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Senior AI Combatant Designer, Advanced
1 year ago
ProbablyMonsters is looking for a creative, technical, and collaborative Senior AI Combatant Designer, Advanced. You will join a team concentrated on building new game concepts and worlds centered around a focused player experience. As part of the Incubation team, you’ll have the freedom to create, experiment, and try new game ideas while forming new franchises and development teams. Everyone on the Incubation team is enthusiastic about helping to shape a culture of collaboration and trust while creating best-in-class games.
We are seeking a Senior AI Combatant Designer, Advanced who is experienced in designing, implementing, and tuning AI combatants. We are looking for someone able to own the design of all player combatant gameplay (enemies, bosses, etc.), collaborating heavily with the systems, level design, animation, and engineering teams to help deliver compelling enemies for a new action-adventure role-playing-game IP.
The salary range for this position is $147,800 to $221,700. This range represents the salary for the position commensurate with experience, knowledge, and demonstrated success in the field.
WHO YOU ARE:
- You enjoy diving into rich AI enemy combat and behaviors, collaborating with other developers to build AI that improves the player gameplay experience
- You often find yourself playing a variety of games, getting wrapped up in the nuance of clever AI and combatant design and asking how you might remix or improve upon it
- Able to understand, align, and adapt to high-level project design goals, fantasy, and audience expectations
- Collaborative, self-motivated developer, with a desire to grow & share knowledge
- Capable of creating and updating documentation to pitch & explore designs, achieve alignment, and facilitate communication with different disciplines
- Strong ability to proactively communicate, especially in a remote environment, particularly with other designers, engineers, and animators
- Able to drive playtesting; collect & analyze feedback, ceaselessly iterate, and determine when a design meets quality
- Receptive to feedback from a variety of sources and confident enough to evaluate the best actionable response and what is not necessary to address
- Excited to play a critical role in a new studio and team working as a tight knit team highly focused on delivering exciting gameplay in a new IP
- You show empathy and respect for our players and fellow team members
WHAT YOU WILL DO:
- Act as design expert in development of AI enemy and boss combatants that creates engaging combat scenarios against solo and cooperative players and partners with core game mechanics and systems
- Be a leader in the identification of challenges with gameplay mechanics, game content, and workflow processes and devise creative solutions in cases where there will be limited information and requires adaptation to resolve
- Collaborate with design, art, and engineering teams to design, pitch, and build combat and non-combat creatures across the game world
- Work closely with player combat and level design to craft compelling AI combat mechanics, encounters, and overall combat pacing
- Proactively provide updates on progress and development to the design team including communicating game design progress and decision-making widely to ensure full visibility & strong alignment between disciplines
- Lead the work of testing features and identifying challenges with gameplay mechanics, game content, and workflow processes and find creative solutions to meet design goals
QUALIFICATIONS:
- Experience building and maintaining AI systems, enemy combatant behaviors, and gameplay mechanics at a shippable AAA quality level
- Expertise in at least one modern 3D game engine and proficiency with one or more scripting language(s).
- Experience in the design of at least two games on modern consoles (Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, PC etc.)
- Understanding of how enemy encounter and action role-playing game systems intertwine
- Able to work with little to no instruction on day-to-day projects and end-to-end assignments utilizing best practices, independent judgement, skills, and previous experience to effectively execute on requests from stakeholders
- Strong familiarity with visual scripting languages, preferably Unreal Engine Blueprints
- Excellent methodology and problem-solving ability, with a focus on rapid iteration to achieve balance and pacing
- Strong communication, collaboration, and interpersonal skills
- Ability to craft functional and complex prototypes
- Strong understanding of how different development disciplines work and how their inputs contribute to feature development
PREFERRED SKILLS:
- Previous AI combatant design experience on a third-person action RPG or melee combat game
- Strong understanding of Unreal Engine and Blueprint Scripting.
- Previous experience in feature ownership within game design of AAA game development
- Experience in mentoring other designers and providing insightful feedback on design efforts
- Expertise in C++ or other text-based scripting languages
OUR COMMITMENT TO YOU:
- A people-centric culture founded on respect, trust, approachability, and accountability.
- A stable home that values your potential, deeply cares about your work-life balance, and is committed to investing in your craft and long-term career.
- We offer a competitive benefits package, including a sign-on bonus; annual stock option grants; health coverage (medical, dental, vision) paid at 100% for the employee and subsidized by the Company for dependents; Flexible Spending Account eligibility; life, accidental death, and disability insurance coverage; annual 401K contribution by the Company; Employee Assistance Program; and extensive paid time off plus holiday closures.
About ProbablyMonsters™
ProbablyMonsters is an independent AAA video game company that aims to change the way games are made and inspire a better industry for all. Our mission is to unite, guide, and empower talented teams to redefine what it means to create exceptional games. We secured the largest Series A raise in gaming history at $250 million, providing our teams the resources and creative environment needed to foster stable, life-long careers while delivering industry-defining games within a healthy, rewarding culture.
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