Staff Gameplay Designer - Social (Contract)

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain the avatar movement and core sandbox systems that enable cooperative social gameplay and player expression, while building trust between players
• Build the systems to allow for avatar customization, creating extensible opportunities for player investment and a progression economy, as well as player self expression and customization
• Build compelling gameplay experiences through reusable sandbox mechanics, especially 3C (Character, Camera and Controls) design and implementation
• Create endearing NPCs that improve IP quality, consistency, along with sandbox design principles
• Work with audio, effects, and animation to clearly communicate gameplay affordances to players

Required Skills

• Understanding of how modern multiplayer social games can leverage an intuitive and expressive action sandbox to create memories between players
• Fluency for collaboration with designers, artists, programmers, audio professionals, quality assurance and producers to achieve a common goal, with adaptability for how to work in a flexible work environment
• Broad T-shaped rapid prototyping skills, with enough multi-disciplinary knowledge to quickly stub out gameplay ideas to evaluate their potential
• Strong technical scripting skills and understanding of how to structure game design tools to unlock player expression, content variety, and execution speed
• Strong understanding of character motion and animation; momentum, timing, and their impact on player communication and tone
• Proven ability to build alignment and productively own feature direction without sacrificing empathy and collaboration with team contributors
• Ability to operate autonomously and handle ambiguity, including giving and receiving feedback despite that ambiguity
• Ability to create plans and evaluate them for meeting the experiential needs of the players and markets
• Outstanding oral and written communication skills
• Demonstrated understanding of how systemically consistent, combinatoric game design can create player surprise and laughter

Preferred Experience

• Experience as a Staff Sandbox/Gameplay Designer on AAA or large-scale online action games, designing, documenting, and building character customization systems
• Experience delegating work or ownership of an area to multi-disciplinary peers
• Experience with social/cooperative game design and balancing for an active player base