Creative Director - Darkpaw Games

Creative Director - Darkpaw Games

The Creative Director will provide creative leadership for game aesthetics, mechanics, design, and story for Darkpaw Games, located in San Diego, CA. In partnership with the Darkpaw Games Creative and Leadership teams, this person will also help attract and retain the best creative gaming talent around. This position will:

• Provide visionary oversight and creative direction for an unannounced title within Darkpaw Games.
• Establish and refine the high-level core gameplay loops.
• Advise on and develop supplementary systems that reinforce gameplay loops that focus on core pillars of the game:
• Community and Teamwork - Working together and building social bonds to achieve things that you can't do (or is very hard to do) on your own.
• Fairness - You perform certain gameplay actions, put the time in, "work" hard and you get rewarded, your accomplishments and achievements are never taken away.
• Escape and Exploration - We build alternative worlds where players can take a break from real life or want to get a feeling of exploring something new with a sense of danger (high fantasy exploration).
• Maintain knowledge of the global game market and use to influence and add value to our product offerings.
• Assist with the recruitment of key talent and grow and mentor the Design team.
• Lead creative teams to establish and meet key milestones with expected quality, budget, and time standards.

Required Experience & Skills:

• 10+ years of direct game development experience.
• Proven success from previously released titles.
• Relevant experience in achieving results via strong leadership.
• Ability to motivate teams and build consensus.
• Ability to design and elaborate on core gameplay loops and design systems that reinforce the loop from end-to-end.
• Effective and positive interpersonal skills.
• Proven problem-solving and troubleshooting skills.
• Experience developing MMO games.
• Strong portfolio of work in current game engines UE4/5.
• Ability to assist with systems, level, and narrative design when the situation arises.
• Experience working on PC and console games.
• Experience developing procedurally generated content.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience developing games on pre-existing IP.
• Previous experience with building a game from concept to release.

Feel like you are a match for this role, but don't meet all the requirements and pluses? We encourage fresh viewpoints, so as long as you can show us how your attitude and other skills make up for any gaps, we still want to see your application!