Senior Game Systems Designer

AstroNomad Studios; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

AstroNomad Studios in the United States is seeking a Senior Systems Game Designer to architect, prototype, tune, and connect the gameplay systems at the heart of our current roguelike project, with emphasis on build variety, progression, and replayability.

You will balance interconnected systems—combat rules, traversal, upgrades, encounters, economies, and run structure—and translate creative direction into clear, implementation-ready specs, data structures, and tuning targets.

Qualifications

• Experience designing gameplay systems for roguelike/roguelite, run-based or similar games.
• Ability to break down complex ideas into testable components and iterate.
• Comfort with formulas, tuning tables, probability, and data-driven decision making.

Responsibilities

• Architect, model, and balance interconnected gameplay systems including combat, traversal, upgrades, encounters, resources, progression, and run structure.
• Design roguelike/roguelite systems for replayability with build variety, synergies, risk/reward, and meta-progression.
• Translate direction into systemic rules, verbs, constraints, data structures, and implementation-ready specs.
• Collaborate with leadership, engineering, art, animation, and production to keep systems fun, readable, extensible, and buildable.
• Create precise design documentation, tuning tables, state-machine breakdowns, economy models, and balance notes.
• Prototype, test, tune, and refine mechanics based on feel, pacing, and production realities.
• Partner with engineers to implement and iterate systems in-engine; Unreal Engine experience is valuable.
• Identify design risks early and propose focused, manageable solutions that preserve depth.
• Support a game that rewards curiosity, mastery, movement, exploration, experimentation, and discovery.

Skills

Systems design

Roguelike design

Balancing

Prototyping

Communication

Unreal Engine

Blueprint/C++

Data-driven design

Collaboration

Tools

Unreal Engine

Blueprint

C++

Job description

AstroNomad Studios is a new, small, distributed game studio backed by AIC. We are building original, expressive games with strong mechanical identity, memorable worlds, and a focus on player discovery, mastery, and adventure.

We are looking for a Senior Systems Game Designer to help architect, prototype, tune, and connect the gameplay systems at the heart of our current project, with a particular focus on roguelike/roguelite structure, build variety, progression, and replayability.

This is a hands-on senior design role for someone who can think deeply about mechanics, model and tune complex systems, communicate clearly with a small team, and turn abstract gameplay goals into practical, testable, shippable systems.

What You'll Do

• Architect, model, and balance interconnected gameplay systems, including combat rules, traversal, abilities, upgrades, encounters, resources, progression, reward economies, and run structure.
• Design systems that support roguelike/roguelite replayability, including buildcraft, synergies, risk/reward choices, intra-run progression, meta-progression, procedural variation, and difficulty escalation.
• Translate creative direction into clear systemic rules, player verbs, constraints, feedback loops, tuning targets, data structures, and implementation-ready specs.
• Work closely with leadership, engineering, level design, animation, art, and production to make sure systems are fun, readable, extensible, and buildable.
• Create precise, practical design documentation, tuning tables, state-machine breakdowns, economy models, and balance notes that help the team make decisions and implement features.
• Prototype, test, tune, and refine mechanics based on feel, readability, pacing, replayability, systemic depth, and production realities.
• Partner with engineers and technical designers to implement and iterate systems in-engine, with Unreal Engine experience especially valuable.
• Identify design risks early and help propose focused, achievable solutions that preserve depth without creating unnecessary complexity.
• Support the creation of a game that rewards curiosity, mastery, movement, exploration, experimentation, and player discovery.

What We're Looking For

• Demonstrated experience designing gameplay systems for roguelike/roguelite, run-based, action, combat, traversal, or similarly mechanics-driven games.
• Strong systems-design instincts: you understand how rules, numbers, probabilities, player verbs, feedback loops, and constraints interact to create emergent play.
• Experience designing or tuning build variety, upgrade synergies, reward structures, difficulty curves, progression systems, economies, or combat/ability systems.
• Ability to break down complex gameplay ideas into simple, testable components, then tune them through iteration, data, player feel, and team feedback.
• Comfort working with formulas, spreadsheets, tuning tables, probability, scaling math, or lightweight simulations to support design decisions.
• Hands-on experience prototyping or implementing systems in a modern game engine. Unreal Engine experience, including Blueprint and/or C++, is especially relevant, though strong experience in Unity, Godot, proprietary engines, or similar tools is also welcome.
• Clear written and verbal communication, including the ability to create documentation that engineers, artists, animators, designers, and producers can actually use.
• Comfort working in a small team where roles may overlap, priorities change, and ownership matters.
• Good taste in systemic design - not just adding mechanics, but knowing what should be removed, simplified, clarified, or tuned.
• A practical mindset: you care about what can actually be built, tested, balanced, and improved.

Preferred Experience

• Shipped-title experience or equivalent production experience taking gameplay systems from prototype through implementation, tuning, polish, and release.
• Deep experience with roguelike/roguelite systems, run architecture, buildcraft, procedural variation, reward economies, meta-progression, or long-term replayability.
• Strong Unreal Engine experience, especially designing, prototyping, scripting, or tuning gameplay systems in Blueprint, C++, data assets, gameplay tags, or related Unreal workflows.
• Experience with data-driven ability systems, enemy interactions, combat rulesets, progression systems, or environmental gameplay.
• Background in action-adventure games, traversal-heavy games, combat systems, platforming, or exploration-focused design.
• Experience collaborating with engineering on systemic architecture, tools, data schemas, content pipelines, or balancing workflows.
• Comfort working remotely with a distributed team.
• Interest in stylized, expressive, mythic, fairy-tale-inspired, or strange worlds.

About AstroNomad Studios

AstroNomad Studios is the game-development arm of AIC. We are a new studio building a small, focused, distributed team around original games with strong mechanical identity and expressive worlds.

We are drawn to games that combine movement, danger, discovery, mastery, replayability, and atmosphere - games where systems are not just features, but part of how the player understands and inhabits the world.

We are early, ambitious, and practical. That means we care about distinctive creative direction, but also about scope, clarity, ownership, and making decisions a small team can actually execute.

If you like building systems that support adventure, replayability, player expression, and meaningful choices - not just isolated mechanics - this may be a strong fit.