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At Embodied, our Game Designers are champions for overall quality of experience and creators of innovative activities designed for children.
September 2, 2020
5 Min Read
The Gamasutra Job Board is the most diverse, active and established board of its kind for the video game industry!
Here is just one of the many, many positions being advertised right now.
Game Designer, Embodied
Location: Pasadena, California
Join our team's mission to create robots that help people reach their full potential!
COVID-19 Hiring Update: We’ve transitioned to a work-from-home model and we’re continuing to interview and hire during this time. This role is expected to begin as a remote position. We understand each person’s circumstances may be unique and will work with you to explore possible interim options.
Embodied, Inc.’s mission is to build socially and emotionally intelligent animate companions with believable personality and empathy to enhance our daily lives. We have developed a new platform, SocialXTM, that provides a way to use natural human interaction to engage with technology. The first iteration of this technology is Moxie, an animate companion for children developed to help promote social, emotional and cognitive learning. Moxie has been called “the robot pal you dreamed of as a kid” (Wired Magazine), “the sophisticated robot for the curious child” (Wallpaper Magazine), and “a technically impressive childhood robot” (TechCrunch). You can learn all about Moxie and see how it works: www.embodied.com
From the heart of Pasadena in sunny Los Angeles, California, our diverse team of engineers, therapists, and designers is led by experts in robotics, AI and machine learning, entertainment, and consumer electronics. We are financially backed by some of the most prominent corporate and institutional investors including Intel Capital, Toyota AI Ventures, Amazon Alexa Fund, Sony Innovation Fund, JAZZ Venture Partners, Calibrate Ventures, Osage University Partners, Grishin Robotics, and Vulcan Capital.
We are continuing to build an amazing, high-performance team that works hard to innovate, collaborate, and solve complex challenges in order to serve our company mission and goals. We are bold in our vision, relentless in its pursuit, and excited to be discovering new ways to provide positive impact to the families we serve. We are committed to our mission not because it's easy but out of a shared boundless optimism that together we will put a dent in the universe.
At Embodied, our Game Designers are champions for overall quality of experience and creators of innovative activities designed for when children (5-10) are playing with Moxie – a little robot on a big mission to understand humans. This role will ensure that our content modules are engaging, fun, and replayable as well as effective tools for Social Emotional Learning (SEL). The Game Designer will work as part of a collaborative team to create modules that also support a larger creative universe that includes physical materials (Moxie Monthly Mission Packs) as well as a connected kids’ portal. Technical or system’s minded individuals with conversational design experience preferred.
General Responsibilities include:
Creating innovative content that captures the imagination of children of all ages and improves their social development by working collaboratively with:
-Social development experts to integrate therapeutically enhanced content
-Roboticists to collaborate on content using sensory input
-Engineers to implement unique, entertaining activities
-Solve complex challenges in a new field for creative exploration
-Have fun & learning while working at a startup with a great team on an incredible mission
Specific Responsibilities include:
Design engaging learning modules for Moxie that captivate users and enable them to master key Social Emotional Learning points
Design modules that contribute to the long term vision of the GRL Creative Universe
Establish effective design templates that can be iterated upon through multiple modules
Creatively innovate design features that distinguish Embodied's unique experiences
Create modules that take full advantage of the capabilities of an Embodied robot (Moxie), or other connected mediums of learning (physical mailings or the connected kids’ portal)
Design scoring and feedback systems to enhance learning experiences and provide progress feedback to users and administrators
Accurately scope upcoming projects, document plans, track progress, report and work with production tools to provide appropriate guidance on design activities and progress
Work with team members and collaborators to identify learning pain points and identify possible solutions
Work collaboratively in a team of other designers, producers, writers and artists to realize high impact high quality design goals
Work with subject matter experts to translate their knowledge and expertise into engaging Social Emotional Learning experiences
Revise designs as necessary based on feedback from users, team members, and stakeholders
Pitch ideas internally to team members and stakeholders and champion best practices and user experiences
Actively test and iterate on all content to achieve highest standards of overall team execution and user experience
Minimum Qualifications:
Game Design Experience on 2 or more published projects
The desire and ability to create innovative new play patterns using voice, image recognition and/or gesture controls
Strong writing skills for creating original content for children (ages 5-10)
Excellent organization and communication skills
Work well within a cross-discipline team: engineering, art, audio, therapy, marketing, etc.
Familiarity with overseeing content from creation to execution
Ability to manage priorities
Understanding of game structure and story and how they can integrate effectively
Ability to adapt design to match a project's tone, business requirements, and learning goals
Ability to design, iterate and revise work under tight deadlines
Comfortable working scripting tools and other technical production tools
Preferred Qualifications:
5 years of progressively responsible experience in the area of Game Design
Technical and/or background in complex systems design
Non-linear scripting experience
Conversational design experience
Understanding of educational pedagogy and learning theory for kids (5-10)
Experience working in an agile environment
Experience of designing games for kids (5-10)
Experience in the Unity Engine
At Embodied, we support diversity and we are an equal opportunity workplace. We offer a competitive benefits package that includes compensation, health benefits, employee stock options, 401(k) match, flexible PTO, and flexible schedules. We are a dynamic and diverse team that likes to push the status quo. Our work environment is collaborative, flexible, and very supportive of work-life balance.
Interested? Apply now.
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