Fire Hose Games is the Boston-based (but currently fully-remote) independent game development studio behind titles such as Go Home Dinosaurs, Catlateral Damage, and 20XX. We pay good salaries and our generous benefits package includes health care, dental, unlimited vacation/sick time, 401(k) with matching, excellent maternity/paternity leave, flexible work hours, and relocation reimbursement. Fire Hose hasn’t crunched in years and we don’t intend to start. Our company culture is inclusive, supportive, and fun. We strongly encourage applicants with diverse backgrounds and voices to apply, and consider relevant experience in all its forms. We hope to hear from you!

For more info, visit http://www.firehosegames.com/jobs/

Fire Hose Games is looking for an experienced, multi-talented Designer to join the team on our latest game. This is a console + PC release featuring new and unannounced IP, and the ideal candidate will be familiar with (and excited about) factory/automation games.

Fire Hose is a small team with both deep and broad skillsets, able to cover a variety of roles as we take on new and varied projects. We're looking for people who have experience in multiple design domains. For this role, we’re especially interested in candidates who excel at:

• Systems Design (with an emphasis on deep strategic systems and/or progression mechanics)
• Multi-platform UI/UX Design for Systems-heavy games (art skills a bonus)

You should be a master of at least one of these, and have facility with the other. We’re looking for someone with the experience and know-how to identify big-picture problems and opportunities, and who can help us zero-in on what works while avoiding what doesn’t.

Our team is currently remote, so great communication and organizational skills are a must. Successful candidates must be able to work fully in sync with a team based in the U.S. Eastern time zone. Preference may be given to candidates in the greater Boston area, or who are willing to relocate.

If you’re excited about helping us deliver our most ambitious project yet, then we’re eager to hear from you!

Responsibilities

• Provide guidance and leadership for the project’s design.
• Solicit internal and external playtest feedback, developing test plans, analyzing qualitative and quantitative data, and proposing takeaways and responses.
• Take the lead on balancing and tuning for gameplay systems and progression.
• Act as a focal point for cross-discipline collaboration, using documentation and discussion to keep the team aligned on a single vision for the game.
• Help the team identify and define critical game problems, and curate elegant solutions that suit available time and resources.
• Help the team maintain an agile approach to design and development, with an emphasis on tight iterative loops, and willingness to pivot based on the results of each iteration.
• Work closely with a narrative designer to ensure that the game’s systems and levels are designed to be part of the storytelling experience.
• Work with production to identify a tiered feature set to support Early Access and Live development.

• Mid: 3+ years professional experience in video game design
• Senior: 5+ years professional experience in video game design
• At least 1 shipped title in a design role
• Professional experience with modern consoles and/or Steam
• Able to write clear and actionable design documentation, and maintain it throughout all phases of development
• Comfortable working closely with other disciplines, and shepherding/refining good ideas regardless of where they originate
• Familiar with Unity Tools (C# scripting ability would be a major plus, but not required)

‍Preferences

• Experience with Jira/Confluence/Atlassian suite.
• Familiarity with factory/automation games.
• Experience with level design
• Experience with Early Access/Live Development
• Experience with narrative-based or narrative-enhanced games

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.