Responsibilities:

• Day-to-day production management of the teams
• Organizing and running art review meetings
• Writing schedules for art assets and maintaining the schedule on a daily basis
• Contributing to the artistic vision and providing creative input & support to art leads and artists
• Helping to build the teams, including interviewing and hiring new candidates

Required skills & experience:

• At least 1 shipped game on PC and/ or current gen platforms (Xbox360 or PS3)
• 2-3 years’ experience as a Producer on a game
• Proven understanding of the technical limitations and art pipelines in game development
• Proven ability to effectively work across teams on a game project (Code, Animations, etc.)
• Proactive problem solver
• Well organized
• Positive – constructive attitude
• Experience using project management tools like MS Project
• Ability to easily communicate in English

Nice to have:

• Experience working as Artist/ Designer
• Experience working in a marketing agency
• Background in the film industry
• Knowledge of and passion for the RPG game genre

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• A competitive salary and project based bonuses
• Private health care & MultiSport card
• From 20 to 26 days of paid vacation per year
• An exciting chance to work on one of the most acclaimed role-playing games
• A step by step assistance and ‘Relocation Package’ for foreigners willing to establish in Warsaw
• Polish lessons for foreign employees

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

Responsibilities:

• Create and implement short-, mid- and long-term marketing and sales strategies for company products and the company itself
• Product lifecycle planning and implementation considering all high-opportunity environments (dotcom, digital, social, others yet to be defined)
• Build and oversee worldwide product marketing and sales budgets
• Gain insight into markets and build strategic plans for establishing and expanding CD Projekt Red
• Ensuring the effective worldwide promotion and distribution of our products
• Develop key, penetrating messages communicating product brands and the company’s vision to audiences the world over
• Nurture commercial relationships with trade customers throughout the world
• Guide and supervise marketing, PR and production units
• Report progress and challenges to company shareholders and senior leadership

Required skills & experience:

• Five years of experience as a marketing director, preferably in the interactive entertainment industry and with a strong background in digital media and sales
• In-depth knowledge of the gaming industry and its competitive landscape, the ability to formulate innovative concepts and promote new ideas
• Understanding of game development processes, pipelines, workflows and tools.
• Demonstrated interest in, and experience with, social marketing/social media
• Experience with AAA titles
• Master’s degree or its equivalent
• Proficiency in English; knowledge of other foreign language(s) considered a plus
• Strategic planner
• Pro-automation and tech savvy with demonstrated experience and interest in digital products
• Prepared to work closely with partners/teams in multiple time zones; open to travel for business purposes; internationally experienced and not afraid to show it
• Analytical demi-god
• Creative thinker and worker
• Excellent organizer and project manager demonstrating attention to detail; agent for organizational change
• Outstanding verbal and written interpersonal communication skills

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• An exciting opportunity to play a key role at a studio renowned worldwide for producing RPGs that break new ground
• A competitive salary and project based bonuses
• Private health care & a MultiSport gym card
• From 20 to 26 days of paid vacation per year
• A step by step assistance and ‘Relocation Package’ for foreigners willing to establish in Warsaw

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

The moment everyone has been waiting for is finally here! We are proud to announce the launch of REDkit, the ultimate set of tools for crafting non-linear role-playing adventures! The editor has just entered its open beta phase, allowing everyone who is waiting for The Witcher 3 to go back to the previous installment of the series and create new, amazing content or just play around with other modders’ creations.

The editor gives modders of all skill levels the tools, they need to tell non-linear tales full of branching plots, believable characters and far-reaching consequences for player actions. Without learning to program or wrangling with opaque editors, game creators can use the top-quality art and assets from The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings or import their own, as well as intuitive tools for environment creation, to craft their own unique role-playing adventures.

“For CD Projekt RED, RPGs are all about telling amazing stories,” said Adam Badowski, head of CD Projekt RED. “We want to give players the power to tell the same kind of non-linear, branching stories that made The Witcher games so popular. Our fans have helped us for years to make our games the best they can be, and REDkit is part of embracing our community as a partner in game development.”

For more details regarding REDkit, and the editor itself, please visit its official website.

Required skills & experience:

• Complete familiarity with either Final Cut Pro, the Adobe video editing suite, or any other comparable video editing and postproduction tools.
• Well organized and able to handle a variety of different simultaneous productions, deadlines, and projects.
• Knowledge of how to light and film high quality video with clear audio.
• Proven ability to create interesting and dynamic content.
• Excellent command of written and spoken English. All videos will be created in English, and you need to both speak and write the language well.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, both internally (colleagues) and externally (partners).
• Quiet yet solid self-confidence: you know how your own objectives can be met, but still cooperate with your peers as a constructive team player.CD Projekt RED ‘s success is very much related to this philosophy.
• Creativity: We do things differently at CD Projekt RED , and your creativity should be part of that.
• Broad thinking: ability to look at the full picture.
• Attention to detail: Knowing how to spot small errors is important when you produce content for user consumption.
• Organized and able to set priorities in your work.
• Willing to learn & pitch in: there is a broad variety of tasks that any marketing department works on, and being able to learn and chip in to help fill in the gaps is very helpful.
• Accuracy: actions are closed on time and at the expected level of quality.

Nice to have:

• Experience in working within the gaming industry or a strong passion for games
• Knowledge of The Witcher and Cyberpunk franchises.
• Experience in creating mods for games
• Knowledge of 3D Studio Max/Maya
• Experience conducting interviews or producing editorial content
• Proven history of producing videos that people want to share online

THE FORM OF COOPERATION IS YET TO BE ESTABLISHED

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• A competitive salary and project based bonuses
• An exciting chance to work on one of the most acclaimed role-playing games

Please include a demo reel (or a link to one) in your application.

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

Responsibilities:

• New web services deployment
• Administration and maintenance of the production environments based on Unix/Linux platforms
• Creating tools for better monitoring of systems and services

Required skills & experience:

• Minimum of 1 year experience in administration of production web infrastructure
• Good knowledge of server versions of Linux systems (Debian, Ubuntu, Centos, openSUSE), Xen Server virtualization
• Good knowledge of administration, maintenance and migration of Web applications (Apache, Nginx), SQL (MySQL), DNS, FTP (Proftp, Vsftp), etc.
• Ability to manage, monitor and create statistics of network traffic
• Ensuring proper level of security in Linux based solutions
• Fluent English skills
• Ability to easily work within a team

Nice to have:

• Knowledge of Microsoft Windows based servers administration
• Knowledge of Cisco devices administration (Firewall, Switch)

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• A competitive salary and project based bonuses
• Private health care & MultiSport card
• From 20 to to 26 days of paid vacation per year
• An exciting chance to work on one of the most acclaimed role-playing games
• A step by step assistance and ‘Relocation Package’ for foreigners willing to establish in Warsaw
• Polish lessons for foreign employees

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

Responsibilities:

• Create and implement short-, mid- and long-term sales strategies for company products and the company itself
• Take part in the planning and implementation of product lifecycles considering all high-opportunity environments (dotcom, digital, social, others yet to be defined)
• Participate in the process of building and overseeing worldwide sales budgets
• Gain insight into markets and build strategic plans for establishing and expanding CD Projekt Red’s presence in selected markets
• Ensure the effective worldwide promotion and distribution of our products
• Nurture commercial relationships with trade customers throughout the world including retailers
• Report progress and challenges to company shareholders and senior leadership

Required skills & experience:

• Three years of experience as a senior sales manager, preferably in the interactive entertainment industry and with a strong background in digital media
• In-depth knowledge of the gaming industry and its competitive landscape, the ability to formulate innovative concepts and promote new ideas
• Understanding of game development processes, pipelines, workflows and tools
• Master’s degree or its equivalent
• Proficiency in English; knowledge of other foreign language(s) considered a plus
• Strategic planner
• Analytical demi-god
• Creative thinker and worker
• Pro-automation and tech savvy with demonstrated experience and interest in digital products
• Prepared to work closely with partners/teams in multiple time zones; open to travel for business purposes; internationally experienced and not afraid to show it
• Excellent organizer and project manager demonstrating attention to detail; agent for organizational change
• Outstanding verbal and written interpersonal communication skills
• Experience with AAA titles will be a plus

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• An exciting opportunity to play a key role at a studio renowned worldwide for producing RPGs that break new ground
• A competitive salary and project based bonuses
• Private health care & a MultiSport gym card
• From 20 to 26 days of paid vacation per year
• A step by step assistance and ‘Relocation Package’ for foreigners willing to establish in Warsaw

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

Responsibilities:

• Designing, creating, localizing graphical online media assets such as Flash animations, static banners, email templates, posters, etc. to support online campaigns and marketing operations
• Designing high quality conversion-optimized websites and landing pages for the www.cdprojektred.com website
• Integrating said designs in HTML / CSS
• Participating in the deployment of website updates or upgrades, in cooperation with the quality assurance (QA), public relations (PR), community and online departments

Required skills & experience:

• Excellent graphic design skills for websites
• 3 years-experienced with Photoshop & Flash
• Good sense of website layout, usability, and design (UI/UX)
• Ability to easily communicate in English
• High affinity with online marketing and gaming

Nice to have:

• Basic skills in HTML/CSS/JQuery integration
• Skills in latest technologies HTML5/CSS3

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• A competitive salary and project based bonuses
• Private health care & MultiSport card
• From 20 to to 26 days of paid vacation per year
• An exciting chance to work on one of the most acclaimed role-playing games
• A step by step assistance and ‘Relocation Package’ for foreigners willing to establish in Warsaw
• Polish lessons for foreign employees

Artists and designers should enclose a portfolio or link to an online portfolio to their application. Programmers should include code samples.

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

Look what showed up in our office the other day:) A statue of Geralt from The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Now, this is pretty sweet!

Responsibilities:

• Creating prototype versions of the UI in cooperation with designers and artists
• Implementing final UI based on the prepared project, requirements and assumptions from earlier created prototypes

Required skills & experience:

• Excellent knowledge of Adobe Flash and Action Script
• Prior UI programming experience on a shipped title
• Awareness of User-Interface concerns, especially usability and the presentation of information
• Knowledge of recent game titles, released on both PC and consoles
• Fluent English
• Ability to complete assigned tasks in a timely fashion while maintaining a high level of quality in work completed
• The ability to easily cooperate with others

Senior level requirements:

• 5+ years of experience in the games industry
• Vast experience in creating UI for AAA game titles, including having worked to completion on at least one published title

Nice to have:

• Scaleform SDK/GFx experience
• C++/Visual Studio experience
• Ability to provide and accept constructive criticism

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• A competitive salary and project based bonuses
• Private health care & MultiSport card
• From 20 to to 26 days of paid vacation per year
• An exciting chance to work on one of the most acclaimed role-playing games
• A step by step assistance and ‘Relocation Package’ for foreigners willing to establish in Warsaw
• Polish lessons for foreign employees

Artists and designers should enclose a portfolio or link to an online portfolio to their application. Programmers should include code samples.

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

Responsibilities:

• Creating the storyline on a detailed level
• Designing and planning quests for the game
• Planning assets required for creating a quest
• Implementing quests in the game engine
• Keeping high quality of quests in game
• Cooperating with other departments
• Creating design documentation for the project

Required skills & experience:

• Experience with text editors, office software suites and graphics editors
• Experience with game editors and game design tools
• Creativity, and the ability to bring your ideas to life
• Passion for and extensive knowledge of video games
• Basic programming skills
• Excellent communication skills
• The ability to work within a team
• Excellent work ethic and efficiency
• Experience in game design very welcome
• Ability to easily communicate in English

Nice to have:

• Extensive knowledge of Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels
• Literary or role-playing experience
• Previous experience in programming/art design/game testing

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• A competitive salary and project based bonuses
• Private health care & MultiSport card
• From 20 to to 26 days of paid vacation per year
• An exciting chance to work on one of the most acclaimed role-playing games
• A step by step assistance and ‘Relocation Package’ for foreigners willing to establish in Warsaw
• Polish lessons for foreign employees

Artists and designers should enclose a portfolio or link to an online portfolio to their application. Programmers should include code samples.

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

NOTE: No kittens or any other cute creatures were hurt in CD Projekt RED. We just slay drowners, nekkers and dragons by the hundreds.

EDIT: Some people in the studio were offended by the insinuation of being dragonslayers. To make things clear, there is a large party of dragon rights activists in CD Projekt RED, who would never hurt those majestic creatures, which the author of this post prefers to eat in his burgers.

Star Wars fans raised the grim flag of The Empire today at CD Projekt RED (Fot. M.Sosnowski)

Balazs Torok: Day Of The Tentacle. The funky art style, the jokes, the 3 different characters, time travel, a mad scientist, aliens, and the music! Runners-up: Full Throttle, Monkey Island

Michal Dobrowolski: It’s hard to say which one is my favorite. If I’d be forced to choose, then these two titles evoke the most pleasant memories: SW Episode I Racer – the first racing game that gave me the real feeling of speed; and Empire at War – there’s no better feeling than crushing the rebel resistance.

Pawel Swierczynski: Full Throttle and X-Wing! Boy, it was amazing! Full Throttle – beautiful, 2d animated, funny and challenging adventure. I was 14 at that time, didn`t speak English and had no idea what they were talking about;) But still had a lot of fun just by solving riddles. X-Wing – do I have to explain it? Star Wars game with X-Wings and Tie Fighters! I felt like a f***** Skywalker! Thank you, LucasArts.

Dominik Gotojuch: Day of the Tentacle. I love all Lucasarts games from the 1990s, but the sequel to Maniac Mansion is especially dear to me. Not only was it hilarious – it was the game that convinced me that games can be art.

Daniel Neve: Full Throttle. There are so many wonderful LucasArts games, but Full Throttle will always be the one that I remember first. It’s got a great story that sits on top of some really good world building. It also has a fantastic sense of humour, which arises naturally from the situations the character Ben finds himself in, and never descends into farce.

Konstantinos Michalopoulos: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. One of my favorite FPS games, which combined run-and-gun action with clever puzzles (especially in the expansion pack), a mix of high-tech and primitive environments and open spaces like the dizzying vertical city Nar Shaddaa.

Jonas Mattson: The Monkey Island Series. The Monkey Island series will always have a special place in my heart; those amazing point-and-click adventures inspired me to work hard to become a game developer and I still play them now and again.

Bill Daly: Full Throttle = first PC game I played, awesome story and art style! Have been waiting for a sequel for nearly 20 years now. The Dig = Collaborative effort with Steven Spielberg as a writer for the game! Amazing adventure game! Dark Forces = It was like Doom, only with Star Wars!

Gene Rozenberg: I will never forget Day of the Tentacle, the first LucasArts adventure game I ever played. It inspired me to learn everything I could in order to join the industry that produced that kind of magic. It was genuinely funny and suspenseful. Every time I solved a puzzle it felt incredibly great, and this is years before the “achievement unlocked” popup! I am incredibly sad to see this great company disappear and will never forget their contribution to my childhood and my career.

Robert Oglodzinski: LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy. This was a first game I played together with my baby daughter. I am sure she will remember it forever as her first experience with video games. She already recognizes the famous Imperial March whenever she hears it and she is a big fan of R2D2 and C3PO:)

Peter Gelencser: I basically whined until my dad bought my first PC because of Day of the Tentacle. I chose the PC over getting a N64, because I wanted to play Full Throttle, Sam and Max and The Monkey Island series so badly. LucasArts managed to break my Nintendo fanboy streak, and that’s saying something. Thank you for those wonderful games; I’m very sorry to see you go.

Patrick Mills: My favorite LucasArts game is TIE Fighter, probably the best of all the licensed Star Wars products and a high point in the (sadly defunct) genre. I am proud to have been a member of the Secret Order of the Emperor.

Andrzej Kwiatkowski:  After 10 years from release, Jedi Academy remains one of the best sword-fighting games ever made. Never have I had so much fun with sword-fighting combat. One of the very few games where I repeated the same battles over and over, not because of unfavorable outcome, but because I wanted to play them better, use cooler moves, be more badass.

Maciej Szczesnik: My favorite LucasArts game is X-wing vs. TIE Fighter. I always dreamed of piloting Rebel and Imperial spaceships.

Jakub Rokosz: Guybrush Threepwood (Monkey Island series) and Indy (Indiana Jones series) were my guides in the dark times of the early 90′s in Poland. It wasn’t easy at first, as I was around 10 and didn’t know a word of English, but long evenings with a dictionary in one hand and mouse in the other paid off.

Farewell LucasArts

Damien Monnier: Outlaws, which came out in the 90s, was a really cool first-person shooter set in the Wild West, where you played a gunslinger. It was the first game to feature a sniper zoom! Unfortunately I couldn’t afford the full game at the time and only had the demo. I would do speed runs of the demo over and over again and see how quickly I could complete it, by using as few bullets as possible. I was the most badass 10-year-old cowboy around, the fastest shot in the West. I must have completed the Demo about 100 times. brb going to buy the full game.

Maciej Sosnowski: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. My mind got completely blown when I realized that the game branches into 3 different stories.  It also captured Indiana’s spirit and for me, that story should be filmed, instead of some alien/crystal skull story. Jedi Academy, Grim Fandango and Monkey Island are also some of the best memories I have.

• Creating high quality game assets in collaboration with concept artists and the Lead Environmental Artist
• Maintaining the production pipeline and meeting deadlines
• Working closely with the implementation and gameplay departments
• Prototyping new technologies on the given platforms

Required skills & experience:

• Perfect knowledge of 3ds Max (or Maya) & Photoshop
• Experience in working in the gaming industry (2+ years in the industry will be a plus)
• High texturing and Zbrush skills
• Ability to easily communicate in English
• Very strong creativity and an excellent eye for detail
• Excellent communication skills & ability to work within a team

Nice to have:

• Scripting and shader creation experience would be a plus
• Strong traditional drawing or sculpting skills will be appreciate
• Avid gamer experience and strong knowledge about video games will be very welcome

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• A competitive salary and project based bonuses
• Private health care & MultiSport card
• From 20 to to 26 days of paid vacation per year
• An exciting chance to work on one of the most acclaimed role-playing games
• A step by step assistance and ‘Relocation Package’ for foreigners willing to establish in Warsaw
• Polish lessons for foreign employees

Artists and designers should enclose a portfolio or link to an online portfolio to their application. Programmers should include code samples.

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

Responsibilities:

• Creating high quality promotional concept art in collaboration with artists within the studio teams (such as cover art, posters)
• Maintaining the production pipeline and meeting deadlines
• Working closely with 3D Artists, Story and Design teams

Required skills & experience:

• Excellent environment, character and weapon concept art skills with an eye for perspective, color, lighting and atmosphere
• Strong understanding of composition, form, lighting, and color
• Solid foundation in traditional art, such as figure drawing, industrial design, landscape painting and illustration
• Experience working in a wide variety of styles but also able to work within an established genre and teach it to other concept artists
• Excellent communication skills and ability to work within a team
• Ability to easily communicate in English
• Experience in the game development industry will be an advantage

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• A competitive salary and project based bonuses
• Private health care & MultiSport card
• From 20 to 26 days of paid vacation per year
• A step by step assistance and ‘Relocation Package’ for foreigners willing to establish in Warsaw
• Polish lessons for foreign employees

Artists and designers should enclose a portfolio or link to an online portfolio to their application. Programmers should include code samples.

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

Responsibilities:

• Managing project plan and budget
• Coordination of translation processes
• Preparation of recording sessions and supervision over voice recordings
• Supervision over final translation and recording quality
• Localization QA coordination

Required skills & experience:

• Proven current-gen dialogue-heavy game localization experience
• Excellent command of English and fluency in one of the following languages: German, French
• Excellent MS Excel skills and good knowledge of other applications of MS Office
• Minimum one year of work experience as a project manager
• Experience in negotiating agreements, managing budgets and cooperating with vendors
• Excellent organizational skills and ability to work under pressure
• The ability to solve conflicts and direct processes efficiently

Nice to have:

• Knowledge of the role-playing games market
• Knowledge of Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels and the fantasy genre

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• A competitive salary and project based bonuses
• Private health care & MultiSport card
• From 20 to 26 days of paid vacation per year
• Exciting opportunity  to create a video game set in one of the most acclaimed RPG universes
• A step by step assistance and ‘Relocation Package’ for foreigners willing to establish in Warsaw
• Polish lessons for foreign employees

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

Responsibilities:

• Debugging and diagnosing problems, both in the engine and external tools
• Developing tools using MaxScript / Mel and C++
• Supporting existing and developing new pipelines for all departments, art, animation and character mimics in particular
• Optimizing content for memory and performance gains

Required skills & experience:

• Solid knowledge of 3D game art modeling and texturing pipelines
• Algebra, geometry and vector calculus
• Understanding of real-time shading techniques and post processes
• Understanding of DirectX(9.0-11.0+) / OpenGl (SM5.0+)
• Proficiency using 3D Studio Max and Motion Builder
• Programming / scripting experience (MaxScript and C++ preferred)
• Fluent English
• Ability to work in a team environment and under a tight schedule
• A true passion for gaming

Nice to have:

• Proficiency using commercial game engine
• Creativity
• Character skinning / rigging skills
• Understanding of physics systems (Havok, PhysX)
• Analysis and complexity theory
• Experience in mocap systems

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• A competitive salary and project based bonuses
• Private health care & MultiSport card
• From 20 to 26 days of paid vacation per year
• Exciting opportunity  to create a video game set in one of the most acclaimed RPG universes
• A step by step assistance and ‘Relocation Package’ for foreigners willing to establish in Warsaw
• Polish lessons for foreign employees

Artists and designers should enclose a portfolio or link to an online portfolio to their application. Programmers should include code samples.

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

Responsibilities:

• Localizing dialogue and on-screen text from Polish into English

Pluses:

• Experience in writing/localizing dialogue in computer games and other media
• Experience with similar projects
• Knowledge of the role-playing games genre and market

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• An exciting chance to work among the creators of one of the most acclaimed role-playing games on the market

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

Even the knight in our studio wants to be a Psycho Squad member after watching yesterday’s teaser trailer for Cyberpunk 2077. (Fot. M.Sosnowski)

Yesterday our first trailer for Cyberpunk 2077 spread through the web. Our friends from Platige Image helped us achieve a unique artistic vision, which really corresponds with the spirit of cyberpunk. Attitude is everything – and your reactions show that spirits are high for our upcoming game.

It’s because of your support of our previous titles, we were able to start a new team working on Cyberpunk 2077. The team, which is still expanding – just look at the job descriptions on this blog.

Maybe you have the talent that Night City needs.

Also we love reading your comments and we will do our best and try to implement them in the game. That’s why we celebrated the premiere of the teaser with the launch of Afterlife, the Cyberpunk 2077 forum. See you there!

Responsibilities:

• Writing dialogues
• Writing scripts for cutscenes
• Creating story-design documents

Pluses:

• Experience in writing dialogues or scripts for computer games
• Experience on similar projects
• Knowledge of role-playing games market

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• Competitive salary and project based bonuses
• Private health care & MultiSport card
• Up to 26 days of paid vacation per year
• An exciting chance to work among the creators of one of the most acclaimed role-playing games on the market
• A step by step assistance and ‘Relocation Package’ for foreigners willing to establish in Warsaw

Writers should include writing samples to their application.

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

To fully understand our work, I believe it is important to explain the difference between story design and quest design at CDPR. The story design department operates mostly from a macro perspective of game storyline – what should be the main focus in game, what characters would be most interesting to introduce in game, what regions should the action take place in, who should be our main antagonist, etc.

They set the very foundations for the game that we all build upon. Quest designers, on the other hand, operate at the micro level of the storyline, thinking what solutions could and what solutions couldn’t be implemented in game, what could work in quests and how to implement them in a way that will appeal to the players – they are the people responsible for implementing both main and side-storyline content in game engine. The key to success is the close cooperation between those two departments, as they design and create the structure for the whole game together.

In the pre-production period at the beginning of the project, the story team prepares the outline of the main storyline. This documentation consists of information about backstory, characters, factions, places and the connections between all of them. Finally, the story team works on a plan of general events that should take place in game. The exact number of quests that should be in main and side- storylines is planned between story and quest departments, and, based on this, the structure for the game is prepared. After this happens, the storyline is divided into the smaller fragments that we call “quests”. Then, the story team provides the quest team with ideas and most important elements for each main storyline quest.

Example Quest Structure

Based on these documents, the quest team starts working on more detailed scenarios. Each designer chooses quests he/she wants to work on, and then designs the quest in detail. This includes thinking about what dialogue is necessary to implement, what cutscenes will be needed, and what gameplay elements will be implemented in a quest. At this point we also list the assets that will be required to implement a quest. During this step, quest designers cooperate with story designers, as quite often some changes must be introduced to the original storyline outline to “mend” plot holes that might have been undetectable on the macro level. Last, but not least, both quest and story designers have the opportunity to design side-quests all by themselves, although ultimately these scenarios must be planned in detail by quest designers as well.

After the pre-production period ends, quest designers work on implementing all those quest scenarios in the game engine: they create quest structures, spawn NPCs on levels, implement quest events and quest related combat encounters, prepare objectives for players, connect cutscenes and assets from other departments to the game, and write dialogue placeholders, which are later on re-written by the story team designers. Dialogue placeholders compose of key elements that each dialogue must convey in order to keep the quest logic intact, so the quest designers must always check the rewritten dialogues later to be sure that it is in line with their intentions. There is a lot of co-operation and feedback between the teams.

As stated in the title, the Devil is in the details. This idiom explains exactly why the work of a quest designer on a quest doesn’t end until the very premiere of the game (or even after, if patches are being prepared) – there is always some tweaking to be done, bugs to be fixed, things that may be improved upon. Quest design work is a constant striving for perfection, and, being gamers ourselves, we genuinely believe that details do matter for the player’s overall experience.

Testing elixirs for The Witcher 2 (Fot. B. Czechowski)

Today I’d like to talk more about how the Quality Assurance (QA) team works during different stages of a game development project. From the beginning, we in the QA team are seriously involved in all the work. We are the first focus group confronted with the team ideas.

In the pre-production phase, we discuss the story ideas with our writers, and cooperate with the game designers when it comes to game features. In the first prototypes we’re not looking for bugs, but rather the fun factor. We can call this practical design. The designers have lots of great ideas that they try out to give the player as much fun as possible, but they also need someone to look from the outside – people not committed to a specific feature or idea – assess whether these ideas make sense.  In a way, we are the vanguard of public opinion about the game.  So, contrary to the common belief, testers have a role to play even before the alpha stage.

In the Alpha stage, we check if the game is simply playable. Can you finish it? How do all the features work? That’s when we have to catch a large number of bugs in a short time. I think I can say now that in The Witcher 2 Alpha we found around several thousand bugs – it was around 300 hundred bugs a day. Of course, each error and glitch is completely different, so first we want to find game blockers or crashers – everything that might ruin the game’s performance.  Then come the little things. Even seemingly small problems can disrupt the game’s quality. Therefore, we report as many possible, so who ever fixes them can plan his work for the Beta. The Beta is the phase of the general polish, but the Alpha is for the serious bugs.

In the period somewhere between the Alpha and the Beta, we go back to testing the fun. This time we focus on the game’s balance. The game will be balanced only if the team is balanced.

The (Q)A-Team in all its glory (Fot. M. Sosnowski)

 As I said, it’s important to be a gamer when you work in QA. It’s not so much about your gaming skill as it is the range of skills. A good QA team has to consist of different types of people. We have to have casuals and hardcores on board. If we have people that beat every game, get every achievement in it – then we have only one point of view. If you find a part of any game to be always absurdly difficult, be sure that it was tested only by hardcores. Dividing the team is important not only when it comes to setting the bar for game difficulty, but also other factors. In our current projects we allow only half of the team to read the whole story of the game, while the rest doesn’t know it at all; this second group can then give us feedback about the comprehension and presentation of the story. In The Witcher 2 we gathered a team with people who had read Sapkowski’s novels and people who knew squat about Geralt. We’re creating a game, after all,  for people who are unaware that these novels even exist. I say that if every tester who has beaten the game a hundred times (in terms of gameplay hours) says it’s easy, it means that everything is just as it should be.

When we are talking about balance in the game it’s not all about mechanics, but also about presentation. We analyze the game’s length and what happens in particular playthroughs. We can show the designers that a particular quest has too little or too much combat, dialog or cutscenes. There are a lot of things to check when analyzing the game, so we try to divide tasks so nobody gets bored doing the same thing over and over. We set two weeks as the maximum time a person works on one aspect: gameplay, performance etc. and then we let them switch tasks. It’s great when a person can rest from one part of the game and when he or she returns after some time to this fragment of the game they can approach an old job with new perspective and give valuable feedback.

All elixirs made it into the game. But only we know the real formula! (Fot. B. Czechowski)

Responsibilities:

• Creating high quality game assets in collaboration with Concept Artists and the Art Director
• Maintaining the production pipeline and meeting deadlines
• Working closely with the implementation and gameplay departments
• Prototyping new technologies on the given platforms
• Environmental Art team management
• Setting and maintaining adequate goals for the team
• Taking part in interviews with candidates

Required skills & experience:

• Perfect knowledge of 3ds Max (or Maya) & Photoshop
• A minimum of 2 years experience in the game development industry in a Senior or Lead position (with at least one AAA title shipped)
• High texturing and Zbrush skills
• Very strong creativity and excellent eye for details
• Ability to lead a team of people and inspire them to a common goal
• Enthusiasm and a high level of motivation
• Fluent English

Nice to have:

• Scripting and shader creation experience would be a plus
• Strong traditional drawing or sculpting skills will be appreciate
• Avid gamer experience and strong knowledge about video games will be very welcome

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• A competitive salary and project based bonuses
• Private health care & MultiSport card
• From 20 to 26 days of paid vacation per year
• An exciting chance to work on one of the most acclaimed role-playing games
• A step by step assistance and ‘Relocation Package’ for foreigners willing to establish in Warsaw
• Polish lessons for foreign employees

Artists and designers should enclose a portfolio or link to an online portfolio to their application. Programmers should include code samples.

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

The mysterious dev-knight waits for the Q&A session with the fans (Fot. B. Czechowski)

This Saturday a group of Witcher fans visited CD Projekt RED’s HQ to celebrate the 8 years of The Witcher series forum. The event was hosted by MM360, the community manager, and some members of the dev team participated in a Q&A session. After a quick snack and an Arena mode tournament, all the fans had a tour of the studio.

From the left: Tomasz Zawada, Pawel Mielniczuk, Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz, Krzysztof Justynski (the one with Homer Simpson on his feet), Mateusz Kanik and Andrzej Kwiatkowski.(Fot. B. Czechowski)

I had a chance to talk to Keth, the most experienced moderator of the Polish Witcher forum. Here’s a short interview about him and his cooperation with CD Projekt RED.

MS: How long have you been involved in The Witcher community?

Maciej ‘Keth’ Koński: Well, as a big fan of Sapkowski’s novels and PC gaming, I registered on the forum just after it launched, in September 2004. I was an active member and some time later I became a moderator. Funny fact is there was a “public” poll amongst members, so I was chosen by the community. After a few years of work I was offered an internship at RED, but I couldn’t abandon my studies in Cracow then, so we decided to continue long-distance collaboration.

Games – connecting people (Fot. B. Czechowski)

MS: How old have you been then?

Keth: Not even 16, I was just a kid.

MS: What’s different in the Witcher community, compared to other game communities?

Keth: The Witcher community has it’s own, specific atmosphere. Our members are awesome, they are active in so many fields, from cosplay, through filming short movies, to making Witcher-themed mugs. On the other hand, they are not afraid of expressing their opinions on CDPR and the Witcher franchise, even unflattering ones. What’s great is that CDPR generally listens to the fans and often makes the changes they desire – like implementing sword sheaths, changing Geralt’s face etc. Also, the “REDs” are deeply involved in organizing interesting events, contests etc.

MS: Can you tell me a funny story  from The Witcher forum?

Keth: For the last Fool’s Day, Polish moderators created fake accounts with names and avatars from the Moomins. They started spamming, trolling on the forum and then warning themselves. It was funny to see how messy a forum could look like without any rules or principles.

A traditiopnal post-event group photo. The Witcher devs and Witcher fans together (Fot. B. Czechowski)

Our Cyberpunk 2077 blog has published some articles about our approach to adapting the pen and paper system for our video game. Mike Pondsmith himself explained, why he has chosen us to work with him.

Now its time for a new series on the blog. Damien Monnier (aka. Frenchman Extraordinaire or Cyberchef) not only recommends what games set in cyberpunk world are worth playing, but also lists which particular features make them unique.

“Whilst CyberPunk 2077 has its own unique, incomparable flavour, it is always important as a Dev chef to take a look at existing recipes in order to understand what sort of cyberpunk experience players have already come across and, most importantly, what you can learn from it.” – writes Damien.

Read the premiere episode of Damien’s cyber-cooking show here.

Happy Halloween everyone!

As you can see, sometimes it’s hard to decide between wearing a Cyberpunk or a Witcher costume.

And are you preparing any CD Projekt RED themed outfits for today?

As an Animation Programmer you will be responsible for extending and maintaining the code of our animation technology, tools and pipelines. Working closely with the animators, character artists, designers and AI programmers, you will have the opportunity to develop stunning animation features for our games.

Responsibilities:

• Prototyping and coding animation features
• Developing and maintaining animation system in our engine
• Using the system to develop gameplay or AI features
• Focusing especially on the characters: their mimics, movement, locomotion, combat, etc. as well as cutscenes, camera and the like

Required skills & experience:

• Deep knowledge of C++
• Familiarity with the Visual Studio environment
• Knowledge of next-gen game animation systems architecture
• Ability to design code
• Experience in the production of games, including having worked to completion on at least one published title
• Fluent English

Nice to have:

• Experience in creating a AAA title for game consoles
• Experience with RPGs

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• A competitive salary and project based bonuses
• Private health care & MultiSport card
• From 20 to 26 days of paid vacation per year
• Exciting opportunity  to create a video game set in one of the most acclaimed RPG universes
• A step by step assistance and ‘Relocation Package’ for foreigners willing to establish in Warsaw
• Polish lessons for foreign employees

Artists and designers should enclose a portfolio or link to an online portfolio to their application. Programmers should include code samples.

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

Today is the 5 year anniversary of The Witcher series and let me tell you, it’s been an amazing journey. Each year, month, day and hour of the past 5 years has been truly extraordinary and I’m 100% certain that none of The Witcher team members would trade even one of those days away. It has also been a time of hard work and sacrifice but also a time of great satisfaction and massive achievements. We’ve managed to deliver The Witcher and The Witcher 2…
Back when we had originally started working on our first game, we never imagined that The Witcher would gain so many die-hard fans. The fact that we love what we do kept us going through the greatest obstacles, but we wouldn’t have made it without you guys – the players. I guess I just want to say thank you to each and every one of you who supported us throughout those years. Thank you!

Fot. Daria Zawada (Happy Birthday Daria!)

Yesterday CD Projekt RED’s HQ held a Special Event, which all of you could watch during a live stream. Those of you, who missed it can watch it here:

Conferences change the way the studio works – our daily matters get pushed back so we can prepare the whole event and the studio goes into ‘conference mode’. This time all of our efforts went in one direction, we wanted gamers to receive all the good news we have prepared for them in the best way possible. We even got some special knives and carved wolf-medallions on apples, so we would be prepared for the launch of The Witcher 2 on Mac. You can see the results in the pic above.

Well, of course we’re kidding – we know that there are better ways to celebrate such a release. One does not simply arm Witcher fans with knives and apples. That could really only end in a delicious and fearsome fruit fight. So the best way to celebrate the release is by sharing this trailer:

Those of you, who love reading blogs and are interested in game-design, should check out the newly-launched Cyberpunk 2077 blog

Also, the REDkit beta was launched yesterday. 100 lucky modders got their hands on the toolset. Everybody else will have this opportunity in the first half of 2013. Until then, please enjoy this short video demonstration:

CD Projekt RED & GOG.com Special Event starts in 3 hours! The conference will be streamed live on The Witcher fanpage on facebook (Ustream tab). If you don’t have a facebook account, the conference will also be streamed here and on GOG.com. Don’t forget to tune in at 18:00 GMT and watch the Special Event LIVE!

Fresh citizens of Warsaw: Bill Daly and Gene Rozenberg

Moving to another country is usually a very big decision. In today’s blog entry we asked two of the newest members of the CD Projekt RED team to tell us their stories. Be sure to visit this blog’s section about Warsaw.

Bill Daly: The Road to Poland

My name is Bill Daly and I am a game developer from Austin, Texas. The following is the tale of how I ended up in Warsaw, Poland…

It started last May, when I received a link from a good friend and colleague to CD Projekt RED’s summer conference video where Marcin Iwiński announced their new Cyberpunk project and then extended an invitation to join their team. Having been a fan of Cyberpunk 2020 in my adolescence I was immediately interested and applied for open positions on that team in the character art department. About a month later I had accepted an offer to join CDPRed as the Lead Character Artist on the Cyberpunk project! I can’t explain how exciting this was! But that was only the beginning. I have a family of 5 and a home in Austin, Texas. So we all started going through our stuff, packing things up, having massive garage sales and donating anything we couldn’t sell. Things were moving along, but it would take a while before I could obtain my Polish work visa, so we were moving at a reasonable pace. My wife is a school teacher and started applying to some schools in Warsaw that she wanted to send our kids to, in the hopes that she could find employment and be with them at school together. Well, as luck would have it she got an offer almost immediately, but the only catch was that school started in 2 weeks! This pushed our move date forward by an entire month! All of a sudden the stress levels skyrocketed. Would we be able to get everything out of our house and get it sold or rented in time? How would we do all this while I was crunching 10 – 12 hours a day while we wrapped up one of our projects. At the time I put in my two weeks notice at Disney, I still didn’t even know where in Warsaw we would be living. It was very intense!

With plenty of help from our friends and family we managed to get out of the house 3 days before we were scheduled to move to Poland. Fortunately CDPRed has a top notch HR department and calmed our worries about finding a place to stay. So with the bare essentials covered, off we went to Poland. Surprisingly my children, ages 2, 4 and 5 all did incredibly well on the flight and acclimated to their new school quickly. Which was amazing since mostly all the kids speak polish. There was just one small hiccup, since we had moved earlier than expected, I still did not have my Polish work visa yet and needed to return to the states to apply for it. This meant leaving my family in Poland alone! It was not ideal, but we had no choice. Back home I still had many things to wrap up, while we had already made a lot of progress in our relocation, it was still far from over. Oh yeah, did I mention I also have 2 dogs to relocate to Poland as well?! Importing my dogs seemed like an expensive nightmare, but they are family too, so we had to figure it out. There was paperwork and vaccinations, micro-chips and crates, then more paperwork. I was so afraid of something going wrong and having to leave them in quarantine. Surprisingly though, no one really inspected the dog’s paper work, it didn’t seem to be a big deal here at all. Only in the states was I made to believe that importing pets to a foreign country would be a difficult and painstaking process. What a relief that was. Now the entire family is reunited in our new home, in our new country. We are really enjoying the city now and all it has to offer. There are plenty of family friendly things to do here, the food is amazing, the public transportation is reliable and safe, but above all the people are kind and accepting of our inability to speak much of their language yet. When we told our friends and family in Texas about our relocation the most popular response was “POLAND? What is there in Poland?”. I can tell you there is plenty here and it is fairly westernized, far more than I imagined. All in all if you’re brave enough to take the plunge and are looking for a great place to work and raise a family abroad, check out Poland you may be surprised at what you find!

Warsaw. Source: Wikicommons

Gene Rozenberg: New in Warsaw

Hello! My Name is Gene Rozenberg and I am a newly-arrived Audio Lead at CD Projekt RED. A few weeks ago my family and I moved to Warsaw and it has been quite an amazing experience! I have to say that none of my original expectations prepared me to how great this city really is. People are friendly, helpful, and surprisingly well-versed in English, Warsaw is beautiful and is filled to the brim with amazing places to visit, delicious food to eat and a variety of fun things to do.

I would be remiss to say that the move was not without its challenges. Learning to get around, where to shop, how to get a bank account or activate a mobile phone and a bit of a language barrier was somewhat overwhelming at first. Luckily for me, my new awesome friends at CD Projekt RED gave me a crash course in everything Polish and in a couple of weeks I felt comfortable and not at all stressed out. My wife loves it here. We live in a great, secure, family-friendly neighborhood which is perfect for her and our kid. She is a bit of a foodie and truly appreciates the delicious, home-grown and all-natural delicacies she can easily find at the farm stands or shops on virtually every corner of our neighborhood. My son really loves riding the trams and buses, as they closely resemble his most favorite  thing in the whole world — “Choo Choos”.

CD Projekt RED, too, is a great place to be. It is a true multicultural company and the atmosphere is among the very best in the world. I am surrounded by smart, wonderfully talented people who are truly passionate about, and believe in the games they make, which is reflected every day in the great work they do. That is exactly why I am so excited to be a part of it all at CD Projekt RED!

Grzegorz Królikowski and Robert Matusiak at work

Many people consider development studios to be part of the IT industry. Well, people who know our job a little more, consider creating games to be closer to the entertainment market rather than the classic IT branch. But of course as most companies nowadays, CD Projekt RED has it’s own IT department. These are the guys, who work backstage and who we know we couldn’t manage without. They are the underground stream that flows through the company and springs up to help us develop our games.

Today we have a small interview with Grzesiek Królikowski, Maciek Makowski and Robert Matusiak – the IT crowd.

What does the IT department do in a game-dev company?
Our work is similar to the work of IT departments in other firms. That means it involves overseeing the company’s network and computer infrastructure. Our main duties consist of managing that hardware and maintaining it. We’re the backstage hands who simply allow the company to work effectively. We have to keep an eye on the latest trends in the industry and stay in touch with the hardware and software companies themselves –  assuring our studio has the most advanced and powerful gaming equipment.

So what’s different in working in the IT department at CD Projekt RED, when compared to the same job in, let’s say, accounting?
First of all, game development consists of a vast variety of specializations. We’ve got programmers, film makers, animators, graphic designers, motion capture guys, marketing. Every section requires different equipment and a game studio is the place where all disciplines come together. It’s not a narrow field like accounting. We have contact with creative people of different sorts – producing graphics requires a different workstation from story writing, and things fluctuate all the time. This is a highly dynamic environment and we have to adapt really quickly.

Does it make it easier or harder for IT to work in a game dev studio? I mean, do people help you or are they rather ‘wise guys’?
Most of the people here are really tech aware – and this is a really good thing. They don’t call us when they can’t plug in a mouse for instance. Stupid questions and requests are a rarity. People are able to handle basic stuff by themselves.

Speaking of stupid questions… What was the most bizarre request you guys got?
[immediately] A broken water boiler.

What?
Well some people assume that IT handles everything connected with machinery and equipment. The boiler was leaking and we were called in. This is quite cool – people don’t know what to do and they come to us. The boiler didn’t exactly explode, but this just shows how fast things change around us and you can expect everything.

Talking about change, how often do you need to change the hardware in the studio?
This differs for each department. Developers have to change their rigs every 3 years, but for example we upgrade their graphic cards more often.

And which department gives you the most trouble?
Quality Assurance. Not because they damage the equipment, but they have the most strange needs – like installing a Chinese or Russian version of Windows, or changing the settings to test a particular feature.

A piece of advice for our readers. How to buy the best gaming PC?
First of all: do it yourself. Preset rigs are overpriced and you can get better hardware cheaper when you collect your elements on your own. This is can be quite exciting. If you are a little into that sort of thing, you will both save good money and get a great machine.
And if you are not too much into hardware, your best bet would be a console – either an Xbox 360 or a PS3. This is the easiest way to play what you want.

Without giving the specs. Which department has the most powerful computer in CD Projekt RED?
Marketing.

Why?
It’s a movie editing rig and requires a lot of power to compute all the movies. In fact there was a funny story with the graphics card for this PC. It was sent to us by nVidia in a wooden box, with a crowbar attached. We had a phone call from the customs office who wanted us to clarify what that was all about.

Gameplay design is all about choices – every day we make dozens or even hundreds of decisions. Will we take idea A or B? You can’t eat the cake and still have it. A game designer has to think how to improve existing mechanisms and figure out how to do it. A wrong choice can decrease the game’s stability, spoil the fun of playing it or will extend the time of the work and production process.

During previous projects our guides were just our intuition and subjective points of view. This worked out fine, but created small problems. Today I’m going to tell you about two such problems and how we manage to solve them now.

While working on the first instalment of The Witcher only the Gameplay Design team made the game’s blueprints. The other teams’ members felt they didn’t have much influence on the project. We knew they had ideas, but we didn’t exchange them too much – this would require long meetings and debates.

We changed that in our new project – When we come up with a new mechanism we gather all the studio’s opinions. We use the so-called Crawford method for every idea we have.

In the studio’s network we create a table with every idea listed and give people the opportunity to add their own. To choose the best ideas we use a “Like it” system – similar to Facebook.  Each team member can “like” an idea. The ones with the most votes are implemented. This is our first benchmark – after all, 120 people are less likely to be wrong than one.

The “Like It” method for one of our current projects

With the ‘new ideas’ problem solved, we had to think about improving what we already had designed.  Sometimes a great idea got general acclaim and we implemented it immediately. Suddenly the new feature caused some trouble for the other teams or spoiled the overall gameplay of the game. We always think about the consequences of each new feature, but sometimes we cannot predict everything.  We wondered how we could improve this.  We observed that when foreseeing consequences people tend to think only one step ahead e.g. “if I don’t set the alarm clock, I could be late for school”. But we don’t think about what being late implies.

Our first solution was a “consequence graph”. We used it while creating The Witcher 2. At one point we thought about Geralt dual-wielding his swords. Geralt would fight with both his steel and silver sword. The idea seemed spectacular, especially in the visual aspect. Then we drew the consequence graph. The starting point was called: “dual wielding combat”. Then we started thinking about the direct consequences e.g. “looks great”.

Then we went deeper.. and we realized that dual-wielding interferes with one of our main gameplay rules – our swords serve two different purposes. The silver one works against magical monsters and the iron one works best against humans. The idea was finally abandoned and Geralt’s image remained coherent.

Concequence graph for The Witcher 2 and dual sword wielding

A second method that allows us to maintain game stability is the so-called matrix of solutions. This square table comprises of all the game features and mechanics. For example how does the presence of NPCs influence the alchemy system and the other way round.

This is a map of the gameplay design. We see how one change will influence other aspects of the game.

The matrix of solutions for The Witcher 2

The methods I presented allow us to have a clear vision of the game and allow us to solve annoying problems we encounter during production phase.  Of course they are not the ultimate remedies,  as dealing with these issues also requires a lot of experience and following your instincts. The tools we have are just here to help and see what our games are all about – every choice has significant consequences.

Today we have an interview with two international members of our team, Jonas “Super Swede” Mattsson (Level Artist) & Damien “Frenchman Extraordinaire” Monnier (Gameplay Designer). These two fine gentlemen will tell you a little bit about living in Warsaw, working for CD Projekt RED and their favorite places to hang out in the capital of Poland.

One thing you love about living in Warsaw?

J: That it is a city that you can truly go exploring in. Even at first glance it is obvious that there are lots of things that you can do in Warsaw but there is so much more to be discovered on your own, little hidden cafes and flea markets (which I go to on a sunny Sunday for a bit of casual browsing) and of course the clubs and bars that often have live music.

D: Being from the countryside, I usually avoid big cities like the plague; Warsaw however, is surprisingly relaxing and has a pace of life unlike any other capital cities – Also Sushi bars everywhere!!

Best tip for anyone thinking of moving to Warsaw?

J: I was really nervous moving here, having spent the last 4 years before that in England and before that I grew up in Sweden so I really didn’t know what to expect. My tip to anyone thinking of moving here would be to first move somewhere close to or with easy access to the city centre so you can get the feel of the city and start to learn where everything is. Also, I learned how to say “I’m sorry, I’m Swedish and I don’t speak Polish” in Polish which helped me a lot in the beginning.

D: Don’t worry about the language barrier too much, master “Excuse me, do you speak English, please?” in Polish and you will be set to explore the city (also bring a good pair of shoes…).

One thing that makes CD Projekt RED unique from all the other studios you’ve worked for?

J: When hiring, CDPR looks usually at two things, your skill and your personality. Because of that the workplace is filled with awesome, nice, talented people that want to create the best games ever. There is no ivory tower with the bosses hidden away, very often you’ll find the head of the studio going around on a good morning tour, saying “hi” to people. It’s such nice, little things that really add to this feeling that CDPR is like one big happy family (sounds cheesy but it’s true!)

D: The quality of the staff. CD Projekt Red cherry picks the best developers from around the world and it shows; it shows in the quality of work produced here and how passionate people are about the projects. It’s a joy (and very motivating) to know that anyone working here excels at her/his discipline.

Favorite place in Warsaw?

J: This is a hard question because there are so many places that I like, but if I had to choose one I would have to say Powiśle, lots of bars, clubs, flea markets and parks. It’s a natural place for me to go to when I want to relax. (If I had two choices I would also say the Wedel Chocolate Factory, I travel past there every day on my way to and from work. I want to know if there are any Oompa Loompas working there!!)

D: Pawilony: Quaint little area full of quirky little bars where expats seem to naturally converge. Grab a beer and a shisha pipe, sit down, introduce yourself to strangers and make friends.

Biggest surprise moving here?

J: There is actually plenty of curry restaurants to go to (I am a bit of a curry fanatic!)

D: Trams are actually reliable.

Konrad Tomaszkiewicz’s parachute jump

It’s almost weekend here in Warsaw. We try to get the most out of the last days of summer and take part in as many outdoor activities as we can. This is the first part of a blog post, which will show you how we like to spend our free time outdoors.

This week we present three activities performed by our team members. Why do we love sports? I think Konrad Tomaszkiewicz has the best answer:

Konrad Tomaszkiewicz (Project Lead): Video games were and still are an important part of my life. From the moment I got my first PC, I knew nothing could replace the kind of entertainment they provide. Fate was generous, and I started to work in the game dev industry. But this doesn’t mean that my job has no drawbacks. When games are your passion, it’s hard to leave all the problems you run into at the office. You always ponder on the story, the new intro etc.  Finding a way to relax isn’t as easy as for physical workers, who get back home, eat supper and rest. Intellectual labor requires a completely different approach. You can’t just stop thinking about work when it’s your passion. That’s why I can’t rest at home. But the remedy is pretty simple – hobbies and sports.

Konrad Tomaszkiewicz kiteboards

Kitesurfing (also known as kiteboarding) is my way out.  You can speed up to 80 km/h and jump over 30-40 meters. This is an extreme and difficult sport, but it brings real satisfaction. It requires concentration on what you are doing at the moment – one slip and you fall or fly for many meters. Because of the wind conditions it cannot be performed  everywhere. If I don’t have time to go to a suitable bay, I choose similar stuff near Warsaw – such wakeboarding or flyboarding. That last thing is a kind of board propelled by a high pressure stream of water. I really feel like Iron Man when I’m flyboarding. All these sports provide plenty of fun and enable me to relax after work. Remember my advice – relax the active way.

Flyboarding near Warsaw

Marcin Momot (Community Manager): Every Tuesday, right after work, we gather downstairs in the building’s lobby and head toward the nearby basketball court. We’re really fortunate, because there are about 3-4 courts not too far from CD Projekt RED’s HQ. Once there, it’s time for a shootaround! After about 15-20 minutes of practice we pick teams and start playing. Sometimes it gets really intense, especially when the score is neck and neck throughout the entire game, but we always put sportsmanship and having a good time first, so there’s no room for any animosity. After all, we are the bro-est of bros. Right now, with fall slowly creeping up on us we will be making the move to an indoor court in a month or so. Stay tuned for more pictures from our basketball sessions.

Concetration is crucial

Orchestrating the offense

Almost there

CD Projekt RED can jump

Antek Strzałkowski (Senior QA Analyst): I’ve been longboard riding with a really good group of friends for 6 months. We quickly founded an amateur team – Dzika Świnia (eng. Wild Hog) Longboard Team. From early childhood I participated in snowboard slaloms and this gave me the basic skills for riding a longboard. The similarities between the two sports is the main reason why I’m so into it. For me a longboard is the summer version of the snowboard. Now I can hit the slopes all year long. And the summer version doesn’t require me to move from my beloved city and I can wear t-shirts and shorts. I just change snow for asphalt. How cool is that? Warsaw is full of great places to ride – any style. Downhill, freeride, freestyle – you can find a spot for any of these. You just have to look around. This is another thing I love about longboarding – the exploration to find a perfect place. I dive into the streets and little alleyways in my city; venues I’ve never seen before or I had forgotten about. Thanks to longboarding I’m discovering the city once again and gives me the opportunity to look at it in a different perspective.

Anual Lonboard doping competition takes place in the city downtown, which is closed for traffic. This pic is taken on Myśliwicka Street – you can easily speed up to 60 km/h. I’m in the Dzikie Świnie t-shirt.

I can see the finish line. This is the last chance to loose some precious miliseconds.

Pole Mokotowskie Park – Dzikie Świnie Longboard team meets here. The asphalt is flat and the terrain pefect. There’s nothing better than a push through Warsaw streets with a bunch of friends.

The end of the Longboard Doping competition. The last part of the race, you can really speed up here.

The Earth – the third planet from the sun and the fifth largest planet in our solar system.

From my perspective, working on an RPG  can get quite challenging. Gamers always say they want vast landscapes to explore – they don’t want to have artificial boundaries like invisible walls. They want to be a part of the world and to have the feeling that they can do anything a being in this world could do.. And they can and should have those things, but it only works if the developers have a clear vision of what they are creating and concentrate on the most important aspects of the game. You might ask – what is the most important thing? The PLAYER. Gamers are often the main subject of meetings in CD Projekt RED.

Creating something gamers will enjoy is a long process. The game doesn’t begin on high-end rigs, but on paper. In our case, it begins in the STORY department. That’s where the first ideas for The Witcher world sprang to life. This is a long and complicated process, but defines everything that will happen later. Their work is the base for the whole studio and later influences the work of everyone else in it. Sometimes, of course, we have to remove certain elements of this foundation, because they don’t fit into the whole structure. We have to be 100% sure, that we want a specific element in the game.

But this is just the first step. Once all the teams know where are we headed, we start to create prototypes. This takes place in each team. The design team pens down the quests and develops the main storyline, the programmers code the first tools depending on the other departments’ demands and needs. Cut-scene artists draw the storyboards. Gameplay designers plan the movement mechanics, combat and other ways to make the world more alive (e.g. how do the background characters work?).

Concept artists draw maps of locations based on quest descriptions together with the first impressions of characters and monsters.

Character artists look for ways to reflect personalities of different people, concentrating on those which are the most important to the storyline.

Location artists create the first 3D maps using the REDengine, which is an excellent tool for creating vast locations. This is the moment my team steps in. When we have the first sketches we can see how the world will look in 3D. We define the size of the gameplay area, thus setting the area the player will be able to explore. We determine what we want the player to feel when he or she walks up a hill or descends into a valley. After we combine our work with all the story and gameplay guidelines, we see a world teeming with life, no longer an empty visualization.

This is still an early stage, no doubt. When we finalize the prototype part, the real production may commence. I will elaborate on this part in later blog posts.

Some of you may think that after we’ve written the story and have the prototype, we’re over the hump. Actually, we are not yet ready for anything. It’s like the aftermath of a tornado. Every team has added new assets and new ideas – none of which the editor can properly handle at this stage. The game performance needs improvements and all the gameplay mechanics get messed up, so the game is far from perfect. This is where QA steps in and saves the day. The testers control the gameplay in real life and help us all facilitate our work.

This is a long and tiresome process, which has one goal only – transforming the paper version of the game into something the players will love.

As I mentioned, I work as a location artist. In my first post I wanted to explain how things work around here. My department cooperates with all other teams, so this knowledge is important to understand what my team and me do.

In my next posts I’ll write a little bit about environments, lighting, composition (seen from the players perspective). You will see how tiny changes in shape or color can have a huge impact on the atmosphere of the places we create, and finally you will see how we cooperate to create something like The Witcher 2 – how all the pieces fit together.

Responsibilities:

• Planning work on the code
• Developing solutions to be implemented in game
• Code review and evaluation
• Programming
• Interviews with candidates

Required skills & experience:

• Perfect knowledge of the craft: C++ language, object-oriented programming, software design
• Experience in managing programmers, particularly in big, finished and released game projects
• Broad knowledge of any game development field, and in particular: deep knowledge of gameplay and AI related topics
• Ability to estimate the size of tasks
• Ability to review and evaluate the code
• Fluent English skills

Nice to have:

• Experience with game consoles
• Ability to optimize the code

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• A competitive salary and project based bonuses
• Private health care & MultiSport card
• From 20 to 26 days of paid vacation per year
• Exciting opportunity  to create a video game set in one of the most acclaimed RPG universes
• A step by step assistance and ‘Relocation Package’ for foreigners willing to establish in Warsaw
• Polish lessons for foreign employees

Artists and designers should enclose a portfolio or link to an online portfolio to their application. Programmers should include code samples.

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

The secret to a good character concept is its head. Not to brag about the eyes as the mirrors of the soul or the number of emotions a human face can express let’s just get on with it. Because it’s all in the head – believe me.

Any to-be concept artist will sooner or later have to learn how to draw a good face. I decided to take my time and start this little tutorial and share the knowledge which has  been gathered by artists and human body experts (scientists to be precise) throughout the ages.

In this episode I’ll write a little bit about the first principal which defines the look and character of the head you are designing. Today I will write about the facial angle.

The most important element you will need while constructing the head is the middle of the ear. This is represented by the red dot on the illustration above.

A line crossing this point and perpendicular to the horizon helps us find the beginning of the neck i.e. the place where the neck meets the chest (point A). Traditional sculptors use a special pendulum to find the correct line. It’s good if you have an apprentice of any kind to hold it for you, while you’re busy with your work.

The model’s character is determined by the so-called facial angle.  This concept was used for the first time in the 18th Century  by Petrus Camper, a Dutch anthropologist, scientist and sculptor. He introduced a constant head position based upon a line drawn from the middle of the ear (red dot) to the septum (the red line). The second line needed to create the face angle is drawn from the forehead surface with the jaw (yellow line).  This angle can have different rays and be even right.

Determining the facial angle allows you to have a base for further head construction and influences the look of the model on an early stage, before you start outlining other elements (e.g. a nose).

Here’s a short video showing the REDkit in action for the first time! Marek Ziemak, CD Projekt RED’s Gameplay Producer talks about the basic features of the editor and takes you behind closed doors, inside of our GC booth. The upcoming set of tools will allow players to create non-linear adventures set in the world of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.

Everyone who is interested in participating in the closed beta of the REDkit, can apply here for early access.

When designing Geralt’s appearance for the second part of The Witcher we decided to make some revolutionary changes. We remodeled his face so it would meet modern character design standards. We added many accessories, costumes and we gave him a ponytail.
And then all hell broke loose. We didn’t expect that a change of hairstyle could inspire such emotions. It was the number one subject in our studio. We tested and discussed many variations of Geralt’s hair. We asked our community in a poll and didn’t get a clear answer to our dilemma – the difference in the number of votes between loose hair and the ponytail was minimal.

Finally we agreed – the ponytail gets in the game. The hair looks better this way, it’s more realistic and pragmatic in combat and also it was much easier to implement. At the same time our fans were promised to get an option of changing Geralt’s hair in the future.

Well, promises are easy to make, but the execution was much more complicated. We encountered numerous problems: how could we change the bone system of the ponytail if it is an integral part of the whole character model? How should we implement the hairstyle option in the game’s interface? And finally, do we want players to be able to switch hairdoos at the beginning of the game or in the inventory (just like you switch between swords)?

Making the hairstyle optional meant many problems and was a rather low priority, because it didn’t influence the game quality directly. But we made a promise, so we had to work it in somehow.

Unfortunately we didn’t keep that promise when the game launched – the players only had the ponytail. We couldn’t keep it that way and since we already had some basic things done, we decided to release the new hair changing system in the next patch. The idea to change it from the inventory seemed too awkward for the team. The proper inventory icons should have to be among Geralt’s stuff – we could not imagine him buying or crafting those. Furthermore, a collection of scalps would look strange amongst potions, swords etc.

That’s why we decided to introduce barbers into the game. We added a dialog option to a NPC in each location, which allowed players to change Geralt’s hair for a small fee. To lead the players to this person we added a special chair in the vicinity of the barber.

Initially we wanted to add only three options: loose hair, a high ponytail and a low ponytail. But taking money for such a limited service seemed unfair. That’s why we added a ponytail made of all of Geralt’s hair, braids and a ponytail with shaven temples. That seemed enough to satisfy everyone willing to spend their orens on a new haircut.

We announced the Barbers and Coiffeuses DLC on one of our conferences

The barbers were available in patch 1.2 and our community liked the new options. Finally Geralt could take care of his image.

At the beginning of August we went on a short business trip to Tokyo, Japan. We were supposed to do a live stream and a bunch of interviews, however, we also managed to see a number of tourist attractions. Here’s a short article about it.

The day that we landed was the hardest one. Adjusting to the weather wasn’t easy, especially when the humidity is over 50% and temperature’s over 35°C every single day. I’d like to thank Agnieszka Szostak for understanding and not bursting out due to my constant whining.

Fortunately, there was air conditioning in every room/restaurant/office so I managed to withstand the heat attack.

On our first day we visited famous Tsukiji Fish Market which was pretty close to our hotel. The variety of fish there is astonishing.

Then we went to Gyoen Park to see Imperial Palace, however, the Emperor wasn’t planning on having us at his place so we just waved in the direction of the palace. Never heard of The Witcher? That’s OK, we’re here to change this.
The gardens are out of this world and the diversity of the plants can make a visiting botanist extremely happy.

Ueno Park was also very nice, especially due to Hiroshima and Nagasaki flame still burning inside a small metal dove.

Akihabara – oh yeah…that place…
The noise, the crowds and the number of games available – all this combined into cacophony of sounds is almost unbearable for an average tourist. We were both really stunned by this. Every player can find a game for him/herself.

In the evening we passed sumo arena (Ryogoku Kokugikan), however, the major tournament wasn’t on schedule until September. We were devastated. In the end, I finally managed to take a close-up picture of the noisy cicada.
They make a distinctive noise, like a mini buzzsaw. During hot days, the combined noise from all the cicadas can almost drown out traffic.

During the second day we were preparing for the stream. This was also the first day that we travelled by Tokyo Subway, which in fact, turned out to be pretty easy to use. All this thanks to a very neatly described stations and routes as well as the omnipresent maps and helpful people around.

Nico Nico guys were very cooperative during the stream and the atmosphere in the studio was great, extremely helpful to ease any stress that I had before doing the live show. Fumi-san and Edo-san are a couple of crazy guys and the show was so awesome that we had to extend it for another hour.
Before entering on the air, I decided to learn a couple of Japanese words that would help me with commenting the action. To my surprise, people liked every bit of my “fluent” japanese: “IDESOZO!” or “SAIKO!”
Here are the notes that I took:

Next two days were filled with interviews that we conducted in Spike Chunsoft’s headquarters. We started with a major surprise – Daisuke Yamamoto (Associate Producer) announced that we received Platinum score from Famitsu. Suddenly, the day filled with hundreds of questions looked much better.

Last day was entertaining and exhausting at the same time. We tried to use every minute of it and I think we did a decent job. We went to Shibuya station which is regarded as the busiest intersection in the whole world. I reckon the photos will confirm it.

We managed to see Harajuku and Yoyogi Park. Harajuku is a fashion capital of the world, renowned for its unique street fashion, it is often called “cosplay town”. There is a bunch of shops with hundreds of gadgets from various TV shows.

In Yoyogi Park, we saw Meiji Shrine and a collection of sake and wine barrels.

Fortunately, I was able to keep Aga away from opening those.

And by the way, in McDonald’s they have special burger counterparts – I tried Teriyaki Mac Burger and Aga chose Shrimp Filet-O. Yes, they were good.

To sum up this short article, I would like to thank all those that made this trip possible as well as the people from Spike Chunsoft and Nico Nico Video for their help. Japan is a very interesting and unique country and I definitely need to mention the politeness of Japanese people and their constant optimistic attitude to life. It’s something indescribable and rarely meet. I hope to come here again!

Gamescom 2012: CD Projekt RED’s stand

A strong team of REDs is currently at Gamescom 2012. Despite an unexpected storm in Cologne, the first day of the fair was pretty exciting.

The Witcher 2 dominated the European Games Awards and won 6 prizes (more info can be found here). Once again – we would like to thank all of you for your votes.

Gamescom 2012: The Best European Game award

After two days around 200 journalists visited the REDkit presentation area and saw the best tool for creating non-linear adventures in action.

Gamescom 2012: Journalists wait for the REDkit’s presentation

Finally there is our recruitment booth in the public section of Gamescom. So if you are visiting Cologne be sure to go to hall 10, booth E60 to learn how you can become a part of CD Projekt RED.

Gamescom 2012: Jonas Mattson talks about working at CD projekt RED.

Gamescom 2012: The crowd is flocking to our stand.

You can read the previous part of this making of – here.

The cavalry rides in to save the day!

In Sapkowski’s stories Geralt often talks to his horse – Roach (the Witcher had a lot of horses, but he would always give them the same name – Roach). Why not use this motive in our movie? To implement this idea we “stole” one of the story team members. Arek Borowik prepared the final monologue and now we knew we just had to record Doug Cockle (the English voice of Geralt). But how could we put all these new ideas into the clip? This time the solution was simple. The clip had to be longer.

Short story long

“The horse monologue” worked fine. It appealed to the viewer, because it didn’t tell the story directly and would be consistent with The Witcher’s universe.

In the meantime we organised a motion capture recording and started to create the movie in-engine using our motion builder. The sequences were growing by the day and we achieved the proper pacing for telling the entire story.
The film was getting longer and longer. Geralt’s journey, the troll encounter, the horse panicking, meditation and the cave sequence – all of this added up to a length of over 5 minutes. Our initial concept was only two minutes long. But the story as a whole was great, so we didn’t want to cut a thing.

The Epilogue – some people never learn

Other problems showed that some assets had to be improved to meet our standards (i.e. some objects had been using lo-res textures, because they weren’t intended for close-ups). Paweł Mielniczuk (Lead Character Artist) also had to join the project and he created “Geralt’s new look” after the witcher consumes his potions.
Lucjan Więcek (Lead Level Artist) who loves perfection (sometimes even too much) was controlling us all the time. He corrected the lighting, added some vegetation here and there. He also “lent” us his team member – Adrian Sobieraj (Level Artist) who moved many to suit our needs.
More and more people joined the project and we got a lot of help (whereas at first everybody told us we were going to be alone on this one). Once again our studio proved that our pursuit of awesomeness is unlimited and we cannot contain our desires.
And so, after many hours of overtime, midnight pizzas and going home only for a change clothes, the movie was ready. The sound crew applied the finishing touch – they worked right up to the last minute.
We are getting used to the mantra: “if we only had one day more, we would improve…”. But still I am very satisfied with what we achieved.

And here are some production screenshots:

This is how we see a shot, while we work on it . Then we have to export the animation to the game engine. This allows us to attach the proper models, add lighting, depth of field, etc.

Most of the time we work without textures, so our hardware can compute everything faster:

This is how we animate the Witcher’s face

Paweł from CD Projekt RED presents The Witcher 2 on a Japanese TV show

The Japanese release of The Witcher 2 is getting closer and closer. A two-person team from CD Projekt RED left for Tokyo last week to show the game to the players, who will be able to play it on August 23rd.

Aga and Paweł are spaming us with pics and news from Japan (and yes, I’m jealous). So here’s a sneak preview of their trip. I hope they’ll write more themselves, when they get back to sunny Warsaw.

A pic taken by the REDs from Roppongi Hills

A geek’s paradise. Batman socks rock!

 And we also know, that Famitsu – Japan’s largest gaming magazine gave The Witcher 2 a  ”Platinum” score. This is the highest note in their scale. Here are two pics from an earlier preview of the game (for those who can read Japanese):

The beginning

In Poland it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t know Geralt of Rivia, a witcher, the main protagonist of Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels and our game. Outside of Poland not so many people know Geralt. While working on the 360 version we thought it would be a good idea to show the White Wolf to others in a short clip made with the REDengine.

Good ideas are like the Spanish inquisition – nobody expects them. The spark to make what later became “52 and a half”, came to us quite late in the production process, so we had little time to produce a film which contained enough information. There were a lot of thoughts on how to reveal as many details about the witcher’s abilities as possible, while at the same time having a very tight deadline. What we finally agreed on was a clip in which the witcher was preparing for combat with off-screen commentary.

We assumed it was going to be impossible to make a recording with Geralt’s voice actor and that implied that the witcher would have to be silent. So the narrator had to be someone else. Borys Pugacz-Maruszkiewicz (Senior Writer) was our obvious choice – not only is he a pro actor, but also he is our RED brother-in-arms.

The other problem – our writing, level and character teams were busy with their tasks, so our cinematic squad was alone on this one (against all odds).

We kept our heads high and believed that we’d somehow do it.

First turning point

After the second round of brainstorming our whole concept began to fall apart. We realized that an anonymous narrator wasn’t what we were looking for. It should be someone from the Witcher’s lore. Unfortunately, we still couldn’t have a recording session, so we had to create characters for Borys.

The script started to grow. I introduced the peasants who would contract Geralt. When he’d go off, the village elder would start his tales about witchers. And if we’d already started to expand the tale, why not add an ending in which Geralt would enter a monster-infested cave and thanks to his potions be able to see the threat awaiting him?

Piece of cake. We still believed, that impossible is nothing.

Two ways to go: 2d Animatic

I started with drawing a storyboard. Soon I realized that it would be better to do a 2D animatic. On this stage I also began to test different soundtracks and sounds. I could not use a band so the animatic used samples from freesound.org. The results can be found here:

After basic editing and adding temporary voices a couple of things struck us:

• The cave entrance sequence didn’t feel right.
• The narrator was just awful – he killed the atmosphere, and the plot didn’t have that proper flow. He had to go.

We had two options. Either we’d get Geralt or we’d have an almost silent movie allowing for viewer interpretation.

Geralt couldn’t be talking to himself and if he were a classic narrator it wouldn’t feel right. What else could we do?

To be continued…

I was wondering – do You know a site for gamers by gamers? And I don’t mean a simple review site or some kind of corporate nonsense. What I have in mind is a webpage that gathers the community of gaming fans and gives them insight on the most basic level – what inspires us players and developers.

That’s why together with the rest of the studio we decided to start a blog for CD Projekt RED. On this site you will find posts by the people who play their role in creating mature and complex RPGs. The studio consists of inventive people, who have much to tell you about their work and environment.

From little things that surround us to the great stuff we create – we want to show you what inspires us. Be sure to find some cool “making of” articles, fresh news from the studio and more or less serious visual materials made by us. We decided to start this blog to show you, that gaming can go outside your living room.

Enjoy what we’ve prepared for you.

The Art Director at CDP Red will create and maintain the artistic vision for all games in development at the studio. You will push the technological boundaries of next gen hadware. You will direct the art teams in the creation of highly believable and immersive game worlds.

Responsibilities:

• Create the artistic vision for games in development at CD Projekt Red studio
• Clearly communicate that vision to the team
• Maintain that vision consistently throughout the production process
• Regularly review characters, levels, cutscenes, lighting, visual effects etc. for quality and visual consistency
• Provide creative input, direction and mentoring & support to art leads and artists

Required skills & experience:

• Previous experience as an Art Director on a current gen AAA title
• Skilled conceptual artist both for characters and environments
• Strong foundation in traditional art especially in lighting, mood, composition and color theory
• Proven understanding of the technical limitations and art pipelines in game development
• Team development and management: capable of attracting top talent and motivating staff development with a view towards achieving results
• Outstanding verbal and written interpersonal communication skills

Nice to have:

• Experience with RPGs and open world systems
• Experience in the film CG industry

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• A competitive salary and project based bonuses
• Private health care & MultiSport card
• From 20 to 26 days of paid vacation per year
• Exciting opportunity  to create a video game set in one of the most acclaimed RPG universes
• A step by step assistance and ‘Relocation Package’ for foreigners willing to establish in Warsaw
• Polish lessons for foreign employees

Candidates for this position should include portfolio to their application.

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

Responsibilities:

• Creating high quality game concept art in collaboration with the Lead Concept Artist and other artists within the team
• Maintaining the production pipeline and meeting deadlines
• Working closely with 3D Artists, Story and Design teams

Required skills & experience:

• Excellent environment, character and weapon concept art skills with an eye for perspective, color, lighting and atmosphere
• A minimum of 4 years experience in the game development industry in a Specialist or higher position (with at least one AAA title shipped)
• Strong understanding of composition, form, lighting, and color
• Solid foundation in traditional art, such as figure drawing, industrial design, landscape painting and illustration
• Experience working in a wide variety of styles but also able to work within an established genre and teach it to other concept artists
• Excellent communication skills and ability to work within a team
• Ability to easily communicate in English

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• A competitive salary and project based bonuses
• Private health care & MultiSport card
• From 20 to 26 days of paid vacation per year
• Exciting opportunity  to create a video game set in one of the most acclaimed RPG universes
• A step by step assistance and ‘Relocation Package’ for foreigners willing to establish in Warsaw
• Polish lessons for foreign employees

Please note that artists should enclose a portfolio or link to an online portfolio to their application.

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”

Responsibilities:

• Prototyping and coding gameplay features
• Taking part in the design process of the gameplay
• Creating base gameplay system for the gameplay designers to extend
• Ensuring that game scripts are well designed, and are optimal in terms of CPU and memory consumption

Required skills & experience:

• Deep knowledge of C++
• 5 years of work experience on a similar position in the production of an AAA game title (including having worked to completion on at least one published game)
• Familiarity with the Visual Studio environment
• Knowledge of next-gen game AI/gameplay architecture
•  Ability to design code
• Fluent English

Nice to have:

• Experience in creating an AAA title for game consoles
• Experience with RPGs will be very welcome

We offer you:

• A modern and relaxed studio atmosphere with cutting-edge technologies
• A chance to work in an international environment in a booming industry
• A competitive salary and project based bonuses
• Private health care & MultiSport card
• From 20 to 26 days of paid vacation per year
• An exciting chance to work among the creators of one of the most acclaimed role-playing games on the market
• A step by step assistance and ‘Relocation Package’ for foreigners willing to establish in Warsaw
• Polish lessons for foreign employees

Artists and designers should enclose a portfolio or link to an online portfolio to their application. Programmers should include code samples.

Please be informed that we reserve the right to contact only selected applicants. The hired individual will need to work in-house, in our studio based in Warsaw, Poland.

Please also include the following statement with your application: „I hereby consent to the processing of my vital and personal data in so far as this is required under the recruiting process, in accordance with the Act of August 29, 1997, on the Protection of Personal Information (JoL no. 133, item 883).”