Creature (and Gameplay) Programmer

7 Months ago • 4 Years +

Gameplay

Job Description

We are seeking a Creature (and Gameplay) Programmer to bring our creatures to life in a game centered around a field biologist interacting with diverse creatures. Responsibilities include leveraging animation, physics, AI, and gameplay programming to create unsettlingly realistic creatures. You will analyze animal movement and behavior, create robust systems responsive to player input (e.g., poking a creature), explore Unreal's procedural VFX systems (Niagara and Chaos), collaborate with designers on gameplay prototypes, and work with artists and animators on creature development and polishing. The ideal candidate possesses a strong background in C++, vector math, and basic physics, with experience in Unreal Engine being a plus. This role offers a blend of technical challenges and creative opportunities, allowing you to contribute significantly to the game's unique aesthetic and gameplay.

Good To Have:

Unreal Engine experience
Interest in science and biology
Interest in procedural animation

Must Have:

4+ years professional game dev experience
Strong C++ background
Comfortable with vector math and basic physics

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

real-time-vfx

cpp

unreal

unity

prototyping

creature

vector-math

Creature (and Gameplay) Programmer

We're looking for a programmer who can help us bring our creatures to life.

Our is about a field biologist interacting with a wide variety of mundane and fantastical creatures. We're trying to create moments that echo the mesmerizing familiarity and strangeness of real life encounters with wild animals. Like a , a , or a but filtered through an aesthetic that includes classic fairytales, Jim Henson, and Junji Ito.

Your role will be finding programmatic ways to help our creatures feel unsettlingly alive. That's likely to include a mix of animation, physics, AI, and gameplay programming. It's OK if you don't have direct experience in all these areas but you should have a background that includes technically complex, player-facing systems.

This might be a good fit for you if you'd enjoy:

Analyzing real animal movement and behavior to figure out ways to improve our creatures' sense of liveliness.
Creating robust that are responsive to player input, eg being poked with a pencil.
Exploring Unreal's procedural VFX systems including and . Our goal is to create characters that can playfully respond to perturbation like .
Working with designers on gameplay prototypes, eg building a prehensile tongue that can "crawl" around the environment in a suitably stretchy, squishy way.
Collaborating with character artists and animators on building and polishing our creatures.

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