Game designer — Hello Sunshine

We’re Red Thread Games, the Oslo-based indie studio behind Dreamfall Chapters, Draugen, Dustborn, and Hello Sunshine.

We’re looking for an experienced generalist game designer to join the Hello Sunshine team to work across systems, content, implementation, balancing, and iteration on our upcoming narrative survival game.

About the project

Hello Sunshine is a single-player and co-op multiplayer survival mystery set in the ruins of a corporate empire. Walk in the shadow of a giant robot during the hot days; stay close to keep warm during the cold nights. Scavenge, craft, upgrade — and piece together the broken puzzle of a world ruled by AI automation gone wild.

Job description

As generalist game designer, you’ll be involved in all aspects of the game, working closely with the game director and development team to help deliver on the game’s pillars, from Alpha through to launch. We’re looking for someone who’s hands-on, pragmatic, and implementation-minded. This role is not a good fit if you mainly want to write high-level concepts, pitch ideas, or specialise narrowly in one design area.

This is a contract position for Hello Sunshine, starting as soon as possible, with the possibility of transitioning into a permanent role at Red Thread post-launch. Compensation is based on experience and Norwegian game industry standards.

The job requires being on-site in Oslo. We need someone present in the room to work closely with design, code, art, production, and narrative. A hybrid solution may be an option for the right candidate. You must be fluent in English; Norwegian language skills are a plus.

Responsibilities

You’ll help us implement, tune, and improve core gameplay features and content for Hello Sunshine, including:
- Survival mechanics, resource loops, crafting, scavenging, equipment, and progression.
- Daytime exploration built around sun, shadow, risk, reward, and forward momentum.
- Nighttime systems including camp, crafting, and cooking.
- Player progression across gear, tools, unlocks, and narrative discovery.
- Combat, traversal, enemy encounters, hazards, and systemic gameplay events.
- RPG/survival balancing, economy, stats, recipes, rewards, pacing, and difficulty.
- Level and encounter design.
- Blueprint prototyping, implementation, debugging, and iteration in Unreal Engine 5.
You will also be expected to contribute to Red Thread’s design culture and development processes.

Qualifications

We’re looking for someone with:
- Experience as a game designer on at least one shipped commercial title.
- Strong working knowledge of Unreal Engine 5 and practical experience with Blueprints.
- Experience designing or implementing systems-driven gameplay.
- Familiarity with RPGs, survival games, crafting games, systemic action/adventure games, or similar genres.
- The ability to think holistically about how mechanics, progression, economy, world, narrative, and player behaviour connect.
- A self-motivated, independent working style with good communication skills and the ability to collaborate directly with developers across disciplines.
- Comfort working in a small team where responsibilities overlap and priorities can shift quickly.
- Collaborative, open to feedback, and comfortable iterating on ideas.
- A genuine passion for story-driven and human-centred games.

Useful experience

Not required, but valuable:
- Survival, RPG, roguelite, crafting, or open-world/systemic design experience.
- Experience balancing player progression, itemisation, resources, crafting recipes, stats and economies.
- Experience designing for co-op or multiplayer systems.
- Experience with procedural or modular content pipelines.
- Experience working with data-driven systems, spreadsheets, and custom tools.
- Experience taking rough prototype systems through iteration, play-testing, and polish.
- Basic scripting, technical design, or gameplay programming knowledge.

Follow this link to learn more about working at Red Thread Games and how to submit your application for this position.