Evil Empire is a new-ish studio formed in early 2019 by a few ex-Motion Twin people with the intention of creating more Dead Cells and using that as a stepping stone towards making our own games. We work in the same open space as Motion Twin and regularly beat them in Nerf wars and Smash.

The name of our studio is a dig at some of the shadier aspects of the game industry and, if you have a sense of humour, a signal that we're all about being the exact opposite (also, people didn't like my "Cat Nap Studio" suggestion - which really says something about their taste as far as I'm concerned).

If you're working at Evil Empire you will NEVER crunch (it's nuts that this has to be said), you will have excellent health cover, five weeks paid leave (plus public holidays), subsidized meals, flexibility with work time, free fruit and other noms and of course as much coffee as you can drink.

We also do regular trips to some of the most legendary gaming events in the world, including excursions to National Parks and other such shenanigans (team building right ? ), so there's plenty of opportunities for motivated people to get out and see the world. Well, at least, we were doing this before Covid happened, and plan to do it again if events are ever a thing in the future...

Bordeaux is an awesome city as it's big enough to have plenty to do, but small enough that you can walk across it in half an hour. Beautiful 19th century architecture and more restaurants than you can poke a stick at make it a great place to live. You're also 45 minutes drive from the beach and 3 hours from the ski slopes. While access to a very well connected airport and a 2 hour high speed train ride to Paris mean you're never far away from anything.

Evil Empire, the new team working on Motion Twin's smash hit Dead Cells, among other ambitious projects, is looking for a Game Designer to help us expand the Dead Cells universe. The Dead Cells community is active and hungry for new challenges and we're happy to provide it for them.

To date, we've released 21 free updates and 2 (well almost) paid DLCs and we have no plans on stopping while the people still want more. We're looking for someone to dream up and document designs for biomes, bosses, enemies, weapons and more, in conjunction with a talented team of devs, artists, marketing bastards, our venerable creative director and of course the great and powerful Motion Twin.

Your responsibilities would include :

• Writing and updating the Dead Cells' bible, documenting all existing and future systems and mechanics of the game.
  
• Suggesting and greenlighting, in conjunction with the creative director, new designs for content to be added to Dead Cells through new updates (items, mutations, enemies, biomes, mechanics, etc.).
  
• Suggesting and greenlighting, in conjunction with the creative director, reworks or improvements to existing content.
  
• Creating documentation and presentations of the new content for internal and external communication.
  
• Listing all the development and graphical needs for each design.
  
• Working with the producer to assign greenlit content to the most relevant team member.
  
• Working with the producer to ensure we meet deadlines and have plenty of warning when we're going to inevitably be late. Crunch prevention officer... ^^
  
• Estimate the time needed for each design's implementation.
  
• Testing new content, ensuring that it respects the intention behind the initial designs, reaches a similar or superior quality level than what already exists and fits into the creative chart of Dead Cells.
  
• Balancing all existing and future content.
  
• Keeping touch with the community through our networks (Discord & Reddit mainly).
  
• Regularly interacting with the community to highlight the best suggestions and the most interesting designs, ensuring that they know we're listening.
  
• Suggest and greenlight with the marketing people, the producer and the creative director update "packages", meaning a coherent set of reworks and/or additions that line up with available resources, planning constraints, creative long-term wants for the game, community requests and marketing pleas. Good luck. ><
  

• The more experience in the game industry, the better, but promising and motivated people just out of school will also be considered.
  
• Critical thinking is key - you can't play a game, even a masterpiece, without listing what could have been done better.
  
• Ability to debate with your colleagues and managers, to see and accept other viewpoints and decisions that don't feel right to you.
  
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills. You'll be interacting with a diverse set of people with differing views and social profiles, you'll need to speak both artist and dev, and know how to facilitate communication between these groups.
  
• Bilingual French/English and at ease reading, writing and speaking in both languages, that's why this job offer is in English. Language lessons provided for an exceptional candidate that's a little rusty with their English.
  

Bonus points :

• A good grasp of Dead Cells and in-depth knowledge of the game's content will help a lot.
  
• Ability to read and tweak variables directly in the code, making you much more autonomous from the devs.
  

Game jams and shipped projects matter more to us than a degree in game design.

Resume - cover letter - web site - references... (if relevant). Selected candidates will be required to take a test.
To: Joan Blachere