Lead Game Designer – AAA Console/PC Games – London – Permanent

This vacancy may offer a work-from-home start until it is safe to work in-house or relocate to the location.
Genre: AAA Console/PC Games

OPMs client is an independently owned studio on the outskirts of London, and they are all about crafting engaging multiplayer experiences. They are working on several high-profile projects for PC and Console and they need you!

They are seeking a talented Lead Game Designer who will work closely with the Creative Director and will be responsible for the overall game design of an entire product or, for bigger projects, a large area of that product, pushing end to end implementation across the team.

REQUIREMENTS:

• Passionate about creating and playing games.
• Deep knowledge of all aspects of design with specialist skills in several areas such as: feedback, controls, balance, narrative, game-feel, retention, usability, on-boarding, social mechanics, and player motivation.
• Extensive experience in games, as a Lead having at least two shipped AAA current gen console or PC titles that included a multiplayer component, worked on from concept to final product. Preferably a first or third-person shooter.
• Ability to work independently without supervision and strong problem-solving skills.
• Leadership experience, including the running of a multi-person design team; people-management, mentoring, line-management.
• Professional experience owning the vision for one or more key elements on a project, communicating that vision and getting the buy-in from your team and external stakeholders.
• Professional experience writing high quality and thorough design documentation; including wiki-based design documentation, flow charts and spreadsheets.
• Good knowledge of industry trends as they relate to genres, gameplay, development models, and financial models.
• Experience of prototyping gameplay mechanics with UE4, Unity, or similar.
• Experience with source-control applications such as SVN, Perforce, AlienBrain, etc.
• Able to collaborate with other disciplines and experience of being a part of a leadership group/
• Very experienced with Microsoft Office Products and other business software including: Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel, Visio, Adobe Photoshop or similar.
• Good knowledge of systems, systemic design, emergent gameplay and the place of procedural content generation in development.
• Deep-rooted empathy for players

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Alongside the Creative Director, you will help to establish and evangelise the game vision, outlining quality targets and validating the quality targets of others.
• You will create and realise a unified game experience and help to communicate the game vision throughout the studio, ensuring alignment across all disciplines.
• You will produce and maintain documentation including the GDD and wiki pages, though you will largely communicate verbally; devoting time with each team member, ensuring they understand the vision and design and have what they need to do their jobs.
• You will frequently and effectively communicate with external partners or publishers, managing those relationships, presenting the creative accomplishments of the team, negotiating feature requests as required.
• You will communicate to the press, communities, and fans in various formats from live appearances, to pre-recorded interviews, to forum engagement acting as a champion and representative of the product and as an ambassador for the studio.
• You will oversee, mentor & coach Senior & Regular Game Designers, as well as working with Production and your direct reports to schedule tasks.
• You will regularly be part of peer-reviews.
• You will regularly communicate progress against quality, scope, and game vision alignment expectations.
• You will discuss and clarify the rationale behind decision making and listen, iterating on feedback from other disciplines and designers.
• You will regularly present the areas of the game you are responsible for to the studio. Where required you will act as the deputy to the Creative Director.
• You will define and implement feature optimisations and tuning plans, demonstrating a solid understanding of metrics and development restrictions; you will own the tuning for accountable features or levels.
• You will lead focus group sessions, produce feedback reports, deliver them to the product team and integrate appropriate feedback into the product design.
• You will verify task estimations provided by junior staff and in turn work with the Creative Director to give your own accurate estimates for work as well as logging work in management software.
• You will give input to Production and Management on project schedules throughout development to prioritise workload for the developers responsible for their assigned feature-set, in alignment with the product vision.
• You will communicate the impact of changes to the game-design to the developers on your team.

DESIRABLE SKILLS:

• Experience with F2P games and/or Games as a Service.
• Experience running the live phase of a game as a service, including using metrics to inform design and content decisions.
• Experience of championing a product including giving presentations to press and at conferences and events.
• Experience of parsing the results of, and acting on, market research such as, focus groups, qualitative and quantitative surveys etc.
• Experience with 3DSMax, Maya, or other professional 3D modelling software.
• Solid maths skills; formulas, probability, statistics, and balancing.
• Experience with scripting or programming languages.
• Undergraduate degree in Video Game Design, Computer Science, Marketing, Entertainment, or relevant technical training.

Interested in finding out more about the studio and project? Apply now or call me directly today on +44 (0) 1206 214415!

Tagged as: AAA, f2p, Game Design