Game Designer, Gameplay Systems

Duration: Full-Time

Location: Remote; must be able to work in Canada

Your Impact Will Be:

You will work within a cross-disciplinary gameplay team to help originate and prove systems in support of the project mandate. You will own the design and implementation of multiple systems, including tuning and bug fixing. Over the lifetime of the project, you will help ensure the team and project find success through the implementation of highly dynamic game systems. Your systems will make players happy and keep them engaged for years on end.

What You’ll Be Responsible For:

Commitment to a remote-first work environment, with an emphasis on working within a high-autonomy, high-accountability framework. You must be dedicated to nurturing excellent communication and collaboration with your team-mates using tools like Basecamp, GoogleDocs, and Zoom.

Collaborating with the Design Director to design, implement, and test novel gameplay systems in service to the intended player experience.

Work under the direct guidance of the Design Director who will supervise and support your daily work.

Translate the game direction into tangible systems which can be documented, tested, evaluated, tuned, and refined.

Documenting a wide range of game systems in sufficient detail to support cross-disciplinary collaboration, and maintaining this documentation over the lifetime of the project.

Provided deep analysis around game systems, taking a research-orientated approach to systems design.

Collaborating with team members across all disciplines to ensure the systems successfully answer the Creative Director’s intentions for gameplay, and charts a clear path for further development.

Engaging in thoughtful dialogue with team members to ensure a strongly collaborative, respectful development mindset and process.

Proactively seeking feedback from the Design Director, being responsive to queries, and generally being an active participant in the development process without “going dark”.

Your Skills and Qualifications Should Include:

Several years of gameplay system design experience in high-quality open-world games.

Great communication skills. You must be able to write and speak very well, as communication is at the heart of collaboration.

Great written documentation skills. You must be organized and diligent about keeping your documentation up to date.

You must be comfortable with written communication, and not rely solely on real-time chat or video calls, as the team is spread across multiple time zones so asynchronous collaboration is critical to our success.

Experience with prototyping new gameplay systems.

Proven ability to work within the Unreal Engine, in collaboration with other disciplines, to test and execute compelling game systems.

Extensive experience collaborating with programmers, animators, and artists.

Experience with hands-on scripting and tuning. This is not a “paper designer” role. All Hinterland designers are expected to put their hands on the game and contribute with implementation, tuning, and bug fixing.

Wide expertise with the full gamut of gameplay systems design, and deep expertise in one or more of the following: 3Cs, AI, progression, levels, encounters, gear, skills, UI, etc.

Analysis skills. You must be able to parse incoming playtest and analytics data and make wise and informed decisions about how to improve the experience.

Production experience shipping games using Unreal.

Salary: $90,000-105,000 CAD

ABOUT HINTERLAND

Interest in working at Hinterland, but don’t see a job posting that matches your skills and experience?

Don’t worry about it. We’re a world-class team and we want to work with the best people out there. If you’re one of the best, shoot us a message – we’d love to hear from you. We might not have a place for you at the moment, but you never know what the future might bring. Please send your portfolio, LinkedIn profile, and a short note explaining why we should hire you.

ABOUT HINTERLAND

Interest in working at Hinterland, but don’t see a job posting that matches your skills and experience?

Don’t worry about it. We’re a world-class team and we want to work with the best people out there. If you’re one of the best, shoot us a message – we’d love to hear from you. We might not have a place for you at the moment, but you never know what the future might bring. Please send your portfolio, LinkedIn profile, and a short note explaining why we should hire you.