Founding Game UX Designer

Storycraft Games; Montreal; Remote; CAD 80,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Storycraft Games is seeking an experienced Game UX Designer to lead immersive user experiences, intuitive interfaces, and new mobile gameplay concepts for an AI-powered collaborative platform.

As part of the founding team, you will shape the initial product, establish our design culture, and work with founders and developers to rapidly prototype and iterate towards product-market fit in a remote-enabled environment.

Qualifications

• Advanced to a senior level position or beyond.
• Strong portfolio with shipped UX and game design work.
• Deep expertise in user-centered design.
• Stay current with trends in mobile, consumer and gaming products.
• Creative innovator with impactful projects or design community.
• Ability to communicate high level product concepts and interactions across product development stages.
• User research to inform design decisions.
• Rapid ideation and prototyping of user flows, interfaces, and game mechanics.
• Experience playing games and forming strong opinions about them.
• Ability to work remotely and communicate effectively in a remote culture.

Responsibilities

• Design initial features leading up to a Q3 alpha launch.
• Create mobile character/object/map creation flows using AI as a co-pilot.
• Design social features and user profiles; iterate on social storytelling games.
• Explore RPG systems and align gameplay for the initial product.
• Build rapid prototypes for experiments and playtests with stakeholders.
• Identify opportunities for AI-driven experiences and gameplay.
• Define Storycraft brand principles for UI, voice, and tone, coordinating with a branding agency.

Job description

Summary

Storycraft is hiring an experienced Game UX Designer to lead the design of immersive user experiences, intuitive user interfaces, and new types of mobile gameplay. You will be designing a never before seen collaborative game creation platform built from the ground up using generative AI.

As part of the founding team, you'll be in at the ground floor to design the initial product and establish our design culture.

Who we are

Storycraft is founded on the belief that anyone should be able to tell their stories through games.

Our product is an AI-Generated-Content (AIGC) gaming platform that reimagines how story driven video games are created, by letting creators deliver daily, episodic game content to their player base. Storycraft uses generative AI to create maps, characters, and in-game objects to power a new type of creative gameplay where truly anything can happen.

The co-founders Andy and Adam are serial AI and gaming entrepreneurs. For Storycraft they have partnered with and raised capital from some of the best regarded firms in both gaming ( LVP - investors of Supercell, Unity, etc, etc) and consumer products ( SignalFire - investors in Grammarly, Clubhouse, etc). We are currently hiring the founding team and are looking for folks who are keen to innovate at the intersection of generative AI, social gaming, and storytelling.

Day-to-day you'll work directly with the founders and a small, tightknit team of frontend, backend and AI developers to rapidly prototype, and iterate to find product market fit and deliver the best possible experience to our creators and players.

What you'll be doing

• Work with the founders to design the initial features of our product leading up to a Q3 alpha launch.
• Design user flows for creating game characters, objects, and maps from a mobile phone using AI as your co-pilot.
• Design social features and user profiles. Iterate and improve on our existing designs for social collaborative storytelling games.
• Explore roleplaying game systems from tabletop and videogames, then work with the team to design the right gameplay for our initial product.
• Build rapid prototypes to run experiments and playtest our evolving product with internal stakeholders and playtesters.
• Identify opportunities for AI to drive new types of consumer experiences and gameplay.
• Define the foundational principles for how Storycraft expresses its brand through product UI, voice, and tone. You will get support from a branding agency if needed, and be responsible for pushing that project forward.

Things you've done

• Advanced in your design career to a senior level position or beyond.
• Assembled a strong portfolio that demonstrates shipped UX and game design work for notable gaming, or consumer tech products.
• Demonstrated a deep expertise in user-centered design.
• Stayed current with trends in mobile, consumer and gaming products.
• Established yourself as a creative innovator on impactful projects or within a design community.
• Communicated high level product concepts and detailed user interactions across all stages of product development, from wireframes to prototypes to high fidelity graphics.
• Obsessed over the needs of your product’s users, and conducted user research to inform and validate design decisions.
• Practiced rapid ideation and prototyping of user flows, user interfaces, mobile interaction patterns, and game mechanics.
• Played a lot of games and formed strong opinions on what you like and don’t like about them.
• You know how to work remotely, write well, and understand the unique demands of a remote culture in terms of communication and collaboration.

Bonus points

• You have expertise in the craft of storytelling or narrative design.
• You've designed social apps.
• You understand the creator economy. You're an active participant in online social spaces like YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Discord, or TikTok.
• You've been doing creative experiments with the latest AI tools.
• You've designed and shipped your own game (or other creative product) end-to-end.

Why you should work with us

• You'll have a front-row seat at an early-stage startup with two experienced founders. If you hope to start your own thing someday, this would be great preparation.
• You will have a huge impact here. You'll be shipping every week and helping us define the shape of our flagship product.
• We have experience working on remote teams and understand how to play to its strengths. You won't be walking into a calendar filled with back to back Zoom calls.
• If you have been looking for your chance to get into AI, this is it.
• We have weekly conversations about D&D and genre cinema, do game breakdowns, and play tabletop games together.
• You crave innovation. Our company is exploring uncharted territory in gaming, AI, and social consumer experiences.
• You'll report to founders who can help you grow in your career while empathizing with the challenges of your craft
• Andy is a certified coach and an experienced AI founder with a previous exit under his belt.
• Adam has experience leading teams and building in Frontend Development, Design, Product, and Marketing.

Why you would not want to work with us

• We are a new startup so we are still defining and iterating on processes. If you need a lot of structure to thrive, you will not be comfortable here.
• We have 18-24 months of runway with our current pre-seed raise. We will have to raise more capital to achieve profitability. We are confident in our ability to do this if we hire great people and execute well together, but this may feel overly risky to you if you've never experienced this stage of a startup before.
• We plan to meet up in person a few times a year, but have no current plans to establish an office or a work-in-person culture. If you thrive in an office, this will not be the best place for you.