Advanced Level Designer

1 Month ago • 5 Years +

Job Summary

Job Description

As an Advanced Level Designer at Certain Affinity, you will be responsible for creating, managing, and directing levels and activities for AAA shooters. Your tasks involve designing layouts, encounters, events, puzzles, objectives, and missions. You will ensure levels and gameplay loops converge to eliminate friction and drive the design and creative process. The role includes collaborating with narrative and mission teams, environment art, and project stakeholders while gathering feedback from playtests.

Must have:

5+ years of level design experience.
Understanding of level design principles.
Knowledge of game design principles.
Hands-on experience with Unreal Engine.
Practical skills in Blueprints or other scripting technologies.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
Ability to collaborate with cross-discipline teams.
Ability to self-manage and thrive in a collaborative environment.

Good to have:

Shipped title experience.
Scripting and/or programming experience.
Eye for art composition.
Creative writing and dialogue experience.
Experience leading a team.

6 skills required

6 skills required for this role

Add these skills to join the top 1% applicants for this job

blueprints

level-design

unreal

composition

creative-writing

script-writing

Job Details

Advanced Level Designer
***Candidate must be located in Ontario***

Description

Would you like to work on some of the greatest franchises in gaming history? What about working on our new original IP? Certain Affinity is the largest independent developer in Texas, based out of Austin, and we have a growing presence in Toronto, Canada. Our culture reflects the values and the vibrant nature of the cities we call home. This includes a commitment to evolution, diversity, excellence, and work-life balance. We are also excited to be a recipient of the Canadian Studio of the Year award. We're best known for co-developing numerous AAA FPS games, though now we are creating compelling new games of our own. We're always on the lookout for amazing talent to join our team.

As an Advanced Level Designer at Certain Affinity you are responsible for creating, managing, and directing levels and activities for AAA shooters. Your skills encompass both the creative and technical elements of design, allowing you to create a wide variety of levels and activities including layouts, encounters, events, puzzles, objectives and missions.

If you have extensive experience creating and directing level designs, are eager to have an impact, motivated to support the needs of both development teams and external partners, and are open to new challenges, we’d like to hear from you. We are working on some really exciting projects and would love to see if we are a match!

Responsibilities

Create, direct and manage the development of game levels from concept to ship.
Ensure the convergence of levels and gameplay loops to eliminate friction for the player experience.
Define and drive quality with regards to the flow of created game spaces.
Drive the design and creative process for game levels, working with other teams to create objectives, challenges, puzzles, and events that fit within game spaces.
Collaborate with the narrative and mission team of designers, engineers, cinematic artists, and writers to ensure the local and overarching narrative is being told in the levels.
Work closely with environment art to create play spaces that are both fun to play and visually appealing.
Assist the project stakeholders in reviewing levels, as well as full builds of the game and providing regular feedback to the project leads and development team
Help drive playtests to gather critical level feedback from players and develop a plan of action to address issues.

Requirements

Minimum 5+ years of experience as a level designer.
A thorough grasp of good level design principles (geometry blockout, flow, difficulty, risk, and reward, pacing, tension, etc.)
Deep knowledge of game design principles and how they contribute to player engagement and enjoyment.
Understanding of game design tools, software, and real-time game engines, with hands-on, practical experience in Unreal Engine.
Demonstrated practical skills using Blueprints, or other advanced scripting technologies
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills and methodology.
Ability to collaborate with cross-discipline teams including art, audio, engineering, and narrative.
Thrives in a highly iterative, highly collaborative environment.
Highly self-motivated and able to self-manage.

Extra Credit

Shipped title experience.
Scripting and/or programming experience.
Eye for art composition, architectural concepts, and an ability to create evocative layouts.
Creative writing/story creation and dialogue experience.
Experience leading and supporting a quality-driven team.

Certain Affinity or its partners or affiliates run background checks on candidates or employees with written authorization from the candidates or employees. These may be done to offer employment or determine eligibility to work on a specific project. Multiple searches may be required.