Lead Game Designer

As a Lead Game Designer at Santa Barbara Games, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the core gameplay experiences of our unreleased PC game currently in pre-production. This is an exciting opportunity to define the overall game design on a small, tight-knit indie team, ensuring our combat systems are intuitive, challenging, and fun.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Oversee the conception and production of all components contributing to intuitive, challenging, and fun combat

  • Ensure that player actions are satisfying and responsive, with enemies that are interesting, memorable, and challenging, from initial threats to legendary boss encounters

  • Direct the wider design team in creating exciting gameplay on an ambitious new game

  • Take ownership of all combat features and systems from ideation, through prototyping, to final execution

  • Work closely with the CTO to build tools for combat and systems implementation

  • Create one-page designs, briefs, system outlines, and other communication tools for succinctly and effectively communicating vision

  • Leverage technical expertise to implement systems

  • Collaborate with multiple disciplines, ensuring partners are involved and informed throughout development

  • Provide regular active feedback across all features and the game as a whole

  • Stay current on industry trends, including new game genres, design techniques, and audio-visual excellence

Qualifications:

  • 7+ years of experience in combat or systems design, or an applicable combination of education and experience

  • Proven experience leading design teams; have shipped at least one major title in a senior capacity

  • Experience leading multiple functional teams in feature development

  • Experience with Unity and/or Unreal game engines

  • Ability to develop design concepts from conception to implementation in a clear, detailed manner

  • Familiarity with programming and scripting languages, such as C#, Lua, or JavaScript

  • A background in combat design, content design, and tools development

  • Strong documentation philosophies and strategies to evangelize your designs

  • Passion for playing a variety of video game genres and titles

Location: remote US only


Think you’re a good fit? Apply below!