Why working with us is awesome
We have been fully remote since our founding in 2013.
We don’t crunch – ever. It’s never happened, not for one person, not for one day or for one hour.
There is no required time to be online. We collaborate asynchronously, so you can choose your own hours and days to work.
Your work will make people happy, and you’ll see that. Our team is small, so you’ll own specific things and see people engaging with them.
We work on games that explore novel ideas and new game design concepts. Every product tries to do something that has never been done before.
Our team is small, so there’s room to take on different kinds of tasks and to grow into new skills.
Our game community is full of knowledgeable, friendly, creative, thoughtful people.
Ludeon is wholly owned by Tynan Sylvester, a game creator. This means that unlike at investor-owned companies, our company strategy does not focus on boosting short-term growth metrics. Ludeon seeks to build long-term success by making creatively-rich products with a stable group of talented team members. At the end of it all, we want to be proud of what we’ve created and how we’ve treated team members and players.
How to apply
To apply, email [email protected]. In your message, please include:
- Which role you’re interested in.
- Your location
- A traditional resume with work history.
- A relevant portfolio:
- For programmers, show us code you’ve written. Bigger projects are best.
- For artists, send a link to your online porfolio.
- For designers, show us design writing you’ve done, including specs, analyses, articles, etc.
We can hire internationally. We generally start with a 1-3 month trial contract.
Ludeon’s mission is to make creatively-vivacious, original, provocative, and engaging games. Our team members come from diverse origins and hold many different beliefs. Please be ready to work on this mission with people who might think differently from you.
Role: Programmer
We are actively hiring for this role!
We seek a capable programmer who can write code, handle design specifications, create architectures, optimize systems, solve bugs, and more. This person will understand how to write code as part of a larger creative and collaborative effort, with a strong focus on player desires.
Since our studio is small, you’ll be touching many systems. Depending on your interest and ability, you may or may not be involved in game design work as well. This can range from filling in details of a new system, to writing candidate designs for solving a design problem, to broader evaluations of design direction and comparisons with other games.
We are open to candidates of varying experience levels, from very senior to relatively junior (though juniors should still have substantial work to show, as noted below).
Key responsibilities:
- Implement written game design specifications, both for new content and changes to existing systems using C# and Unity.
- Do minor game design: Understand game designs and independently figure out how to handle ambiguities and unspecified details.
- Offer feedback on design specifications and work with designers to identify and solve problems.
- Write implementation plans and specifications for technical features and architectures.
- Review code from yourself and other programmers.
Requirements:
- Be able to do useful programming from day one. At minimum, you’ll need practical experience working on large codebases and complex problems in a C-like language. C# experience is ideal since that’s what we use for most of our code.
- Have programming projects of significant scope to show off. These could be mods, indie games, game engines, professional games you worked on, or something else. These can’t be typical school projects or something you threw together with pals in a couple weeks or months. As a general minimum, a “significant project” is one that you worked on most days for at least six months.
- Be productive. You should be able to get a lot of stuff done well in a given span of time. You must know how to allocate your effort effectively.
- Understand optimization. Have at least some basic knowledge about data structures, optimization techniques, memory management, algorithms, time/memory complexity, and the best techniques for writing clean and maintainable code (ideally you’ve written lots of code already and know all the common pitfalls).
In the application:
- Please include links to large code samples you created. Ideal code samples are large, complex C# game projects you worked on for years, but other large projects are acceptable as well. Tiny code sample are less useful. We want to see not just how you write a page of code, but how you handle larger architectural decisions that come up in long projects. Bigger projects are best, especially if we can see whole projects and how they fit together. If the code was written by multiple people, state which part was written by you.
Role: Art Director
We are actively hiring for this role!
We are seeking an art director to lead a talented team of artists. Our art director will define the visual direction for entire projects, work on art directly, and organize our small art team.
We are currently focusing on senior and director-level candidates only. Please do not apply unless you have substantial experience.
Responsibilities include
- Lead a team of artists and ensure that content is being produced, reviewed, and accepted in a timely fashion.
- Create art that’s seen in-game. This includes vector-style 2D graphics (small and large), terrain and environmental textures (photosource or otherwise), particle effects and systems, meta-UI elements and icons.
- Help determine the overall look of the game by creating concept art, paintovers, and mockups, as well as collecting reference material and discussing visual concepts with other team members.
- Work on UI. Create the look of menus, backgrounds and UI layout elements, icons, loading screens, diagrams, charts, etc.
- Produce artwork that clearly communicates the gameplay situation to the player, draws the player’s eyes to the important parts of the image, and does not produce excess visual noise. The artwork must also look terrific while being easy to understand for players and video/stream viewers. It’s not just about making art that looks great in isolation – it’s about making art that serves the gameplay experience, the player’s story, and the technical constraints of the project, which can require a very different approach.
Requirements
- 6+ years of experience working professionally as a game artist.
- 2+ years of experience working as an art director in games, specifically leading a team of several people.
- Masterful ability with 2D art: Can create high-quality assets across multiple styles, including vector and painterly looks. This includes characters, environments, and game assets.
- Cross-department leadership of visuals: Ability to consider the game’s visual needs as a whole and work with programmers and designers to change other game aspects to support good visuals. For example, be able to discuss how to change a map generation algorithm to produce better-looking maps.
- Aggressive productivity: Relentless and energetic focus on making forward progress towards a finished game. Generates energy internally. Pulls others forward towards the goal; does not need to be pulled or externally motivated.
- Work across domains: Ability to create game assets for characters and environments, as well as UIs, paintovers, and concepts.
- Diligently lead and organize a team: Impeccably organize and track art assets. Experience creating usable documentation for your team and others in the organization to follow is also a must-have.
Great to have
- Ability to create and work with 3D assets.
- Proficiency in Unity or other game engines.
- Working knowledge of GitHub.
- Experience creating and reviewing marketing assets.
- Experience creating and reviewing content for use in merchandising.
- Be familiar with RimWorld.
You may work on both 2D and 3D graphics and formats, depending on the project.
This is a full-time position. We want someone to join up and become a core part of the team for many years to come.
Role: Game Designer – Systems
Status: We are always looking for senior and exceptional designers, so if you fit that description please contact us! However, we are not looking to fill a vacancy.
Applicants should be masters of game design writing, with extensive experience in incepting, managing, selecting, refining, testing, and iterating on written game designs.
An ideal applicant will have worked on many game design projects over many years. Those don’t have to be commercial projects – passion projects also count. (However, student projects alone are not nearly enough; a successful applicant will have gone far beyond assigned schoolwork.)
Your writing should be precise, concise, easy to understand, well-organized, and decisive.
You know how to find the right answers to very complex design problems. You have deep insight and understand how to find creative solutions that others don’t think of. You don’t just follow patterns you’ve seen before – you are a first-principles thinker, able to unpack your entire stack of reasoning at any time.
You excel at reasoning about both the mechanistic side of a design, and its character-driven emotional heart.
You have worked on games that are systemically complex, with lots of systems, numbers, interfaces, and long-term outcomes to contend with. Strategy (especially grand strategy) and management games are familiar to you.
In addition to the above, you’re self-motivated, productive, communicative, and consistent in your habits. You get a lot done, even when nobody is pushing you and when you’re working remotely. You take initiative and absorb responsibility naturally.
Responsibilities include:
- Incept, analyze, write, and refine game system specifications for implementation by developers.
- Work with structured data formats like XML to implement and tune gameplay data like weapons, player tools, constructibles, animals, and so on.
- Use analytical tools including spreadsheets, Monte Carlo simulation, debug tools, tester requests, and others to analyze game designs.
- Review implemented features and specify improvements, cuts, and feature replacements.
- Prioritize large lists of tasks to find the most valuable work.
- Engage with the community to understand player desires. Adapt designs to service them while also retaining your own design intent.
- Coordinate developers, artists, audio experts, testers, and others to keep the project running smoothly and set everyone up for success.
- Late in development, drive the polishing process. Ensure that the details are handled, everything is high-quality, and nothing slips through the cracks. Push everything to the peak of quality.
Other skills from other disciplines are useful, but not essential. This includes skills in programming, art and image editing (especially to make good mockups), writing (to write player-facing item descriptions, quest text, etc.), and so on.
Please note: This is not a programming position. Do not apply as a programmer.
To apply, just send us an email. Please include:
- Which role you’re interested in, and your location.
- A traditional resume.
- Design writing samples: written design specifications, analysis, articles, or direct links to these. This should be primary design writing, not general descriptions of game projects.
Please be concise and focus on showing the things you’ve created. Design documents, articles, portfolio websites, and YouTube videos are great for demonstrating your experience.
We can hire internationally. We generally start with a trial contract at full pay rate.
Role: Gameplay Artist
Status: We are not currently looking for immediate help with this role. However, you’re still welcome to apply! We’ll keep your info for review when any work opens up.
We’re seeking a talented, flexible artist who understands how to make art that serves its gameplay purpose while also looking good.
This person will:
- Create art that’s seen in-game. This includes vector-style 2D graphics (small and large), terrain and environmental textures (photosource or otherwise), particle effects and systems, meta-UI elements and icons.
- Work on UI design and graphics. Create the look of menus backgrounds and UI layout elements, icons, loading screens, diagrams, charts, etc.
- Help determine the overall look of the game by collecting reference material and discussing visual concepts with other team members.
- Possibly, create paintovers, mockups, and concept art.
A great applicant will:
- Have a strong portfolio that shows the ability to create gameplay assets for games like ours.
- Be able to produce artwork that clearly communicates the gameplay situation to the player, draws the player’s eyes to the important parts of the image, and does not produce excess visual noise, while also looking good and being easy to understand for players and video/stream viewers. It’s not just about making art that looks great in isolation – it’s about making art that serves the gameplay experience, the player’s story, and the technical constraints of the project.
- Produce a lot of art quickly.
- Be comfortable with vector and raster art, Illustrator and Photoshop.
- Be familiar with RimWorld.
The work is primarily 2D, but 3D experience is also useful.
Please note that a gameplay artist will mainly spend time creating assets for use in the game. Skills in other kinds of art, like concept art or animation, are good to have but not the main focus of this role.
In the application:
- Please include a link to your online portfolio.
Role: Game Design Lead
Status: We are not currently looking for immediate help with this role. However, you’re still welcome to apply! We’ll keep your info for review when any work opens up.
We seek a senior game designer with a focus on leading a development effort from the design side. This person will do concept development and initial spec writing, then work with a tech lead, developers, artists, sound designers, testers, and the community to guide the development process from start to finish.
Please note: This is not a programming position.
This is a leadership position, so applicants should have substantial relevant experience on released games.
Applicants should be able to demonstrate their ability at leading a game design effort. Games you’ve designed before, game designs you’ve written, or articles about game design are all relevant.
Core responsibilities:
- Generate and analyze new project concepts using analytical tools that span many domains – design analysis, market analysis, community engagement, and more.
- Understand the high-level goals of game design and orchestrate a game development process to satisfy those goals.
- Use a variety of tools, including spreadsheets, bug trackers, task queues and messaging apps to organize designers, developers, artists, audio experts, and testers and keep a project on track.
- Efficiently communicate the state of the project to other stakeholders. Create an understanding of opportunities, risks, needs, and problems.
- Hire new designers, developers, artists, and so on.
- Help designers, developers, artists, and others grow by giving useful feedback.
- Write game system specifications for implementation by developers.
- Work with structured data formats like XML to implement and tune gameplay data like weapons, player tools, constructibles, animals, and so on.
- Use analytical tools including spreadsheets, Monte Carlo simulation, debug tools, tester requests, and others to analyze game designs.
- Review implemented features and specify improvements, cuts, and feature replacements.
- Prioritize large lists of tasks to find the most valuable work.
Secondary responsibilities:
- Organize the project’s polish phase before release. Ensure that the details are handled, everything is high-quality, and nothing slips through the cracks.
- Engage with the community to understand player desires. Adapt designs to service them while also retaining your own design intent.
Non-essential but useful cross-disciplinary skills:
- You can read and write C# code enough to understand implementation details and talk to developers about them.
- You’re skilled enough with image editing to make useful UI mockups.
- You’re a good enough writer to write player-facing texts like quest descriptions, object descriptions, tutorials, and so on.
- You can create pretty good art, or at least understand the elements of an aesthetically-pleasing image.
- You can use data to implement visual effects like explosions, interaction particle effects, and so on.
When applying, please include written design specifications, analysis, articles, and any other relevant writing you have. Your ability to write clear and insightful texts about game design is critical.
Role: Game Writer
Status: We are not currently looking for immediate help with this role. However, you’re still welcome to apply! We’ll keep your info for review when any work opens up.
We are seeking a senior writer to craft texts of all kinds, and to help us develop our fictional worlds. We are a small team, so this master wordsmith will handle a very diverse set of writing tasks, including:
- Write in-game texts including descriptions of items, creatures, quests, character interactions, and much more.
- Write structured content that the game’s text randomization engine can use to generate new in-game texts.
- Write texts for tutorials and player training.
- Write labels and texts for user interfaces.
- Read existing game texts and rewrite them to be clearer and more flavorful.
- Write marketing copy.
- Develop trailer beats and write trailer scripts with dialogue.
- Work with our creative director to develop the game’s fictional world.
- Develop and pitch ideas for new world story elements including new factions, characters, technologies, and so on.
- Communicate the game’s fictional vision to the rest of the development team.
This position is on a contract basis with variable hours. During some periods, work will be full with 40 hours or more per week available. Other times, there may not be writing tasks to do.
This work won’t be limited to one project. You will work on everything.
Requirements:
- Masterful English writing ability in a variety of styles and contexts.
- Ability to work with structured data formats to write content for text generation.
- Experience writing creatively in a collaborative environment.
- Experience working remotely.
- Ability to write within the game’s chosen theme, tone, and voice.
- Ability to communicate clearly and incorporate feedback.
- Ability to write within a prescribed format, including following localization and coding requirements.
Advantages:
- Experience writing for games, with shipped professional titles.
- Experience writing marketing copy.
- Knowledge of RimWorld and related products.
- Development ability in programming, design, or art.
- Deep knowledge of games, their history and culture beyond the surface. A true long-time gamer.
In your application, please include:
- Three or fewer writing samples. Ideally these samples cover both flavorful descriptions and narrative, as well as plain and concise explanations.
- Tip: Samples that standout are more descriptive or narrative in nature with less emphasis on dialogue. Our work is more akin to novel prose than screenwriting dialogue, so we’re looking for examples similar to that.
- A link to your portfolio or further writing in case we want to review more of your work.