Level Designer (4-Month Contract)

Blackbird Interactive is looking for an experienced Level Designer to help build and deliver high-quality gameplay spaces for a co-operative horror exploration game. This role focuses on designing environments, encounters, and moments that create tension, reward exploration, and encourage teamwork while delivering memorable gameplay, environmental storytelling, and player-driven discovery. 

You'll work closely with systems design, narrative, art, audio, and engineering to create spaces that feel immersive, believable, and unsettling while supporting co-operative gameplay and emergent player experiences. The role involves collaborating with leadership to align content with the overall creative vision, while also owning levels end-to-end, from initial layout through implementation, iteration, and polish. If you enjoy crafting atmospheric environments, building memorable exploration experiences, and using level design to shape tension, pacing, and player emotion, this role could be a great fit. 

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with systems design, narrative, art, engineering, audio, and production to support and implement the established creative vision, raising questions or inconsistencies as they arise during development

• Work within production schedules and constraints, implementing level content in a timely and iterative manner while communicating risks or dependencies to appropriate team members 

• Design and build levels end-to-end, including layout, exploration, encounters, traversal, pacing, player flow, and environmental storytelling 

• Create immersive gameplay spaces that encourage exploration, teamwork, navigation, and player-driven discovery while delivering memorable horror moments 

• Work closely with narrative designers to integrate story beats, objectives, environmental storytelling, and scripted moments into physical spaces 

• Script and implement gameplay events, encounters, environmental interactions, puzzles, and progression systems that support both solo and co-operative play 

• Test, debug, and iterate on levels regularly, identifying and resolving issues related to navigation, pacing, progression, readability, player guidance, and co-operative gameplay 

• Respond constructively to feedback, refining layouts, encounters, exploration, and pacing to improve tension, immersion, and overall player experience

• Maintain an understanding of core gameplay systems and how they interact with level design, ensuring spaces support exploration, teamwork, replayability, and multiple approaches to player problem solving

Requirements

• A minimum of 5 years of experience contributing to game development, with a strong focus on level design within exploration, action, horror, or cooperative games 

• Experience shipping at least one title, ideally featuring exploration, environmental storytelling, or cooperative gameplay, with an understanding of the full content lifecycle from implementation through polish 

• Comfort working independently on assigned content, with the ability to manage tasks, iterate on feedback, and solve implementation problems in a dynamic production environment 

• Strong collaboration and communication skills, including the ability to work closely with designers, artists, engineers, audio partners, and narrative teams to deliver cohesive gameplay spaces 

• Familiarity with level editing tools, scripting, and gameplay logic, with confidence building, debugging, and maintaining gameplay spaces directly in engine

• Strong understanding of player guidance, pacing, environmental storytelling, and how level design influences tension, exploration, and emotional engagement

Pluses

• A passion for horror games, cooperative gameplay, and exploration-driven experiences

• Experience designing atmospheric environments that build tension through pacing, lighting, sound, and environmental storytelling

• Appreciation for emergent gameplay and how level design encourages communication, teamwork, and player-driven problem solving

• Interest in cinematic presentation, scripted sequences, and environmental storytelling that enhance immersion without reducing player agency

• Care about polish, clarity, and player comprehension, and enjoy iterating on spaces to improve navigation, pacing, and emotional impact

• Curiosity about how level design, AI, audio, narrative, and gameplay systems work together to create memorable horror experiences