Senior Combat Designer

**Company Overview**:
A leader in creating deep and engaging experiences on PC and mobile, Jagex was founded in 2001 and is today one of the UK’s biggest and most respected video game developers and publishers.

Famed for its flagship MMOs RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, Jagex has welcomed more than 260million player accounts to its world and created a $1bn lifetime franchise revenue. Today the RuneScape franchise exists beyond running games in live operations; our titles are living games that connect and inspire millions of players, with content and experiences both inside and outside of inexhaustible game worlds.

Both RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, on PC and mobile, offer ever-evolving, highly-active worlds and our community-focussed development ethos empowers players to have a real say in how each game is shaped.

Jagex is expanding and extending its portfolio with fresh franchise titles, new IP and, in 2018 launched Jagex Partners, delivering third-party publishing and operational services exclusively for the living games of the future.

Jagex employs more than 400 people at its Cambridge headquarters and is on the hunt for talented people to work across the business to help the company to achieve yet another year of record growth and player satisfaction.

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Job Purpose:
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You will be responsible for designing engaging combat and PVE/PVP player mechanics in Jagex's new Open World Survival Craft title and seeing your designs through from inception to realization. This will involve creating features, game systems, and narratives that will help power the core game experience. You will work closely with the Lead Designer and Associate Design Director to help shape and champion the vision for the game.

A senior designer is responsible for the design and implementation of significant content and systems. It is expected that they will take high-level briefs and translate them into clear, actionable designs that support the product pillars, respect product scope, and can be easily maintained in a live environment.

Senior designers are proactive about gathering feedback and improving. They foster a culture of creative collaboration by participating in playtests and delivering feedback to others in a clear, impersonal, respectful manner. Seniors can identify holistic problems with the game, formulate solutions, and effectively manage that information upwards to leadership. They are ready and willing to assist the lead designer as and when required.

Senior designers are team players, and they form strong relationships across disciplines. They will seek out insight, support, and buy-in from artists, analysts, marketers, engineers, and others by involving them early in the creative process. They can effectively evangelize their vision and communicate the goals and constraints to others.

At a senior level, it is important to demonstrate an all-round ability to solve problems reliably and autonomously with great organizational, scheduling, and mentorship skills. They must show an ability to look more broadly at product development and strategize accordingly within their discipline. Overall, seniors are expected to take on a higher level of responsibility for the quality and timely delivery of complex tasks on their projects.

**Key Duties**:

- Oversee the design of Combat Gameplay Systems for Jagex's new Open World Survival Craft game including combat mechanics, weapon design, ability and gear design as well as balance and tuning.
- Work collaboratively with Art, Audio and Code disciplines to deliver a crisp and satisfying combat feel.
- Advise and support AI and Content teams to create varied and compelling combat scenarios.
- Author and maintain thorough documentation for all combat systems.
- Coordinate regular combat system playtests. Organize, prioritize and integrate feedback as needed.
- Iterate systems as required based on project needs as well as suggestions from audience and team playtesting.
- Create designs and then see them through production and live operations to the highest quality.
- Communicate regular updates to discipline and team; be proactive in communicating progress and solving problems.
- Produce exemplar designs that support the creative vision and product pillars.
- Pitch, prototype, and iterate design systems.
- Set and maintain standards of quality.
- Document best practices and guidance.
- Strive for ways to improve processes, identify, and remove production issues early.
- Collaborate with all disciplines to ensure optimal path, balancing and best design solutions.
- Foster an environment of creativity and collaboration.
- Strive to raise the knowledge level of game design within the team.
- Provide useful, thoughtful, and respectful peer feedback.
- Support, guide, and mentor others more junior.
**Essential Skills**:

- Passion for game design and anything design related.
- Player-centric design thinking.
- Experience of multiple end-to-end game development cycles on h