We're looking for a Freelance Puzzle Designer for a Logical Deduction Game.

Job Details:

• Pay Rate: $40/hour
• Software: Blender, Photoshop, Unreal
• Duration: Now - ~Feb 2027
• Workload: ~20hrs per week (Flexible)
• Location: Remote (Must be available for virtual meetings in Pacific Time)

About the Project:

Locator is a Geoguessr-inspired detective game set on an alien planet. Players examine photos to determine their location on a map using visual and contextual clues. Every puzzle is an exercise in logical deduction. The game plays most like a detective game; think Return of the Obra Dinn and Case of the Golden Idol. 

We’ve been covered by PCGamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, and Game Maker’s Toolkit. GMTK has a great video explaining how the game works. You can also check out our demo on Steam, which currently has a 99% positive rating with 340+ reviews.

Responsibilities:

• Paper Prototyping: Create low fidelity puzzle prototypes to quickly test puzzle logic and identify issues based on player feedback.
• Support Narrative: Collaborate with narrative to ensure puzzles support key storybeats and adhere to narrative constraints. Our story is primarily told through the puzzles themselves, they play an active role in how the narrative is revealed, paced, and experienced by the player. We’ve been using Outer Wilds as an aspirational benchmark for a game that seamlessly combines narrative + puzzles.
• 3D Blockout and Camera Placement: Work in Blender to set up low fidelity blockout environments, place cameras, and render out photos. This is the primary method by which puzzle photos are created, so comfort working directly in a 3D environment to compose and render shots is essential. 
  • Note: You will work  with the support of an experienced 3D environment artist and are not expected to create finished art. Basic scene manipulation (moving, rotating, and scaling objects) and camera placement are the core skills here.
• Puzzle Asset Creation: Using Photoshop, create journal pages, notes, maps, and other supplementary puzzle materials that appear in game alongside photos.
• Review Playtest Footage and Player Surveys: Evaluate puzzle clarity, difficulty, and fairness. Identify where players get stuck, where solutions feel unearned, and where logic breaks down to make adjustments and fine-tune puzzles.

Skills:

• Puzzle design: This is the most important skill. We are looking for someone with demonstrable puzzle design experience, ideally puzzle design that falls into the logical deduction category. 
• Blender: Moderate proficiency required. You should be comfortable navigating a 3D scene, moving, rotating, and scaling objects, and placing cameras. We are not looking for beginners but you do not need to be a modeler or artist.
• Unreal Engine: No experience required. We will bring you up to speed on the specific parts of Unreal relevant to this role. You will be using Unreal Engine to input puzzle data into the game. Adding data for photos/journal entries, specifying the order that content unlocks, and testing things in engine to ensure puzzle content you’ve created plays as expected. You will not be responsible for coding or blueprints.
• Photoshop: Basic proficiency required. You should be comfortable creating simple page layouts and drawing low fidelity sketches for prototype puzzles. 

How to Apply:

We especially encourage applications from candidates underrepresented in the games industry. We've worked hard to make this posting clear about what is truly required versus nice to have. If you meet the core requirements we want to hear from you regardless of your background.

If this sounds like a great fit, hit the apply button and complete the form.