Level Designer

At Red Rift, we are passionate about full-cycle game development and creating game content. Founded in 2019 in Michigan, we operate as a fully remote company with a team of over 100 creative and dedicated professionals who share a love for games and a commitment to excellence. We are currently seeking a talented Level Designer to join our team and contribute to various exciting projects at our studio

Role description:

Red Rift is looking for a Level Designer to break ground on a brand new AA project currently in pre-production. Genre is medieval battle royale/dungeon crawler/rpg. In this role, you will spearhead shaping the new world and its encounter spaces, design fantastic traversal playgrounds, craft interesting combat layouts, and surprise players with delightful moments of discovery. We're looking for someone who loves the craft of shaping space, attention, and tension in games. You'll be working alongside our passionate team of artists & gameplay designers to bridge the visual & combat vision of the game and bring the space to life.

Responsibilities:

• Conceptualize, design, layout, grey-boxing, blockout, sculpt, paint, prop, and otherwise construct game environments from the ground up, establishing the pacing and flow of the player's attention through game levels
• Collaborate with game designers to create interesting arena geometry that complements the unique combat philosophies of the title
• Build open spatial layouts that allow players to fully express their traversal abilities and challenge their mastery
• Guide the player's attention and flow, balancing the delicate line between feeling lost and big "aha" moments
• Balance the pacing of discovery, traversal times, and overall playtime
• Work with the tech team to advance internal tooling for level creation and encounter development.Integrate and iterate on game mechanics within level designs, ensuring a balance of challenge and accessibility
• Research and be intimately familiar with the game's subject matter, locations, and architecture
• Design, implement, and own features and/or encounters related to the level and mission creation pipeline from prototypes to final quality
• Transform high-level ideas into accurate, intelligible, and quantified technical specifications. Oversee the creation and maintenance of detailed, comprehensive documentation
• Contribute to the creation and constant improvement of pipelines and processes
• Ensure the quality and consistency of your work from conception to delivery by correcting bugs and iterating based on peer assessment.

Qualifications

• Excellent understanding of level design fundamentals and the role of level design in the overall player experience
• Extensive knowledge of current titles, specifically in the Action/Battle Royales/RPG area, as well as works of art such as movies, architecture, or visual arts to be used as references for crafting and communicating original ideas
• Ability to create map layouts at all stages – from simple drawings to fully functional levels in Unreal Engine 5
• Broad knowledge of aspects of game and level design with an understanding of layout, combat and encounter design, balancing, flow, difficulty, progression, and usability
• Widely played, with the ability to speak to player experiences in a wide set of genres and break down what makes these games work
• Ability to react quickly to changing project needs and directions, along with strong problem-solving skills and a solution-oriented mindset
• An eye for shaping visually striking concepts into spaces that also express the game's mechanics
• Great instinct for balancing art and level design, so spaces simultaneously look great and play amazingly

Even Better If You Have

• Shipped at least one project, ideally in the Action/RPG genre in a level design role
• A strong demonstrable portfolio of personal and/or professional work
• Experience in shipping AAA games
• Experience in shipping large open-world games
• Experience in Unreal 4/5 projects, both personal and/or professional.

We offer

• Freedom to dip your toes into other disciplines and influence others beyond the boundaries of your role
• Highly creative and collaborative start-up culture
• Completely remote work
• Flexible schedule with 40-hour working week
• Inflation-protected wages
• A team of professionals who are in love with their work, who will always help in difficult situations and support in a friendly way
• Transparency of processes and adequate management

If you are a talented Level Designer ready to take on an exciting challenge and work on an innovative project, we would love to hear from you. Apply today and help us create unforgettable gaming experiences!

Sincerely, Red Rift.