Quest Designer (12-month Contract)

Blackbird Interactive is a creative-fueled, future-driven, independent game studio where the best talent in the industry can find long-term careers to help grow their abilities while working on a wide range of projects, which encompass world-class IPs as well as our own creations across multiple genres.

In 2022, we announced that our studio is implementing a four-day work week as well as supporting in-studio, remote within Canada, and hybrid work arrangements as permanent options to our employees.

Blackbird Interactive is looking for an experienced Quest Designer to help build and deliver high-quality narrative content for an established science fiction universe. This role focuses on designing quests, characters, and narrative experiences that support open-ended exploration while delivering memorable story moments, worldbuilding, and meaningful player agency.

You’ll work closely with systems design, level design, art, and engineering to create quests that feel reactive, cohesive, and grounded in the game’s fiction. The role involves collaborating with leadership to align content with the overall creative vision, while also owning quests end-to-end, from initial concept through implementation, iteration, and polish. If you enjoy crafting content that rewards curiosity, supports multiple playstyles, and helps bring a sci-fi world to life through play, this role could be a great fit for you!

Responsibilities:
• Collaborate with system design, level design, art, engineering 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 quest content in a timely and iterative manner while communicating risks or dependencies to appropriate team members.
• Author and implement quest content end to end, including quest logic, objectives, branching states, conditions, and in-game scripting.
• Write and integrate narrative content such as dialogue, character background, world lore, and mission context directly into playable content, ensuring it functions correctly in-game.
• Work closely with level designers to integrate narrative into spaces and encounters, adapting dialogue, objectives, and pacing to support gameplay while maintaining narrative consistency.
• Build and maintain quest state machines, manage variables and conditions, and ensure quests respond correctly to player choice, order of operations, and systemic interactions.
• Test, debug, and iterate on quest content regularly, identifying and fixing logic errors, progression blockers, and edge cases through hands-on implementation.
• Respond constructively to feedback, making revisions to improve clarity, flow, gameplay alignment, and player experience.
• Maintain an understanding of core gameplay systems and how they interact with quest logic, adjusting narrative implementation as needed to resolve conflicts or support player-driven outcomes.

Requirements:
• A minimum of 5 years of experience contributing to game development, with a strong focus on quest, campaign, or narrative content design within complex game systems.
• Experience shipping at least one content-heavy title, ideally in the RPG space, 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 other designers, artists, engineers, and audio partners to deliver cohesive quest experiences.
• Familiarity with scripting, logic-driven tools, and state-based systems, and confidence building, debugging, and maintaining quest logic, conditions, and branching outcomes directly in-game

Pluses:
• A strong interest in hands-on narrative implementation, including how quests, dialogue, objectives, and branching states function within complex RPG systems.
• Enjoyment of building and refining in-game narrative content, with an eye toward logic flow, reactivity, and player choice rather than purely written storytelling.
• A passion for science fiction worlds and storytelling, especially narratives that explore scale, discovery, technology, and player-driven exploration.
• Appreciation for systems-driven RPGs and how narrative content must adapt to emergent gameplay, multiple playstyles, and non-linear progression.
• An interest in cinematic storytelling within games, including pacing, performance, audio integration, and environmental storytelling.
• Care about polish, clarity, and player comprehension, and enjoy iterating on content to improve readability, reliability, and emotional impact.
• Curiosity about how narrative, design, and technology intersect to create cohesive, playable story experiences rather than isolated moments