Lead Artist

 

Who We Are:  

Ghost Story Games is a self-publishing game development studio founded by Ken Levine (Creative Director of System Shock 2, Bioshock, and Bioshock Infinite) and former Irrational Games developers. The studio’s mission is to create narrative-driven experiences rooted in immersive world building and gameplay. 

The Challenge:

Ghost Story Games is seeking a talented Lead Level Artist to join us on Judas, the highly anticipated game led by Ken Levine (System Shock 2, BioShock series). 

As a Lead Level Artist, you should be passionate about telling compelling stories through environmental art, all while thoughtfully crafting spaces and visuals with the needs of gameplay in mind. We place the utmost importance on memorable, immersive visual storytelling, through all aspects of the game experience, and the close team collaboration necessary to realize a shared vision together. Join us and play a key role in Judas’ success!

What You’ll Take On: 

• You will work with the Art Director and Creative Director to define and refine the various thematic spaces of the world of Judas. With a deep immersion in the lore, scripts, and purpose of the environmental spaces you will leverage your skillset and approach to thoughtful world building and visual storytelling and guide the team of level artists, concept artists, and 3d artists to deliver a richly immersive and memorable player experience.

• You will span narrative-driven visual support of quests, the development of overall environmental ‘theme’ visual identities, and support key Level and System Design features that overlap the environmental design of Judas, including dynamic traversal systems, player pickups, and dynamic environmental systems and interactions.

• You will develop a deep understanding of the Mayflower’s visual systems: how its thematic spaces are built, organized, and triggered in-game. This includes partnering with level artists and quest pods to ensure those spaces are set up correctly and functioning as intended, and collaborating with tech and QA to troubleshoot and resolve any issues.

• You will prototype and execute on visually stunning environments that enhance gameplay and reinforce the game’s narrative vision. You will work closely with Level Design to support navigation, pacing, sightlines, cover, and verticality, ensuring each space feels both functional and grounded.

• You will serve as the key driver of all visual assets supporting spaces under your responsibility. This includes highly proactive and collaborative engagement with Art Leadership, Level and Narrative Design, Concept Art, and External Art Vendors to plan, prototype, and implement supporting assets, within an established pipeline and technical specifications.

• As the Lead Level Artist, you are also expected to keep active tabs on the performance profile and other technical compliance requirements of all levels under your responsibility, ensuring visual content is authored efficiently and fits within established memory and performance budgets. For the Lead role we expect active collaboration beyond just your own content responsibilities, including working cross-functionally with other content disciplines to analyze the overall performance profile of spaces and strategize together on any balanced plans for optimization.

What You Bring:  

• Established experience in the game industry as a Lead Artist, preferably with experience working with larger, complex productions.

• Proficient art and technical experience within a real-time Game Engine (Unreal 4 is a plus).

• Experienced eye for form, line, value, rhythm, composition, and crafting deliberate visual hierarchy reads (focus direction, small-medium-large shape balance, ‘80/20 rule’).

• Familiarity with performance evaluation and optimization – working mindfully within metrics to maintain a smooth player experience.

• Experience with effective team-based iteration techniques, including a thoughtful consideration of the bigger picture of the overall game experience and creative vision and an ‘order of operation’ and ‘ROI’ approach to iterative development.

• Ability to learn and understand technical tools and systems so they can be pushed to the limit to create the most visually interesting spaces

Who You Are:

• You are a thoughtful, passionate visual storyteller.  You are adept at transporting an audience into immersive worlds that have their own sense of time, place, and history, and understand the precarious balance of knobs and levers to craft an exceptional suspension of disbelief in the journey.

• You are a proactive problem solver that enjoys cross-department collaboration, asks engaging questions, and can thoughtfully pitch both creative and visual ideas, as well as technical and process improvements to benefit the quality and efficiency of the project.

• For the Lead role, we are especially looking for individuals with experience and mindfulness towards both individual and team efficiency, and proven ability to work on more challenging cross functional tasks of a higher degree of ambiguity and autonomy. 

• In the Lead role, we also expect a significant, positive force-multiplication contribution across the project and studio.  This includes outreach to form supportive, connected relationships with other departments, thoughtfulfully surface opportunities and ideas for project and studio-wide improvements, and leveraging your skillset and experience to help grow others on the team in both project impact and their career goals.

Great to Have:  

• Passion for deeply narrative driven games, particularly First Person Shooters.

• Additional traditional art or architecture background

• Familiarity with other companion level art content pipelines such as lighting or material creation.

When Applying For This Position: 

Please watch the following GDC talk given by Ken Levine: http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020434/Narrative

The pay range for this position in Massachusetts at the start of employment is expected to be between $107,100 and $158,520 per Year. However, base pay offered is based on market location, and may vary further depending on individualized factors for job candidates, such as job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and other objective business considerations. Subject to those same considerations, the total compensation package for this position may also include other elements, including a bonus and/or equity awards and eligibility to participate in our 401(K) plan and Employee Stock Purchase Program. Regular, full-time employees are also eligible for a range of benefits at the Company, including: medical, dental, vision, and basic life insurance coverage; 14 paid holidays per calendar year; paid vacation time per calendar year (ranging from 15 to 25 days) or eligibility to participate in the Company’s discretionary time off program; up to 10 paid sick days per calendar year; paid parental and compassionate leave; wellbeing programs for mental health and other wellness support; family planning support through Maven; commuter benefits; and reimbursements for fitness-related expenses.

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