Encounter Designer (Contract)

Santa Monica Studio is seeking a talented Encounter Designer to help us build a new unannounced title!

In this role, you will assist, collaborate with, and take direction from the Sr Encounter Designer, Combat, and Level Design teams, and Design and Game Directors to place, tune and maintain combat scenarios and encounters throughout the game.

The ideal candidate has proven design sense, attention to detail and an established technical expertise, along with a strong understanding of the elements that combine to create fun and engaging encounters. You are someone who takes initiative, isn't afraid to ask questions, and gets ideas into the game early to fail fast, learn, and iterate. You take direction well while also offering feedback in a structured and considerate manner, are eager to learn, and passionately motivated to push the boundaries of encounters.

• Work with existing AI cast, level mechanics, and environmental components to create scenarios that map to the desired pacing and difficulty for each combat encounter in the game
• Use the game engine tools to implement encounters including, but not limited to, character placement, wave triggering, managing groups of enemies, etc
• Collaborate with level and environment teams to address performance issues, bugs, and adhere to metrics and best practices
• Liaise closely with the combat team responsible for design, creation, and maintenance of AI cast members
• Learn and become effective with both the combat design and level design tools and workflow
• Support and champion the gameplay vision and align encounter experiences with game and player needs
• Be aware of varying play styles and build encounters that provide accurate level of challenge for different audiences
• Work closely with production partners to establish and maintain the timely completion of encounters
• Gather, respond to, and implement feedback from playtests and peer and director reviews
• Play and replay encounters and tune for quality

• 2+ years in game development, with 1+ years in a Combat or Encounter Design role on a first- or third-person action game
• Experience using a text-based and/or visual scripting language
• Basic knowledge of scripting languages and code (e.g., XML, C++, PERL) is preferred but not required
• Experience building 3D layouts in support of combat encounters
• Must be able to grasp and work with code-based proprietary tools to implement and troubleshoot issues
• Ability to think logically with a strong level of attention to detail
• Must be able to professionally communicate and work with other members of the game production team
• Must have knowledge of competitive products and various gameplay genres, as well as a personal understanding of fun in video games

• Prior experience building and tuning combat encounters in a 3rd person action game
• Experience with Maya

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