Open

Design

You will be joining the Lost Gate Studios team as a Narrative Designer. The Lost Gate Studios team values developers who bring both passion and self-awareness to their discipline. A nourishing game dev experience is built on clear communication, mutual respect, and the creative drive to solve problems in innovative ways. Each team team member understand their strengths, acknowledge areas for growth, and work collaboratively to push the boundaries of what's possible in collaborating with each other to make MINDFLUX: Dead Man Walking.

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Narrative Designer

The Project

MINDFLUX: Dead Man Walking is a psychological-horror RPG where you play as Ambrose, a Cerebroid detective investigating a murder while uncovering your forgotten past. Set in a "scrap-punk" dystopia, players will modify their mechanized brain, observe suspects, and make tactical dialogue choices that impact both the investigation and their own deteriorating mental stability.

The Companies

Salix Augeat is a video game production company focused on making the industry accessible to growing game devs through recruitment, production, and publishing services. Lost Gate Studios, their first internal studio, consists of 23 remote team members united by their belief that mind-bending roleplaying games expose fundamental truths about humanity.

The Job

Full grasp of world building, characterizations, and story beats regarding MINDFLUX: Dead Man Walking.
Prompt completion of assigned flows in Articy.
Write dialogue and reactions for key characters.
Collaborate with other designers and writers to create a multi-path RPG narrative.
Assist in the narrative development of key puzzles created by our game designers.

The Incentives

Guaranteed Profit Share based on hours worked + length of time, on the project
creative freedom to influence the final product
Portfolio building with no content NDA (story spoilers only)
Real game development experience with a 23-person team
Credits on a shipped, market-validated project (1000+ Steam wishlists)

The Timeline

Release planned for October 2025, with key milestones including:

January 2025: Open Intro Test
February-March 2025: New Horror Demo Development & Marketing
April 2025: New Horror Demo Launch
May-July 2025: Incremental Updates & Playtesting
August-October 2025: Final Testing & Launch

Key Outcomes

(Paints a picture of what successfully accomplishing this job at the highest level of quality looks like. These should be measurable phrases)

All narrative ideas are documented and organized within our writer notion page & Miro board.
Full comprehension and application of core system design principles as described in our design documentation.
Full grasp of world building, characterizations, and story beats regarding MINDFLUX: Dead Man Walking.
Prompt completion of assigned flows in Articy.
Entirely maintained and organized flows as described in our project health documentation.
Consistent communication and collaboration with key team members regarding variable usages, narrative choices, and end design goals concerning the narrative.

Key Activities

(Primary actions this role will be repetitively doing to accomplish their Key outcomes)

Develop and implement key narrative design templates in Articy.
Create and maintain narrative documentation in Miro, Notion, and Articy.
Write dialogue and reactions for key characters.
Collaborate with other designers and writers to create a multi-path RPG narrative.
Assist in the narrative development of key puzzles created by our game designers.

Key Expectations

(Standards of work and decorum that the whole dev team agrees too, that this role is buying into)

Attending your team's Scrum and iteration meetings to ensure the flow of communication and progress of work
Respond to Discord mentions and in your team's text channels in a timely manner
Communicate directly and plainly, while assuming good faith with the team that you are communicating with.
Collaborating with marketing team on content marketing and publishing initiatives at your comfort level.
Stick with the project until release (October 2025) pending major unforeseen life changes
Upload files to Google Shared Drive and keep working files updated at regular intervals.
Develop content in line with the company’s mission/vision/values and project mission/vision/values.
Contribute to the growing culture of an indie video game startup 😊

You are joining the project in our 3rd year of development. Our Release time window is estimated to be October 2025. You will be joining a project that has the foundations of a narrative, art style, full suite of core tech, and fully functioning team already established. But there is always room for improvement in-line with the project and companies' vision, and you are expected to contribute your experience and creativity to push your discipline even even further, alongside your team.

March 2025
- Game Intro Playtest (Open)
- Horror Campaign Marketing starts
April 2025
- Act 1 Playtest (Patreon)
May 2025
- Demo Release Playtest (Open)
- Act 2 Playtest (Patreon)
- MDMW New Horror Demo Marketing Campaign starts
- MDMW New Horror Demo Demo Bug Fixing
June 2025
- New Horror Demo Launch
- Updated Steam Page (w Horror language)
- New Horror based Gameplay trailer
July 2025
- MDMW New Horror Demo Update 1
- Act 3 Playtest (Patreon)
August 2025
- Patreon Full Release Playtest
- New Horror Demo Update 2
September 2025
- Launch version finished
- Launch version final testing
October 2025
- Game Launch Marketing Starts
November 2025
- Game Launch
- Game Launch Bug-fixing

NOTE: While we have attempted to forecast th year's milestones, this will be subject to change based on industry marketing factors, and unforseen dev obstacles. We are pretty confident in hiting our March objectives for sure, and faily confident for the June objectives, assuming the intro playtest goes well. But this is subject to change based on player feedback as well.

MINDFLUX: Dead Man Walking (MDMW) is a conceptual-horror RPG where you play Ambrose, a Frankensteinian detective investigating a murder while uncovering the mysteries of your own forgotten past. Modify your mechanized brain, observe suspects' behaviors, and make tactical dialogue choices in this dystopic sci-fi world. The core MDMW Experience includes:

Psychological Horror Elements: Maintaining your deteriorating mental stability affects how you perceive reality…if at all.
Detective Gameplay: Observe NPC behaviors, investigate areas to collect evidence, solve puzzles, and make deductions.
Brain Modification System: Alter your personality and abilities to tackle different dialogue situations, and glean different clues from objects.
Tactical Dialogue: Use observations to navigate complex narrative conversations.

Our game draws from both classic and modern influences:

Traditional CRPGs: Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Fallout 1 & 2, Planescape Torment
Modern RPGs: Fallout: New Vegas, KOTOR 2, Disco Elysium
Psychological Horror: Signalis, S.O.M.A., Eternal Dark

The MINDFLUX IP takes place in humanity's 37th century on Dura, the last island in a flooded world. In this "scrap-punk" society, humanity survives through cobbled-together body modifications from three technological ages, while factions both cooperate and compete for the sake of humanity's future. You play a Cerebroid - an animal granted sentience through an artificial frontal lobe and is forced into approximating the human form through technological modifications. The Cerebroid’s ability to reshape their very identity through communication traits and skill packages at will, makes them efficient but unsettling to humans, who view them as inhuman "skinwalkers." As Ambrose, you experience the unique tension between the advantages and alienations of being a Cerebroid in human society.

Note: Our Steam Page, doesn’t reflect the Horror shift yet, outlined below:

Currently in year 3 of development
Successfully launched initial demo in Steam's October 2024 NextFest
Shifting focus to emphasize psychological horror elements based on player feedback
Full release planned for October 2025

Our primary strategy of "Transparent Development" means sharing our game-making journey with both consumers and fellow developers. Here's how we're executing this vision:

Content Marketing Initiatives:

Lost Gate Campfires: Cozy development team podcast sharing behind-the-scenes stories and insights
Lost Gate Reacts: YouTube series featuring team reactions and commentary on playtest content from YouTubers/Steamers
Game-Dev Back End: Industry-focused podcast exploring practical game development topics

Traditional Publishing Strategy:

Content Creator Outreach (150+ established contacts, more in progress)
Social Media Promotion
Video Game Festival Submissions
Press Relations for major marketing beats

Community Building:

Patreon Launch (Q1 2025) for early support and community engagement
Exploring merchandise and transmedia opportunities (albums, novellas, etc)

Note: Team members are encouraged to participate in marketing efforts at your comfort level

Is anyone on the project getting paid right now?
- No, no one is getting paid now. Everyone is working on the project part-time with the Profit Share system, even the leads.
What does the time commitment look like?
- We don’t enforce set hours. Based on your day-job, other life commitments etc, you decide how many hours you can work on the project each week. We determine capacity based on goals. “Considering all your factors, when can you get XYZ done by?” And we build the Production timeline from there. But if you want a number, the avg across the whole team is about 10 hours per week.
What does the day-to-day look like?
- We utilize Scrum/Agile methodology with three week Sprints. Every three weeks we have a Sprint Review where the whole team gets together to discuss Progress, timeline adjustments and upcoming marketing initiatives. You’ll have 3 15 min check-ins with your team every week and a weekly 1-2 hr iteration meeting where y’all can give each other feedback and discuss bottlenecks and pipeline issues. We don’t allow crunch and as you take on a new task, we work with you on a date of completion, based on irl-obligations.
What is the status of the project?
- We are in the bowels of Production. We have a baseline demo (which you can play on Steam now) and we are updating it to include the horror-gameplay elements and adjusting level design and environment art based on feedback. Finally, we are overhauling the narrative to include the horror gameplay elements and RPG elements.
How will we get funding? Will we be getting paid before the game is released on Steam?
- Primarily from the game release, however we are hoping Patreon + our Content Marketing efforts will bear fruit to make the launch more successful and if we are very fortunate, potentially get the team stipends before launch. We are also exploring the possibility of pitching to Publishers/investors based on the Marketing team’s capacity.
Do we lose Profit Share once we get stipends?
- No, it is our belief that the creators of the art (artists, programmers, etc.) should partake in the financial success of the project, not just the business/studio.

Salix Augeat is a bootstrapped start-up founded during the COVID-19 pandemic. Chandler and Mo had just graduated university in 2020 and while the entertainment industry was at a standstill, we decided to pursue our dream of producing video games. We started this studio coming right out of college, and thus didn’t come from a previous life of wealth to fund the project. So, to be direct: this is a part-time, profit-share position - no one on the team currently receives upfront payment (not even us). Your profit share will be calculated at the end of the project's lifecycle (MDMW release + 3 months) based on your hours worked and your length of time on the project.

What We CAN Offer:

Real, professional collaborative game development experience with a 23-person team
Creative freedom to influence the final product
Portfolio building opportunities (no content NDA, only narrative spoilers restricted)
Credit on a shipped game
Market-validated project (1000+ Steam wishlists and growing)

Important Notes:

We cannot guarantee specific earnings - the video game market is unpredictable
The entire team, including leadership, is working on the profit-share model
Release is estimated for October 2025
You can build your portfolio while working with us (just clear posts with the team for spoilers)

Salix Augeat, LLC is a video game production company that recruits, produces and publishes Video game development studios and their games. We believe games have a responsibility to nourish the souls of its players and we want all game devs who are willing to put the work in and grow in their craft to work in the industry. We aim to accomplish these ambitions through creating content for game devs about the "back-end" of the industry and sharing our own experiences of games we produce and publish in house as well.

Speaking of which, Lost Gate Studios is our first in-house studio. The team at Lost Gate Studios believes that role play exposes us to the truth about humanity. As such, we want to create mind-bending experiences that explore the deepest most fundamental parts of the human spirit. Our first roleplay experience is MINDFLUX: Dead Man Walking (MDMW), a psychological-horror RPG. (more on MDMW on the next tab)

Right now "Lost Gate Studios" is how we are branding the game dev team. After the release of MDMW, we hope to make LGS an official legal subsidiary under Salix Augeat. But for now, you will be legally contracted with Salix Augeat as it's the only one of the two that is a legal entity. But to consumers, potential investors etc, you'll be framed as part of the "Lost Gate Studios team"

*Don't hesitate to email Mo with any questions about this structure*