As Lead Game Designer, you will be responsible for devising what the
Winky games consists of and how they are played. You will plan and
define all the core elements of the games: settings, core goals,
structure, rules, story flows, characters, objects, props, achievements
and devices available to the user. Reporting directly to the CTO, you
will lead the game development team and collaborate with members of the
other teams including artists, firmware programmers, audio engineers and
product managers. Because Winky is also intended to be an open target
for gaming and educational apps, you will partake in the development of
Winky’s API, in close collaboration with the firmware team. A wide
degree of creativity and autonomy is expected as you will also take part
in the upstream brainstorming and definition phases of our application
feature development cycle.
Job Responsibilities:
Lead the game development team (game designers and game programmers)
Own the (agile) game development methodology with a special emphasis
on quality control, release management, and continuous integration
Create and maintain the reference game design documentation
In collaboration with the product manager, design and create core
game features including daily life routine, long-term progression
mechanisms, quests, missions, challenges, educational puzzles, etc.
Present and communicate your vision for new game design concepts to
artists, programmers, marketing staff, and others involved in the
development process
Participate in the development of the Winky universe, and propose relevant app concepts to bring it to life;
Maintain a consistent user experience across all games
Makes adjustments to the original specification for the game to
respond to technical constraints which have been identified and
incorporate new programming and art creation methods developed by the
team
Train QA Testers to play the game, making sure that they understand what is expected of the finished product;
Review user feedback and provide recommendations to the team
Skills:
Creativity, originality and relevance; thorough understanding of gameplay design principle
Ability to present your ideas both verbally and on paper, good basic visual design and drawing skills
Fluency of ideas : ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic
Graphical User Interface development, proficiency at using graphics or photo imaging software
Storytelling and narrative development, logic tree / storyline graph visualization
Video creation and editing software
Ability to listen, understand and communicate information and ideas with a multi-disciplinary team
Attention to detail, coupled with a fine sense of visual and audio design to produce top-tier UX
Reasonable fluency to create and export 2D and 3D graphics and animation packages would be appreciated
Scripting and programming
Prerequisites:
5 to 10 years of experience in a video game development studio or similar environment
Prior experience as team leader
A portfolio that you can show and comment on
Strong appetite for teamwork and ability to accept constructive feedback
Deep understanding of the capabilities and benefits of mobile devices and other hardware platforms
General awareness of the various technologies involved in the production of a modern video game
Fluent English and French
Interest in robotics and videogames, with a strong focus on educational gaming