The Chinese Room has established a reputation as one of the most creative and exciting studios in the UK. We’re proud to be internationally recognised as pioneers of storytelling with a flair for creating atmospheric, rich and imaginative games.

As a Sumo Digital studio, The Chinese Room is built on passion, on finding amazing people and letting them shine. It’s an exciting time to be part of Sumo, winners of the Develop: Star Awards 2019 Best Studio and GI Biz 2020 Best Places to Work; big things are on the horizon and we want you to be part of our continued journey. Join us!

The Chinese Room is made up of a diverse mix of fantastic people, although sometimes, some groups are still under-represented. We are working to remove obstacles that can make it difficult for those groups to progress their careers in the games industry. We welcome applications from under-represented people in the gaming industry, including, but not limited to women, BAME, older people and those from working-class backgrounds.

The role @ The Chinese Room

We are looking for Senior and Experienced Level Designers to join our friendly, supportive and inclusive studio. You’ll be collaborating with cross-discipline teams, using and evolving a set of cool mechanics to create innovative, fun and exciting levels.

We’re proud of having a studio culture where collaboration and supportive critique are cornerstones of development. You might be coming from a background in larger development and looking for the chance to join a smaller design team, where you’ll have the chance to really own your levels; or you might be coming from the indie sector and excited about the opportunities of working in an established and secure studio.

We have a strong history of supporting diversity in both our studio culture and in our games, and welcome people from all corners of the game development community.

Ideally, the role would be home-based with a hotdesk available in the Brighton studio as required.

As a Level Designer, you will:

Collaborate with cross discipline teams to create exciting, innovative and engaging levels
Understand the role of pacing, narrative, theme and mechanics in creating compelling gameplay experiences
Realise the high-level vision of your levels through all stages of development from initial block out through to final shipped product
Plan, execute and refine your levels from high-level concept to low-level scripting
Use player feedback and design direction to hone the gameplay experience
Work with your team to rapidly iterate and jam ideas to find the best solutions
Put the player’s experience at the centre of the way you think about design, with an understanding of pacing and challenge

We need you to have:

Been part of a level design team in at one action adventure title.
Show an ability to weave narrative and artistic themes with gameplay mechanics to build engaging levels
Be able to propose creative solutions to complex design problems
Great interpersonal and communications skills and the ability to work within a team of diverse people.
A passion for playing with the endless possibilities of Level Design.
An ability to craft fresh player experiences with existing mechanics as well as being able to suggest new mechanics and bring them to life.

It would be great if you also have:

Experience working with UE4
Experience of developing gameplay mechanics
Experience of designing and integrating puzzles into your levels
Experience with Unreal Blueprints or other visual scripting tools

Our titles include the ground-breaking Dear Esther (2012), cult horror Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs (2013), the VR fairy-tale So Let Us Melt (2017) the open-world adventure Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture (2015), a PlayStation 4 exclusive that won major awards across the world, and the multi award-winning Little Orpheus (2020). This included an amazing 10 BAFTA nominations and 3 BAFTA wins.

We bring our passion and commitment to creating exciting original games to a network of studios renowned for quality and expertise. Being part of the Sumo team enables us to expand and grow in ambition and confidence, taking our reputation for storytelling into new genres. Our most recently announced game, Little Orpheus, is an Apple Arcade exclusive and we’re working on other unannounced ‘AAA’ titles that will further establish our award-winning style and reputation.

We offer a superb benefits package including generous holidays and flexi-time. We care about our people, with an emphasis on the work/life balance and out of office events such as our legendary Sumo ‘Big Day Out’, plus epic Christmas parties and much more! Our regular studio Game Jams are a highlight - winning concepts can go on to commercial release, so far including Snake Pass and the upcoming Spyder for Apple Arcade.

The Chinese Room is located in Brighton in the south of England, home to an amazingly vibrant game development scene and a cultural hotspot with fantastic food, arts, music, shopping and sports. The studio is in the city centre, near the beach, and close to the South Downs National Park. Gatwick Airport is only half an hour away from train, and you can be in central London in just over an hour. It’s an easy place to love!

Our environment is relaxed, friendly and built upon the basis of every team member having the opportunity to shine and have a realisable input into the games we create. We’re in the amazing position of building a brand-new team, and creating a studio culture that’s all about passion, respect, diversity, fun and togetherness. We’re looking for people that love what they do and love to share their enthusiasm with each other.