Lead Game Designer
Description
ABOUT SPLASH DAMAGE
We believe that games play better with friends. For more than 20 years, we’ve been creating team-based multiplayer experiences that have entertained tens of millions of players all over the world and forged countless new friendships along the way.
Our studio culture is rooted in our open, friendly, and collaborative environment. Our games are made by people from all over the world, from our entry-level Fresh Talent hires to industry veterans, and we believe that fostering that diverse culture is the best way to build both our games and our studio. We have won numerous awards, including a ‘World-Class’ accreditation by Best Companies and being named one of the UK’s 100 Best Large Companies to work for.
Our offices are based in Bromley, UK.
Benefits:
We offer a comprehensive benefits package for you and your family, including:
- Substantial performance-related pay system on top of your basic compensation, along with enhanced pension contributions and our life assurance scheme
- Bespoke VISA and relocation packages for you and your family, with support from our team throughout the whole process
- 25 days of holiday and 8 Bank Holidays a year, plus our annual studio closure between Christmas and New Year’s
- Private Medical and Dental Cover for you and your family, along with a 24/7 digital GP service
- Extensive Mental Health support, with Line Manager Mental Health training, a group of Mental Health First-Aiders, and on-site or remote counselling
- Our bespoke Learning and Development course framework to help you grow as an employee, manager, and leader
- Industry-leading fully paid 30 weeks maternity leave & 10 weeks paternity leave
THE OPPORTUNITY
Ever wanted to make your own mark on a shooter? Well at Splash Damage, there’s plenty of opportunity to do just that – depending on the size of the team (we make different size projects to suit different people), you’ll manage the design for the whole game, or own one of area of the game completely. Sound interesting? Good - this is a pivotal role at the heart of a dynamic team of talented people who love to get stuff done.
THE TEAM
As a Lead Game Designer, you’ll be a terrific mentor to designers and someone the Design Director trusts and looks toward to help to communicate and evangelise the game vision, helping the team express their goals through a fantastic player experience. At Splash Damage, we genuinely believe in teams collaborating, so you can expect to be talking to artists, animators, programmers, writers, and a whole load of other people on the team too. What better way to align teams, than by talking to them?
THE DOCS
We often use documents to communicate our intent, keeping them fun, clear, and sometimes illustrated! We also use templates to make everyone lives a bit easier, so you won’t need to spend days locked in a room writing by candlelight. But in the end, documents are there to get ideas across, so expect to follow up in person to help people grasp ideas and answer questions. After all, it really helps if everyone is bought into the idea and is excited to help realise it in game.
THE FUN STUFF
You’ll own whole feature designs of the game, and at times, the whole game itself! Sometimes that will mean pitching an initial idea, getting feedback from feature teams and once design, art and programming have had a chance to kick the tyres, getting a prototype up and running. But at other times, that will mean you’ll be managing, mentoring, and coaching Game Designers on your team, working alongside Production to help them realise their designs in the build.
Once in game, the fun really begins – you’ll help teams with balancing, think about the metrics you need and let people know about any development restrictions, after all constraints can really help junior members find their feet! When you’re ready, you’ll lead focus group sessions, gather feedback, and share your findings with the product team – together you can figure out whether it’s what your players really want!
COMMUNICATING WELL
At Splash Damage, we believe in communicating well, always remembering who we’re talking to and how they might perceive what we’re saying. You’ll have the chance to talk to external partners and feedback on their deliverables and manage relationships, plus chat to the Press, our Fans, and the community, as well as speak in pre-recorded sessions and live events. And don’t worry, if public speaking isn’t your thing, there’s even help with that too. You will regularly present the areas of the game you are responsible for to the studio. Where necessary you will act as the deputy to the Design Director.
We believe everyone can be a leader in their field. We’d like you to become one of them.
YOUR EXPERIENCE
- A love of games – you make them, you buy them, you play them & talk about them!
- A strong grasp of game design, but with an area you really get excited about – it could be narrative, game-feel, retention, usability, player motivation or something else.
- Industry experience in a Lead position on one AAA console or PC title that featured a multiplayer component and worked on it from beginning to end: hopefully a 1st or 3rd person shooter!
- Capacity to think and communicate in terms of the player experience
- Happy working independently and are drawn to solving problems
- Leadership experience, including running a multi-person design team and familiarity with managing the performance of designers on your team. Experience planning, challenging and refining task estimates for junior designers.
- You are used to communicating vision and getting buy-in from teams & stakeholders
- Excellent verbal and presentation skills
- Comfortable writing quality design documentation; including wiki-based design documentation, flow charts and spreadsheets
- Knowledge of industry trends regarding genres, gameplay, and development and financial models
- Experience of prototyping gameplay mechanics using UE4, Unity, or similar
- An understanding of systems, systemic design, emergent gameplay, and the place of procedural content generation in development
BENEFITS
We offer a comprehensive benefits package for you and your family, including:
- On-site and Hybrid working patterns help us spend the right amount of time together
- Substantial performance-related pay system on top of your basic compensation, along with enhanced pension contributions and our life assurance scheme
- Bespoke VISA and relocation packages for you and your family, with support from our team throughout the whole process
- 25 days of holiday and 8 Bank Holidays a year, plus our annual studio closure between Christmas and New Year’s
- Private Medical and Dental Cover for you and your family, along with a 24/7 digital GP service
- Extensive Mental Health support, with Line Manager Mental Health training, a group of Mental Health First-Aiders, and on-site or remote counselling
- Our bespoke Learning and Development course framework to help you grow as an employee, manager, and leader
- Industry-leading fully paid 30 weeks maternity leave & 10 weeks paternity leave