Cinematic Technical Animator
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What you'll do
- Design extensible pipelines and tooling for cinematic and narrative content, enabling cross-disciplinary teams to deliver high-quality experiences with minimal engineering support.
- Lead efforts involving animation blueprints, animation montages, level sequences, and blueprint scripting to support both gameplay and cinematic goals.
- Provide technical direction for character animation integration and runtime control, focusing on improving emotional fidelity and storytelling impact.
- Collaborate closely with audio, lighting, animation, and narrative design teams to build systems that unify presentation layers and enhance dramatic storytelling.
- Drive performance optimization, reliability, and scalability of all cinematic systems to support long-term project goals and creative iteration.
What they're looking for
- 2+ years of development experience in the game industry with recent hands-on implementation experience.
- Strong understanding of timing and pacing of narrative delivery.
- Contributed to at least one shipped title recognized for its strong narrative and/or mission design.
- Excellent communication, collaboration, and organizational skills.
- Excellent visual scripting and/or programming skills.
- Strong investigative and debugging skills.
- Passion for narrative first-person shooters.
- Ability to work independently to diagnose and proactively resolve problems, while collaborating effectively with the animation team and cross-functional partners.
- Ability to receive feedback and not only apply it but learn from it.
- Ability to work within a schedule and deliver effectively to deadlines.
- Experience with task/bug-tracking software and pipelines.
- Experience with Perforce or similar version control software.
Summarised by NextRaise from the employer’s description, which follows in full below.
Full description from employer
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.
Cinematic Technical Animator
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 Cinematic Animator to join us on Judas, the highly anticipated game led by Ken Levine (System Shock 2, BioShock series). Unique in its bold, creative vision, Judas is also built upon novel technology by which the visual world, gameplay, and story unfolds in meaningful, dynamic ways. The result is a significant and personal journey adapted to each player’s experience and offers a new approach to the art and storytelling of video games.
Combine your love of scripting and storytelling and help us develop Judas’ dynamic, narrative-driven systems and content.
What You’ll Take On:
- Design extensible pipelines and tooling for cinematic and narrative content, enabling cross-disciplinary teams to deliver high-quality experiences with minimal engineering support.
- Lead efforts involving animation blueprints, animation montages, level sequences, and blueprint scripting to support both gameplay and cinematic goals.
- Provide technical direction for character animation integration and runtime control, focusing on improving emotional fidelity and storytelling impact.
- Collaborate closely with audio, lighting, animation, and narrative design teams to build systems that unify presentation layers and enhance dramatic storytelling.
- Drive performance optimization, reliability, and scalability of all cinematic systems to support long-term project goals and creative iteration.
What You Bring:
- 2+ years of development experience in the game industry with recent hands-on implementation experience.
- Strong understanding of timing and pacing of narrative delivery.
- Contributed to at least one shipped title recognized for its strong narrative and/or mission design.
- Excellent communication, collaboration, and organizational skills.
- Excellent visual scripting and/or programming skills.
- Strong investigative and debugging skills.
- Passion for narrative first-person shooters.
What You Have:
- Ability to work independently to diagnose and proactively resolve problems, while collaborating effectively with the animation team and cross-functional partners.
- Ability to receive feedback and not only apply it but learn from it.
- Ability to work within a schedule and deliver effectively to deadlines.
- Experience with task/bug-tracking software and pipelines.
- Experience with Perforce or similar version control software.
The pay range for this position in Massachusetts at the start of employment is expected to be between $71,000 and $123,000 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 employees in regular roles may also include other elements, including a bonus and/or equity awards, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, provided that temporary or intern roles will not be eligible for many of these payments or benefits. Details of participation in compensation and benefit plans (if applicable) will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment. If hired, employee will be in an ~at-will position~ and the company reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation or benefit program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, company or individual department/team performance, and market factors.
When Applying For This Position:
Please watch the following GDC talk given by Ken Levine: http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020434/Narrative
Please be aware that Ghost Story does not conduct job interviews or make job offers over third-party messaging apps such as Telegram, WhatsApp, or others. Ghost Story also does not engage in any financial exchanges during the recruitment or onboarding process, and the Ghost Story will never ask a candidate for their personal or financial information over an app or other unofficial chat channel. Any attempt to do so may be the result of a scam or phishing exercise. Ghost Story’s in-house recruitment team will only contact individuals through their official Ghost Story email addresses (i.e., via a ghoststorygames.com email domain). If you need to report an issue or otherwise have questions, please contact Careers@ghoststorygames.com
As an equal opportunity employer, Ghost Story Games, LLC (“Ghost Story”) is committed to fostering and celebrating the diverse thoughts, cultures, and backgrounds of its talent, partners, and communities throughout its organization. Consistent with this commitment, Ghost Story does not discriminate or retaliate against any employee or job applicant because of their race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), national origin, age, disability, and genetic information (including family medical history), or on the basis of any other trait protected by applicable law. If you need to report a concern or have questions regarding Ghost Story’s equal opportunity commitment, please contact Careers@ghoststorygames.com.
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