Senior Level Designer (4-Month Contract)

Blackbird Interactive

3d • Remote

About The Position

Blackbird Interactive is seeking an experienced Senior Level Designer to contribute to an action RPG. This role involves designing and implementing high-quality gameplay spaces, focusing on fast-paced combat, character progression, exploration, and replayability. The designer will create levels, encounters, and environments that offer satisfying combat, reward exploration, and accommodate diverse player builds and abilities. Collaboration with various teams including systems design, combat design, art, narrative, audio, and engineering is key to ensuring spaces complement core combat systems and provide strong pacing, readability, and a sense of discovery. The position requires aligning content with the creative vision, owning levels from initial layout to polish, solving complex design problems, providing strong design judgment, and setting a high quality bar for playable content.

Requirements

• A minimum of 8 years of game development experience, with significant experience designing and implementing levels for action, RPG, or combat focused games
• Experience shipping multiple titles, including at least one in a senior or equivalent level design role
• Proven ability to independently own complex levels from initial concept and blockout through implementation, iteration, and final polish
• Strong understanding of action RPG level design, including combat spaces, encounter pacing, exploration, progression, player guidance, and replayability
• Strong hands-on experience with level editing, gameplay scripting, and in-engine implementation, with the ability to prototype, debug, and iterate quickly
• Strong design judgment, communication, and collaboration skills, with the ability to balance gameplay quality, creative goals, technical constraints, and production realities

Nice To Haves

• Passion for action RPGs centered on combat, character builds, loot, progression, and exploration
• Experience designing levels for an isometric or elevated gameplay camera, with an understanding of its impact on combat readability, navigation, and composition
• Experience creating replayable content that supports different character builds, abilities, difficulty levels, or repeated playthroughs
• Appreciation for systemic combat and how level geometry, enemy composition, hazards, and interactive elements combine to create varied encounters
• Experience designing dungeons, interconnected environments, procedural or modular level content, or other repeatable gameplay spaces
• Strong instincts for environmental storytelling, gameplay readability, polish, and identifying opportunities to improve the player experience through iteration

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with combat, systems, narrative, art, engineering, audio, and production to create levels that support the established creative vision and core gameplay pillars
• Own levels end-to-end, including layouts, blockouts, combat spaces, encounters, traversal, exploration, pacing, and player flow
• Design engaging combat spaces that support varied enemies, character builds, abilities, positioning, and different approaches to combat
• Create rewarding exploration through optional paths, secrets, environmental storytelling, and meaningful rewards while maintaining clear navigation and progression
• Script and implement gameplay events, encounters, objectives, triggers, and environmental interactions directly in engine
• Test, debug, and iterate on levels using playtest feedback to improve combat flow, difficulty, pacing, readability, and replayability

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed