This position is located at Snowblind Studios, based in Bothell, WA which has easy access to Seattle and the east side communities of Lake Washington. Snowblind Studios is the award winning game studio, founded in 1997, that brought you critically acclaimed games like Baulder’s Gate: Dark Alliance and the Champions of Norrath series. The teams are very collaborative, hard working and highly motivated working on ground breaking games and projects.
In 2009, Snowblind Studios was acquired by Time Warner, through its Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment division and currently employs over 80 people developing projects on next-generation platforms. You must have a deep passion for games and love making them. You need to be highly motivated, thorough, self directed, able to manage time intelligently, and rebuild and polish your work until it is perfect.
If this is you, Snowblind Studios would love to hear from you!
The Senior Technical Designer is responsible for ensuring the AI use the proper scripting logic as well as overseeing the creative design of the AI. They must mentor younger technical designers on best practices as well as pinpoint inefficient implementations. The Senior Technical Designer collaborates with the game play programmers to spec out new feature requests as well as indentify features that can be streamlined.
The position works closely with the Lead Game Designer to ensure his vision is being properly communicated and executed within game. The Senior Technical Designer will collaborate with the combat team, continually evaluate game play interactions, and iterate upon AI game play until it meets the Lead Game Designer’s standards.
Job Responsibilities:
Assists the senior management in:
* Improving and evolving scripting implementation practices
* Collaborates with technical experts within the company to define feature and tool requests.
Analyzes competitive products and makes recommendations to Lead Designer.
Uses past experiences to suggest the most efficient method of feature implementation.
Drive the technical design of various game systems, including enemy AI.
Leads assigned technical design team to define the enemy “fun factor.”
Reviews the moment to moment combat experience and instructs the technical designers with feedback.
Pinpoints any bottlenecks in the enemy creation pipeline and takes initiative to fix the issue.
Identify and drive improvements to the tools.
Collaborates with the game play programmers to establish optimal implementation strategies.
Define and script enemy AI using in-house editor and Lua, which encompasses a wide range of behaviors and reactions from various player character actions.
Creates AI behavior specs and prototypes enemy behaviors.
Play and evaluate combat and game events constantly, iterating and re-doing work to reach a high degree of polish.
Analyze and incorporates user feedback from consumer usability tests.
Creates specific combat experiences in the product that serve as a quality benchmark for others to follow.
Participates in regular, hands-on interaction with technical designers, animators and game play programmers to ensure that the combat is fun and addictive.
Updates Lead Game Designer with AI behavior status.
Communicates and integrates Lead Designer’s vision for combat game play to Technical Designers, Animators and Game play Programmers.
Creates a positive, forward-focused environment that indentifies and prioritizes issues for solution.
Sets goals and objectives for the Technical Designers .
Acts as a role-model for technical designers by emphasizing project goals and maintaining a core focus on amazing AI interactions and fun game play.
Provides aesthetic, skill and personality feedback on design candidates.
Mentors and trains technical designers on aesthetic and production skills.
Collaborates with leads to track historical costs, measure estimate accuracy, and develop alternative approaches focused on efficiency in production and accuracy in estimation.
Work Experience:
Minimum 5 years industry experience (or progressively complex related experience) and at least 1 shipped title.
Education, Professional Training, Technical Training or Certification:
B.A. degree preferred or equivalent job experience.
Formal computer science training a plus.
Knowledge/Skills:
Extensive experience with Lua and C++
Proficient in AI techniques, game systems, animation, scripting languages, and associated tools.
Passion for Action-RPG games
Excellent communication, interpersonal, and organizational skills.
Ability to work well under pressure and with deadlines.
Proficient in AI techniques, game systems, animation, scripting languages, and associated tools.
