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Game Designer
2 years ago
Company Overview:
A leader in creating deep and engaging experiences on PC and mobile, Jagex was founded in 2001 and is today one of the UK’s biggest and most respected video game developers and publishers.
Famed for its flagship MMOs RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, Jagex has welcomed more than 260million player accounts to its world and created a $1bn lifetime franchise revenue. Today the RuneScape franchise exists beyond running games in live operations; our titles are living games that connect and inspire millions of players, with content and experiences both inside and outside of inexhaustible game worlds.
Both RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, on PC and mobile, offer ever-evolving, highly-active worlds and our community-focussed development ethos empowers players to have a real say in how each game is shaped.
Jagex is expanding and extending its portfolio with fresh franchise titles, new IP and, in 2018 launched Jagex Partners, delivering third-party publishing and operational services exclusively for the living games of the future.
Jagex employs more than 400 people at its Cambridge headquarters and is on the hunt for talented people to work across the business to help the company to achieve yet another year of record growth and player satisfaction.
Job Purpose:
You will be responsible for designing exciting gameplay for Jagex's new Open World Survival Craft title and seeing your ideas through from inception to realization. This will involve the design, creation, balancing, progression, and rewards that will help power the game experience.
As a Game Designer you will work with a multi-discipline team to develop various features under the guidance of the Lead Designer. You will own multiple features and help realize them by working with various disciplines such as art, animation, engineering, and production to ensure needs are communicated and design requirements are met. At times you will assist Senior Designers in developing features, including contributions to ideation, documentation, implementation, iteration, and bug fixing.
A Game Designer is collaborative and seeks out information, solicits feedback on their work, is comfortable giving feedback to others, and presents ideas and feature requirements clearly to other members of the team. You also want to learn and seek out opportunities to improve your skills by learning from other members of the team.
Game Designers can take existing designs and execute on them effectively as specified. In addition, the Game Designer can identify and articulate when an existing design may require updates or iteration and is able to pitch new ideas with sound design reasoning behind it.
If you are a design generalist and like to work on various features such as player mechanics, AI, systems, world design, etc. or have experience but are looking to expand into other areas of design, this may be the right job for you!
Key Duties:
- Own individual game features.
- Work closely with the design team to create, iterate, and improve game design documents.
- Create and balance fun and engaging gameplay experiences.
- Collaborate with other designers, artists, and programmers to realize your designs.
- Support and assist other designers and help alleviate design bottle necks when required.
- Provide feedback on designs and gameplay.
Essential Skills:
- Passion for game design and anything design related.
- Player-centric design thinking.
- Fully understands and can articulate design fundamentals.
- Working knowledge of trends in the competitive landscape.
- Experience working within a design team doing gameplay, systems, and/or world design.
- Experience with Unreal 4.
- Documenting features; breaking down high level direction into detailed, digestible specs.
- Implementing features in engine; prototyping paper designs directly in engine, fully realizing a features potential.
- Ability to pitch ideas, and also give feedback to other designers and members of the team.
- Ability to breakdown design problems if something isn’t working and then present solutions to those problems.
- Good communication skills, effective at working with different disciplines to identify needs and requirements to deliver a feature.
Desirable Skills:
- Experience in the Open World Survival Craft genre.
- Experience with Unreal 5.
Company Benefits:
- Flexible Working
- Bonus Scheme
- Private Health Care
- Gym Membership
- Generous Pension Contributions
- Life Insurance
- Free Cycle Repair
- Income Protection
- Dental Plan
- Free Fruit and Drinks
- Subsidised Canteen
Feel like you fit this role, but don’t meet all the requirements? We strive for fresh perspectives, so as long as you can demonstrate how your attitude and other abilities might make up for any gaps we would welcome your application!
Jagex are an equal opportunities employer and positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, religion or belief.
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