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Senior Systems Designer
3 years ago
Crystal Dynamics, a part of the Square Enix family, is constantly on the hunt for top-tier gaming talent worldwide. Having created beloved properties such as Gex and the Legacy of Kain series, as well as driving the massively successful Tomb Raider franchise, Crystal Dynamics is now laying the groundwork for the next generation of innovative and technologically stunning projects, including Marvel’s Avengers . Benefits for this permanent, full-time position include a competitive salary, 100% employer-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance options and plenty of days of paid time-off.
Position Summary:
Crystal Dynamics is seeking an experienced Senior Systems Designer to join our team of passionate developers! This Senior Systems Designer will report to the Lead Designer and will be responsible for working with Game Directors and other discipline Leads to plan, prototype and build game wide systems that impact all pillars of an award winning action adventure title. Design responsibilities include but are not limited to RPG lite elements, character progression, game difficulty, player mechanics, economy, combat difficulty, world systems design and general maintenance from concept to ship.
Essential Duties:
- Working with the Lead Designer and Directors, ensure all systems related game design meets project needs and have consistent demonstrable onscreen progress through rapid prototypes and routine onscreen maintenance of all systems.
- Promote collaboration amongst designers and directors, objectively breakdown design concepts and provide feedback when appropriate.
- Coordinate closely with programmers and artists to communicate the goals and specific needs of various gameplay systems and provide regular updates to all related systems.
- Under minimal supervision, design, adapt and scope features and systems to the needs of production, the technical constraints of the project and the overall gameplay goals.
- Evaluate and initiate processes and features needed to improve and streamline production.
- Maintain, test, iterate system-based features and design from concept to execution to final tuning.
- Document game mechanics and features quickly, clearly and concisely in a provided specification format to serve as a resource for other designers in the studio to understand the various design concepts and the decisions made that support them.
- Help identify key tasks for supporting designers and work with Production and Design Leadership to allocate resources for supporting each system.
Competencies, Skills & Knowledge:
- Clear, analytical thinker, with a proven ability to break gameplay design down into regular, reusable systems and articulate and document them.
- Understanding of system specific constraints as well as an understanding of game engine architecture and custom toolsets and able to deliver assets within the confines of real time engine constraints and programming demand
- Experience spec-ing and tuning particular game systems such as player progression or game wide economies.
- Must have the ability to conceptualize, present, and execute ideas within a schedule, while actively participating in technical and design problem solving in engine.
- Demonstrable organized approach to problem solving and time-management to meet strict production deadlines
- Current on industry trends as it relates to modern system’s design
- Ability to work closely with all project disciplines to ensure clear communication, troubleshooting and efficiency
- Excellent knowledge of game design theory and principles of what it takes to make a blockbuster triple A title.
Essential Requirements:
- 5+ years of game design experience in senior level Systems Design or as a Gameplay Engineer
- Informal or formal team leadership experience, including task and content management
- At least 1 AAA project shipped for current gen consoles in a system design capacity, including primary responsibility for one or more core gameplay systems
Pluses:
- Understanding of Visual Layout Game Editors
- Understanding of Maya
- UDK or Kismet related visual scripting experience
- C#, Lua or Python related scripting experience
Crystal Dynamics is an EOE and M/F/D/V Employer.
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