Staff Gameplay Designer - Social (Contract)

teamLFG

3d•$76 - $115

About The Position

We are seeking a highly technical, creative, and team-oriented contract Staff Gameplay Designer to contribute a new multiplayer action game on teamLFG. You will work closely with the entire Design Team prototyping, exploring, and implementing player avatars and their suite of verbs for the social area of a competitive PvP game. You will collaborate with team members from other disciplines to drive cohesive gameplay vision. You will help build the systems that enable our game to become a third place. Most importantly, you will work with a fun, dedicated, and cross-disciplinary team devoted to turning a creative dream into a new franchise at PlayStation.

Requirements

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

Nice To Haves

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

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