Ludeon Studios seeks a game designer to work on complex game systems in management storytelling games.

Applicants should be masters of game design writing, with extensive experience in incepting, managing, selecting, refining, testing, and iterating on written game designs.

An ideal applicant will have worked on many game design projects over many years. Those don’t have to be commercial projects - passion projects also count. (However, student projects alone are not nearly enough; a successful applicant will have gone far beyond assigned schoolwork.)

Your writing should be precise, concise, easy to understand, well-organized, and decisive.

You know how to find the right answers to very complex design problems. You have deep insight and understand how to find creative solutions that others don’t think of. You don’t just follow patterns you’ve seen before - you are a first-principles thinker, able to unpack your entire stack of reasoning at any time.

You excel at reasoning about both the mechanistic side of a design, and its character-driven emotional heart.

You have worked on games that are systemically complex, with lots of systems, numbers, interfaces, and long-term outcomes to contend with. Strategy (especially grand strategy) and management games are familiar to you.

In addition to the above, you’re self-motivated, productive, communicative, and consistent in your habits. You get a lot done, even when nobody is pushing you and when you’re working remotely. You take initiative and absorb responsibility naturally.

Responsibilities include:

• Incept, analyze, write, and refine game system specifications for implementation by developers.
• Work with structured data formats like XML to implement and tune gameplay data like weapons, player tools, constructibles, animals, and so on.
• Use analytical tools including spreadsheets, Monte Carlo simulation, debug tools, tester requests, and others to analyze game designs.
• Review implemented features and specify improvements, cuts, and feature replacements.
• Prioritize large lists of tasks to find the most valuable work.
• Engage with the community to understand player desires. Adapt designs to service them while also retaining your own design intent.
• Coordinate developers, artists, audio experts, testers, and others to keep the project running smoothly and set everyone up for success.
• Late in development, drive the polishing process. Ensure that the details are handled, everything is high-quality, and nothing slips through the cracks. Push everything to the peak of quality.

Other skills from other disciplines are useful, but not essential. This includes skills in programming, art and image editing (especially to make good mockups), writing (to write player-facing item descriptions, quest text, etc.), and so on.

Please note: This is not a programming position. Do not apply as a programmer.

To apply, just send us an email. Please include:

• Which role you’re interested in, and your location.
• A traditional resume.
• Design writing samples: written design specifications, analysis, articles, or direct links to these. This should be primary design writing, not general descriptions of game projects.

Please be concise and focus on showing the things you’ve created. Design documents, articles, portfolio websites, and YouTube videos are great for demonstrating your experience.

We can hire internationally. We generally start with a trial contract at full pay rate.

Ludeon’s mission is to make creatively-vivacious, original, provocative, and engaging games. Our team members come from diverse origins and hold many different beliefs. Please be ready to work on this mission with people who might think differently from you.