Schell Games is a highly talented group of artists, programmers, producers, and game designers led by game industry veteran Jesse Schell. We're the largest full-service education and entertainment game development company in the United States. Since 2002, we've worked with world-class clients and partners to create interactive experiences that engage and inspire players of all ages across all platforms. Presently, we are focused on virtual reality, augmented reality, location-based experiences, and social games.
Do you like to work on innovative projects in a motivating, friendly atmosphere? Would you agree that games can engage and inspire?
If you answered "YES!" to both questions, you might be a fit for our studio!
DESIGN LEAD POSITION
We are seeking a Design Lead with the capability to both direct teams & establish & guide the vision for a wide variety of transformational & entertainment guest experiences.
The ideal candidate will bring strong skills in the following areas:
- Game Design: demonstrates a background in user-centered game design or equivalent user-focused experiences.
- Leadership Experience: demonstrates a history of successfully taking on project leadership roles.
- Vision Holder: demonstrates proven ability to collaborate with clients, partners & team members to establish and hold a vision for products.
- Transformational Design: demonstrates interest & experience in transformational media design.
- Agile Development: demonstrates experience with and understanding of agile development processes.
- Partner Relationships: has experience & interest in maintaining & growing partner relationships.
AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY:
- Synthesis: Provide leadership to the game team by engaging the team’s skills and experience and focusing effort, either overtly as a design lead or supportingly as a contributor.
- Features: Design, prototyping, and iteration of game features that realize the vision of the client.
- UX: Design elegant UI flow and player experience for game systems, work with UX designer/artist to implement and polish as needed.
- Content: Outline content needs for gameplay systems, work within multidisciplinary teams to scope, pipeline, and implement content in-game.
- Balance: Iterate, balance, and adjust gameplay elements based on internal and playtest feedback.
- Documentation - Draft, maintain and review internal design documentation, including feature specifications and implementation guides.
- Playtesting: Analyze data and player feedback to continually optimize existing game experience.
- Narrative Design: Narrative structure, writing, editing, or evaluation of any of the above.
- Prototyping: Using tools or writing scripts of code to prototype new experiences and ideas, evaluating prototypes, working with a team to determine next steps.
- Concept Creation: Draft client or internal pitches for a variety of game genres and RPFs.
- Mentoring and / or training designers or other team members as appropriate.
DESIRED SKILLS & EXPERIENCE:
- Relevant education plus 5-10 years of industry experience
- Demonstrated success designing and creating compelling gameplay
- Ability to work collaboratively to support other designers, art, & tech team members
- Strong knowledge of prototyping best practices
- Strong knowledge of playtesting best practices
- Strong written and oral communication skills
- Comfortable working in Google Docs & Microsoft Office
- Demonstrated success in delivering app or web-based entertainment or transformational software programs (preferably, but not limited to, games)
