Thought Pennies Entertainment is a Role-Playing Game studio creating games focused on social storytelling. We celebrate diversity and a people-first approach to game development. We are fully remote.
The Principal Combat Designer brings creativity, technical execution, and cohesiveness to AI combat encounters. The Principal Combat Designer is a critical role and is instrumental in concepting, designing, implementing, and balancing the different aspects of AI behaviors and its subsystems. The Principal Combat Designer will be working very closely with the Lead Combat Designer and the rest of the design team and animators to develop and execute the combat system.
This role requires a deep understanding of action-based gameplay mechanics, touch and feel, and visual storytelling through motion and action. The ideal candidate has a strong history in designing and working with multi-character combat systems, fight mechanics and animations, combat balancing, and satisfying touch and feel on multiple commercial releases.
What you do:
- Collaborate with animators, engineers, audio and FX artists to implement gameplay features.
- Create and lead the design of new enemies and behaviors from concept to implementation.
- Oversee encounter spawning, keeping a close eye on groupings that can become frustrating rather than challenging
- Troubleshoot gameplay and applicable technical issues that arise
- Create and maintain documentation on tools, methods, and training
- Contribute to a studio culture committed to craft, collaboration, and empowerment
- Value schedule and logistics, and partner with the production team members to execute development goals
What you bring:
- 7+ years' experience in game development with a focus on the technical aspects of combat systems; bipedal and quad creatures, multi sectioned, group encounters, and multiplayer interactions, etc. with multiple commercialized projects at a principal or lead capacity
- Passion for designing and implementing combat/fight systems for 3rd person action games.
- Experience with Unreal, in particular Behavior Trees, and Animation Sequence Editor, but also general understanding of blueprints.
- A deep technical understanding of game engine pipelines, technologies, limitations, editing tool conventions, scripting, troubleshooting, and debugging game content experience
- General knowledge of gameplay and mechanics across numerous genres, and an understanding of what makes them work or not work in the context of each game.
- A passion for exploring and developing new and exciting combat concepts to enhance player engagement
- Ability to develop and discuss designs not just at the purely theoretical level, but also at an achievable one.
- Detail-oriented problem-solving ability, with a service-oriented mentality, backed by strong communication skills
- Willingness to give and receive feedback
Plus if you have it:
- Prior experience making 3rd person action games in Unreal, specifically using Blueprint
- Working knowledge of scripting languages (Python, Lua, etc.)
- High interest in martial arts, combat sports, and/or action/fantasy films
Application Materials:
Please provide samples of combat systems you have created and implemented in a previous project. Please be ready to discuss the methodology and principles behind its design and implementation.
