Senior Game Designer

We're looking for an experienced game designer to join our team based in Chippendale, Sydney.

The position will see you lead the design of our games and help to shape the design process for our team. You will be directly involved in creating bespoke games from concept through to publishing with a particular focus on entertainment games (PC and console), and games for change. You will be involved with every aspect of the design process, from designing systems and mechanics, to prototyping and experimenting, through to balancing and tweaking in-game implementation and content. You will work closely with art, engineering, and production departments to craft the player experience, and coordinate the work of other game and UIdesigners on the team.

We are open to remote applications within Australia, but have a preference for applicants based in Sydney.

We are only looking for candidates within Australia. At this time, we do not sponsor VISAs.

Why Chaos Theory

- Studio of the Year at the 2024 AustralianGame Developer Awards.

- A role that works with your lifestyle: flexible working hours, a mix of work-from-office and work-from-home, optional 4 or 5-day schedules, a centrally-based office.

- No crunch, no overtime. We have never asked anyone to work on a weekend. You don’t need to justify if you want to take an afternoon off or come in late, so long as you are achieving your goals and supporting your team.

- Create games that players love Our games have been downloaded over 70+ million times.

- Got a side project? Awesome We encourage team members to pursue their personal interests, and don’t restrict anyone from working on their own game outside of work.

- Strong company community with regular (and optional) board / video game nights, games club (like book club, but games), workshops and mentoring opportunities, company-supplied Friday lunches, and other social events.

- We’re invested in your personal growth. We offer 1-on-1 check-ins every fortnight, quarterly goal setting, monthly personal development days, and personal career roadmaps.

- A small team (~20 people) with many opportunities to shape the projects you work on and the team you work with. Everyone participates in changing our team's processes

- We’ve achieved a carbon-neutral status by planting over 3,000 trees and using 100% renewable power. Our next goal is to offset the carbon emissions for everyone on our team, both at work and at home.

- We value and nurture an open and inclusive work environment. A diverse team is a resilient team and one that usually comes up with the best ideas

Your Responsibilities

- Game Design: creating the gameplay mechanics, levels, and other elements that drive player engagement. You will work closely with the Creative Lead, Producer, Technical Lead, and other key stakeholders to ensure that the game design aligns with the overall vision and goals.

- Documentation: maintaining design documentation, primarily the Game Design Document (GDD) which includes notes on mechanics, levels, progression, and other elements, to ensure that the development process runs smoothly, and the team knows what they are working on and why.

- Team Management: managing the game designers on the project team, providing guidance, feedback, and mentorship as needed.

- Prototyping: creating prototypes to test and validate new game mechanics and ideas. These prototypes may be low-fidelity mockups using tools like Miro or Figma, or you may work closely with programmers to quickly iterate on interactive/in-engine prototypes.

- Playtesting: oversee playtesting, gathering feedback from players and using it to iterate on the game design and make improvements. This may involve observing in-person playtesting sessions, using tools to facilitate remote playtesting, and synthesising player feedback to identify key insights.

- Balancing: ensuring that the game is balanced, with mechanics and elements that are challenging but not frustrating, and that the difficulty increases at a pace that is appropriate for the player.

- Content: making sure that content is fit-for-purpose. This includes overseeing the creation of content items such as story and dialogue, characters, achievements, quests, etc.

- Collaboration: collaborate with other departments, such as art, QA, production and programming, to ensure that the game design is integrated seamlessly into the game.

- Contribute to proposals for potential projects, explaining why they are valuable, how they might be achieved, and what they could look like.

Qualifications/Experience

- Experience working on shipped games made with Unity.

- 5+years professional game design experience.

- Experience working with the Unity game engine (comfortable creating and tuning prototypes).

- Ability to perform in-engine balancing, tweaking and polishing tasks within Unity.

- Experience tuning game economies for FTUE and game tutorials.

- Ability to create effective game mechanics and economies for a wide variety of game genres and for a wide variety of audiences

- Ability to succinctly articulate game concepts and craft balanced gameplay loops.

- A confident communicator; with precise and clear verbal and written communications.

- A commitment to working in a professional, inclusive, and supportive environment.

- The experience to understand why an idea will or won't work, and how to design around it.

- Experience with GIT version control.

- A passion for games across multiple genres and platforms.

Nice-To-Haves

- Experience working on games from pre-production to release and LiveOps.

- Experience in other fields of game design, such as game mechanics, level design, narrative, economy.

- UX or UI design experience and an ability to create effective greyboxes or low-fi mockups to communicate ideas.

- Basic scripting skills to adjust features created by developers.

You must have worked on a published title to be considered. Please include samples of your work that we can play or watch.

We are striving to create an open and inclusive workplace culture, and encourage all eligible candidates to apply. We are an equal opportunity employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age or disability status.

If you would like to apply for the role, please contact us with your CV and relevant portfolio at:

Built on a love for the craft, our talented team of digital creatives bring their passion for games to every project. Based in Sydney, Australia, our office is always open to those interested in how games can help shape the world.

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