Eventhough the vacancy below is written in English, for this position fluent Dutch communication skills are required.

Some people don't believe in magic. Others have lost their faith in tech. At Tover, our trust in both grows each day. One smile at a time. One game at a time. Co-designing purposeful games that delight and stimulate people with cognitive challenges, calls for a full-hearted approach and an inventive mindset. Our solutions may be playful, but we solve serious care and education issues. To maximise our impact, we need to enthuse care providers, teachers, and researchers globally. By inspiring them with relevant metrics. By constantly reinventing our propositions. And by always putting smiles on users' faces. Ready to infuse your career with a healthy dose of purpose? Dare to care with us!

What is your purpose?

To enhance the lives of roughly a million Tovertafel players. Given our target audience – people of all age groups who face cognitive challenges or dementia – the stakes are impressively high. But so is the pay-off. While we adore Super Smash Bros (feel free to challenge your colleagues!) and admire the animations of Elden Ring’s bosses, we need to approach our games differently than titles for a general audience. After all, we operate in a function over form setting. Eye candy is sweet but, ultimately, subservient to the gameplay. We are all about evoking smiles and enriching lives. This is a much worthier experience. You will infuse a broad range of games with your brand of design magic. Games for varying target groups, and with varying degrees of complexity. For examples, just check our website.

Together with the team – currently consisting of the Head of Games, to whom you report, a colleague Game Designer, the Game Developer, and our in-house Game Artist – you will run team projects end-to-end. From ideation to conceptualising and co-creating. You also team up with three User-Centered Designers, who adopt and righteously represent the player perspective. Speaking of which: because of the unique audiences our games cater to, we often invite potential players to test our creations. And it’s up to you and your colleagues to gauge their reactions. Do they understand and like the game? Is anything holding them back? And can we correct that in future iterations? It isn’t always possible to ask those questions directly, so if you can read body language, that would be an asset! The hardware you design for is proprietary, so best leave your expectations at the door and welcome a bit of a learning curve. 😉

The TL;DR version

• Drive the game design through all phases, from idea to prototype, concept, presentation, implementation, tuning, and release
• Collaborate with your team and colleagues in other domains to deliver multiple game projects concurrently, adjust and balance those concepts for peak epicness
• Infuse the team with your experience-centric approach to game development and champion empathy for player needs, interests, and motivations
• Create, balance, and tune game mechanics, game difficulty, and UI flow
• Create levels and additional content, both for new and existing games
• Dream up and enthusiastically pitch weird and wonderful game ideas, join game design discussions, and contribute to concept feedback sessions
• Work with QA, data analysis, and marketing to ensure and improve overall product quality
• Play lots of games :-)

What you bring to the Tovertafel

• A relevant bachelor’s degree (e.g., HKU Games and Interaction), topped off with 5+ years of game design experience, preferably (partly) in the serious gaming sector
• Expertise in (defining) technical parameters as they apply to design implementations
• You deconstruct and analyse game mechanics as a hobby
• You’re open to constructive feedback on your work and gladly reciprocate
• A team player mentality with excellent organisational and communication skills
• Analytically gifted, detail-obsessed, quality-driven, straightforward, and self-motivated
• You thrive in fluid settings and quickly adapt to new situations
• Both your English and Dutch are fluent (level B1 and up)
• You love what we do and the people we do it for.

What's in it for you?

• A salary up to €4.600,- a month and 25 paid holidays days for full-time.
• Non-stop development opportunities: when you grow, we grow, so the sky is the limit.
• Fun company events and drinks on our rooftop terrace with great views of Utrecht.
• NS Business Card, Laptop and all facilities for a pleasant home office.
• An inspiring home away from home, in the old court building next to the Dom
• The opportunity to infuse your CV with a generous measure of purpose.

Want to work your magic with us?

Hit the apply button. Want to find out more first? You can call or WhatsApp Marin (Talent Partner) at 06 28 55 62 65 to discuss the position over a virtual cup of coffee.