Gameplay (and Creature) Programmer Remote (Anywhere) Giant Sparrow Game Development Intermediat[...]

Gamecompanies; California (MO); Remote; USD 60,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

An innovative gaming company is on the lookout for a talented programmer to breathe life into fantastical creatures. This role involves creating immersive experiences by blending animation, physics, and AI, ensuring that each creature feels dynamic and responsive to player interactions. You'll work closely with designers and artists to develop gameplay systems that resonate with the enchanting strangeness of real-life encounters with wildlife. If you have a passion for game development and a knack for making virtual beings feel alive, this is the perfect opportunity to showcase your skills in a creative environment.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of experience as a professional game developer.
• Strong background in C++ and comfortable with vector math.

Responsibilities

• Analyze real animal movement to improve creature liveliness.
• Collaborate with designers on gameplay prototypes.

Skills

C++

Animation Programming

Physics Programming

AI Programming

Gameplay Programming

Job description

We're looking for a programmer who can help us bring our creatures to life.

Our new game is about a field biologist interacting with a wide variety of mundane and fantastical creatures. We're trying to create moments that echo the mesmerizing strangeness and familiarity of real-life encounters with wild animals. Like a grub crawling on a hand, a starfish waving its arms, or a lizard emerging from its shell but filtered through an aesthetic that includes classic fairytales, Jim Henson, and Junji Ito.

Your primary focus will be on finding programmatic ways to help our creatures feel unsettlingly alive. That's likely to include a mix of animation, physics, AI, and gameplay programming. It's OK if you don't have direct experience in all these areas but you should have a background that includes technically complex, player-facing systems.

Any experience with traditional gameplay programming would be helpful too. In this game, creatures ARE gameplay, so there's a lot of overlap between systems. The underlying goal for us is an experience that feels responsive, which in this game is often synonymous with feeling alive.

This might be a good fit for you if you'd enjoy:

Analyzing real animal movement and behavior to figure out ways to improve our creatures' sense of liveliness.

Working with designers on gameplay prototypes, e.g., building a prehensile tongue that can "crawl" around the environment in a suitably stretchy, squishy way.

Creating robust Control Rigs that are responsive to player input, e.g., a belly being poked with a pencil.

Collaborating with character artists and animators on building and polishing our creatures.

Must haves

4+ years of experience as a professional game developer

Strong background in C++

Comfortable with vector math and basic physics