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Santa Monica Studio is seeking a Senior Traversal Designer!

The Senior Traversal Designer will assist, collaborate with and take direction from the Lead Combat Designer and Gameplay Director as needed on any the following: developing a responsive controllable character and camera, mapping buttons to actions in an intuitive way, helping to build the traversal mechanics, establishing metrics and working with the engineering/animation teams to ensure smooth transitions between gameplay states.

Principal Responsibilities:

• Design and implement mechanics to ensure player can effectively control all movement and camera functions within the game working directly with engineering and animation teams.
• Work within the set standard for all character asset design, creation and in-game implementation within the production path as it relates to design, animation and otherwise.
• Participate in required production related meetings and functions as needed.
• Must comprehend a working knowledge of the game production pipeline in order to communicate effectively with other team members.
• Must understand the relationship between gameplay elements within the level and the overall game and all of the ways the player can respond to each gameplay element.

Required Knowledge/Skills:

• Must be able to understand how a player character behaves in-game and how to map that behavior to player controls.
• Experience using a text-based scripting language (LUA) to set-up character logic.
• Basic knowledge of scripting languages and code (C++, C#) is preferred but not required.
• Working knowledge of animation systems including blending, layering and state machines.
• Must be able to grasp and work with code-based proprietary tools and techniques to implement and troubleshoot assigned characters.
• Must have knowledge of competitive products and various gameplay genres, as well as a personal understanding of what makes gameplay fun.
• Must possess quality written communication skills and the ability to convey abstract concepts.
• Ability to think logically with a strong level of attention to detail.
• Must be able to professionally communicate and work with other members of the game production team (both internally and externally).
• Must have excellent communication while still keeping the overall vision of the game in mind.

Required Experience:

• 4 plus years in game development, with at least 2 years in Controls Design (creative and technical) specific role.

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