Game Designer

Game Designer (WonJo Kids) 6-Month Contract

Who we are

Upily builds WonJo Kids, a learn-through-play app for children aged 2–6. The app has nearly 110 educational mini games built with Unity, educational videos, and English learning (ESL) modules for children whose first language is not English. Families in 11 countries, mainly Turkey and the US, use WonJo; content is available in English and Turkish.

Our core belief is simple: happy learners are strong learners. We have zero tolerance for addictive mechanics, violence and advertising; technology should support childhood, not take it over.

About the role

We are looking for a Game Designer to join our game design team and design educational, genuinely fun games for young children. You will take an idea all the way from a game design document (GDD) to a prototype, tests with children, and a live game.

Day to day you will work with Unity developers, illustrators and animators, the sound and voice-over team, content/pedagogy experts and the product team. The games you design may appear in the WonJo app, on the website, in English (ESL) modules, and in Bix, Upily's other app.

Responsibilities

• Generate ideas for new games; propose concepts with reasonable cost that reuse existing scenes, systems and visuals.

• Write game design documents (GDDs) in our team format: learning goal, gameplay, tutorial, hint and idle behavior, wrong-answer flow.

• Design level and difficulty progression: level tables, difficulty curves, random level rules, adaptive difficulty.

• Prepare voice-over (VO) and sound effect lists, art and animation needs, and analytics event tables, and hand them to the relevant teams.

• Test mechanics with quick prototypes (paper, Figma or a simple browser prototype) before moving to Unity.

• Review data from live games (completion, drop-off points, replays) and suggest improvements.

• Own the design during development: answer questions, test builds, and support QA.

What we are looking for

• At least 2 years of game design experience in mobile games, educational games or children's products.

• Design ownership on at least one published game, and a portfolio that shows it.

• Able to write clear, structured design documents that developers can implement without asking questions.

• Strong instinct for game mechanics, feedback, rewards and difficulty balance.

• Interest in young children's motor, cognitive and language development; able to think about what a design

means to a 3-year-old.

• Experience collaborating with teams working in Unity and an understanding of technical constraints.

• Good written and spoken communication in Turkish and English (our documents and content are bilingual).

• A design approach that avoids addictive or manipulative mechanics and embraces the "Do No Harm" principle.

Nice to have

• Education or experience in early childhood education, child development or instructional design.
• Experience running playtests or user research with children.
• Experience designing content or games for second-language learning (ESL).
• Able to build simple prototypes in Unity or run quick experiments with HTML/JavaScript.
• Able to read game data with analytics tools such as Amplitude or Firebase.
• Able to sketch screens and flows in Figma.
• Effective use of AI tools in the design process (ideation, writing documents, prototyping).

What we offer

• The chance to see the games you design reach thousands of children in many countries quickly.
• A small, fast team that works closely with pedagogy experts, developers and artists.
• Room to own a design from idea to launch.
• [Work model: remote]
• [Location: We have an office in Ankara; open to those who prefer working from the office.]

How to apply

Send your CV and portfolio to [ik@upily.com ]. In your portfolio, we would like to see at least one game design document or an example that shows your design process. We may ask standout candidates for a short design task.