I posted the progress of this under a different title in the "Show off your project!" forum; I think it's matured enough since then for me to start begging.

The Veil & the Khyber Knife is a non-continguous variation on the knight's tour puzzle. You move like the knight in chess, and some squares must be visited more than once. Score is affected by multiple factors: the completion of levels in a closed-tour, time attack, retries, etc. The dagger's teleportation ability gives the game a higher level of complexity, obscuring simple strategies.

Demo: http://avgvst.ucoz.com/index.html

I'm looking for ten 320x480 resolution still-frame narrative sequences. As far as the art style goes, I'm open to anything - chibi, watercolor, Disney-esque, it really doesn't matter as long as the content of the requested scenes are obvious and identifiable. They could be simple black and white sketches, and I'd be more than happy.

I'm using GML code, specific to Game Maker (which is closed source,) although an open source IDE does exist, and I'd be happy to make my game open source, releasing both the project file and the GML, if it makes a difference to you.

With the exception of designing many, many more levels, the bulk of the work is done. But if you don't think the project is polished enough to warrant the level of commitment I'm asking for, I'll be patient and ask again when more has been completed.

Ideally the art would be released CC-BY-SA. While the art would function as a series of narrative stills for my game, it could also work quite well as concept art for others.

The requested scenes:

1. The Dervish is seen fishing, with a basket of fish at his side
2. He reluctantly trades his haul to an Old Man for a mysterious puzzle book
3. He wanders the desert, bearing harsh winds
4. A Djinn appears before the Dervish
5. The Djinn makes an offer, tearing the sky with a glowing damascus blade, revealing the stars
6. The Dervish stares intently at the blade in a meditative pose
7. He postpones his decision to use it, taking the book into his hands
8. He opens the book, revealing arcane script and labyrinthine puzzles
9. The very last page is an illuminating illustration of endless stairs
10. The Dervish throws the blade into the river

There won't be any in-game text explaining the plot, so it's open to interpretation. You've got absolute free reign to fiddle with the details and character designs as you like.