’s. It was hard to find a team that didn’t have plans, secret or not, to have an eventual commercial release.

That left me without a place, and without the same culture like I experienced in the late 90’s. Back then, it seemed like everyone was releasing things for free. And they did so because of either a desire to build a resume for a job in the industry, or as a hobby like myself.

In retrospect, I suppose it wasn’t even a realistic possibility to have a commercial release back then. You’d need some serious capital. Online distribution didn’t exist yet, publishers still controlled everything, and engine licenses were the price of a yacht. In a way, that hurdle probably brought everyone together. It really wasn’t even possible to profit off of a mod, unless you were the lucky few blessed by Valve.

With that context in mind, I should return to the topic at hand. Can anything be done about the seeming post-90’s cultural shift that occurred within the hobby game development community? I figured if I couldn’t find a community that was a good fit for me, maybe I should start building one instead of hoping someone else would. After all, I’ve always been someone who has tried to navigate the starkly contrasted line between being realistic and idealistic. Perhaps I should make a hobby of the endeavor and see where it ends up.

That’s the motivation behind Metahusk. This place is rooted in a desire to return to the older days of hobby game development, where we build things because it interests us, not because we have the goal of finding money or success. I went looking for a nonprofit development project like this, and I couldn't find one. And if you know of one, please let us know. We would like to reach out.

So at a slow pace and when I have the health and energy, I've been helping get the ball roll down the hill over here. And that’s what I like about it. This is a place where I can put my creative energy, when I have it, and where I feel like what I’m doing matters in ways outside of myself.

Ultimately, this is a place to learn and share as you create, governed by a nonprofit structure, with the long term goal of building a physical location that will provide a place to help the next generation enter the world of game development in the same way the old 1990’s mod forums did for the generations in the past.

Thank you for reading all that. And hopefully it provides better context into my motivation for being here.

Parvan

Asset Creation Competition

We are hosting two competitions which will be open until further notice. We will announce a 90 day heads-up for the competition's deadline.

Competition 1: A Dystopian "Motivational" Poster

For competition number 1, we are looking for the best looking motivational poster that fits a dystopian scifi theme.

The prize? You get a special forum badge. On top of that, we may use the image in the game, grant you committer status, and list you in the game's credits if we use your art.

Here's the requirements:

Content: this can be anything that resembles a corporate motivational poster, but the more believable, yet bleak, the better
Style: a feel that would look fitting for the Aliens, System Shock, or Deadspace universe.
Texture Resolution: A standard movie poster size at 2592x3840 pixels (27 x 40 inches or 68.58 x 101.6 centimeters)

Competition 2: A SciFi Medpack

For competition number 2, we are looking for the best looking medpack that fits a dystopian scifi theme.

The prize? You get a special forum badge. On top of that, we may use the mesh in the game, grant you committer status, and list you in the game's credits if we use your mesh.

Here's the requirements:

Function: a handheld medpack that will be on the floor for a player to pick up
Style: a feel that would look fitting for the Aliens or Deadspace universe
Size: small enough to be portable yet large enough for the player to see on the floor
Special Features: place the origin point in a location where it makes sense for the player to hold the medpack so it can be easily attached to the players hand
Polycount: under 5,000 with 3-4 levels of detail (if it works well with your mesh, engine automatically generated lod's are okay)
Texture Resolution: 1024×1024 or less for each type of texture if possible, up to 2048×2048 if necessary for a more complex mesh

Parvan

Information About Contributing To Cardinal Fall's Development

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

The first question that most will probably ask is, well, what should I create? That's a good question. We are working on an exhaustive list of everything we need here, but that takes time. In the meantime, follow these instructions and pick something from that list, or create whatever your imagination inspires you to do that still fits within the theme of the project.

To contribute, please follow the Contribution Instructions along with the more detailed instructions for Step 4 (Intent Reply), Step 5 (Contribution Reply), the section How To Structure The Content You Submit, and any Special Instructions that apply to you below.

The project's development files can be downloaded here. (The install instructions are in the project's readme file.) It would be useful to have played the game's small demo on Epic or Steam and to glance at the design document.

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 introductory level on Epic or Steam. 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 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 follow the instructions on how to structure your content 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, you can use it for your portfolio, 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 our projects are 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/YourAssetTypeFolder/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:

If it's possible with the asset in question, such as with a material, you should make a copy of it and place it into /Content/Imports/YourName/YourAssetTypeFolder/ instead of modifying the original.
If you have to modify an existing file, you should keep them where they are at.
If there's an ability to add comments, such as with blueprints, you must place comments in blue explaining what the changes do while including your name and date.
In your contribution forum post, 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 with the same name but with a different extension, if possible.

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 you create must be in a separate map file.
Your maps should be named Nadir_YourSectionName.
The maps 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 that is separated from the other maps.
Like other maps, the level must be centered on 0 of the X axis. (Where the player walks)
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 File A Bug Report

Please leave your bug reports in the bug reports page here.
(If you have the repository committer badge, 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 configuration that is possible.

First-Cohort

Posts

How Do I start?

Here are the seven (7! ) "easy" steps to earn the contributor forum badge! Here's how to get your name in the credits for one of our projects:

How Do Project Credits Work?

Asset Creation Competition

Competition 1: A Dystopian "Motivational" Poster

Competition 2: A SciFi Medpack

Information About Contributing To Cardinal Fall's Development

Project Requirements

Step 4: Post What You Intend To Create:

Step 5: Post Your Contribution

Step 6: Sherpa's Reply

How To Structure The Content You Submit

Special Instructions For Level Designers

How To File A Bug Report

Member List