Sentient Play is looking for an exceptionally talented game designer to help us explore, create, and deliver innovative games. Become one of the founding members pathfinding a remote-first studio. You will work in collaboration with our Creative Director/CEO and other team members to help deliver amazing player experiences. You will be an important team player who can collaborate across disciplines in a fun and inclusive environment, sharing ideas and expertise while maintaining a big picture view of the product.

Our new game is a co-op basebuilding game with survival, community management, and ARPG elements. Players work together to survive the post-apocalyptic world of Ice Age 1899, dungeon-crawling through forgotten subterranean lairs, then turning them into Art Nouveau solarpunk communities called Warmhavens. We are wrapping up prototyping and about to head into full preproduction.

Why go through all the work of conquering a dungeon, only to abandon it? Move in with friends and build a Warmhaven!

Key Responsibilities

• Work with the Creative Director to design the desired player experiences based on the pillars of the game, genre conventions and player expectations, and desired innovative hooks/features
• Design all major game systems including combat, exploration, demolition, construction, crafting, elemental, and survival
• Design for collaborative play with other players (<=4 player) and/or AI bots
• Design, iterate based on feedback, and tune all content metadata: foes, gear, resources/economies, player skills
• Design systems and content to keep players enjoying the game in extended play; including rewards of unlockables, achievements, vanity metrics, and other meta-progressions
• Design tutorials, quests, and levels that influence players into learning competence, enjoying autonomy of interesting choices, and eventually achieving mastery in the game
• Work in conjunction with development, art, and production team members to collect and collate initial and iterative feedback from all aspects of the game for features, systems, and content
• Keep up to date documentation and data for production to drive art, engineering, audio, and narrative
• Turn designs into structured data, scripting, Unity prefabs, and other needed in-game assets
• Identify the need for and design custom tooling to improve quality and speed up design and implementation for levels and content 
• Continually verify iterative designs and implementation through playtesting and observing others playing
• Give and take feedback productively and positively to build the best possible product in a collaborative team environment

Qualifications

• 5+ years professional experience in game design
• Shipped one or more significant titles on PC and/or console as a game designer
• Experience with level design–ideally both handcrafted and procedural
• Experience tuning economies, resources, and rewards for cooperative play over long term progression
• Extensive familiarity with game genres featuring basebuilding, crafting, survival, management, and action rpgs features
• Environmental decorative design a plus
• Narrative design and writing skills a plus
• Ability to collaborate in Central Time Zone +/- 3 hours

Benefits

• Competitive compensation and benefits
• Flexible work schedule
• Extended Winter Break
• Remote work