Founding Art + Design Lead

Location

In-Person: San Francisco / Oakland, CA

Employment

Full-time

Do you care about relationships + games?

Magic Circle builds instant party games for IRL parties! Our product lets you scan a QR code to play fun, unique games with your friends: no downloads, no hardware, just fun in your pocket anywhere you go.

We're currently a team of three, funded by some of the best consumer + gaming investors in the world, including General Catalyst and a16z SPEEDRUN. Our mission is to create more intimate games that nourish relationships that really matter in our lives.

We're hiring a full-stack engineer to join our board game obsessed team in Oakland, CA, and build the next generation of fun, wholesome party games using web technologies. If that sounds like you, read on!

We’ll count on you to

Create a unique, fun, approachable visual identity for our games
Design interfaces and features that look fun, polished, and approachable
Create design systems to enable us to experiment boldly and rapidly
Create 2D game art assets, from concept through final shipping assets
Contribute ideas across all aspects of game design and production

Your impact

Within...	You’ll…
1 month	Create and ship new art assets for Truffle Hogs, our first game, as a means of getting ramped up Participate in a game jam for game #2 (a game about drawing — I have some rough ideas about how it might work, and I’m excited to brainstorm & build with you!) Explore possible directions and begin developing the art for game #2 by supporting the creation of playable prototypes — mood boards, assets, sketching, etc.
3 months	Create production-fidelity art assets for game #2 Iterate on the style and art assets of game #2 based on internal and external playtesting, and your evolving sense of what the game should be
6 months	Begin wrapping up work for game 2, and moving on to game 3, leveraging everything you’ve learned so far. What will game 3 be? No idea, but it’s gonna be fun figuring it out! Contribute ideas across all aspects of our games’ design and production. (If you think something isn’t quite right, tell us, even if it’s not “your department”.)
3 years	Evolve our visual identity from individual games and art styles to a cohesive, unique, beloved gaming brand Shape our studio’s culture, leaving your mark not only on our games but how we make them

What about art style?

There’s no specific art style that is required for this role. We’re aiming to ship several smaller games per year, and expect the art styles will vary and evolve with each game as we experiment and learn what works best.

Truffle Hogs, our first game, has a fun, cute, colorful top-down 2D look, which you can see below. That said, future games might look quite different than Truffle Hogs!

The important thing is that the art looks appealing, approachable, and fun!

screenshot of Truffle Hogs showing a grid of player-created houses

screenshot of Truffle Hogs showing two players using emotes

Skills you’ll need

Experience creating 2D game assets in a variety of styles/aesthetics
Experience creating UI and other design assets in a tool like Figma or similar
Experience integrating your art into games/engines, particularly Unity
Kindness in giving and receiving feedback

Even better if you’re

Located in the San Francisco Bay Area or willing to relocate
Experienced with 2D animation or willing to learn
Excited to share your process with the world, on TikTok/YouTube/Twitter

What we offer

Competitive salary
Stock options
Paid vacation, holidays, and sick days

Drag to apply

Hooray! Let’s talk. Email me at avi@magiccircle.studio.

Please include:

A link to your portfolio
Why are you interested in joining?
Why do you like games?

Magic Circle Studio, Inc. is committed to equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, or membership in any other legally protected category.

If you need reasonable accommodation at any point in the application or interview process, please let us know.

Also, we welcome notes in your application about your pronouns, e.g., she/her/hers, he/him/his, they/them/theirs.

Oh, and one more thing:

You don’t need to match every single listed expectation to apply. We know that innovation comes from diverse perspectives, and are committed to building a team that encompasses a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.

Thanks for reading!

— Avi (CEO & Founder)

polaroid photo of Avi and his cat Aurora