Game Design Intern - Rapid Prototyping

Business Unit
LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS is made up of passionate players who advance the art & science of game development through great stories, great gameplay, and advanced technology. We are focused on bringing next generation experiences to gamers who want to enjoy them anywhere, anytime, across multiple genres and devices.

What the Role Entails

About the role We're an incubation team inside Lightspeed Studios chasing original IP with high replayability value. We move fast: idea → playable prototype → playtest → next idea. We're looking for an intern who can sit at the intersection of design and code, turning gameplay hypotheses into things people can actually click on within days, not weeks.

This is not a production role. The bar is "fun enough to validate," not "ready to ship." If you've spent weekends building prototypes for game jams just to see whether a weird mechanic works, you'll feel at home here.

What you'll do

• Design and prototype gameplay mechanics across genres, with a focus on replayability and IP potential
• Spin up playable web prototypes in Phaser.js / HTML5 / JS - fast, dirty, and instructive
• Run informal playtests with the team, distil what's fun (and what isn't), and feed findings back into the next iteration
• Produce light design docs - enough to communicate intent, not enough to drown in
• Collaborate with the design lead on weekly experiments aligned to incubation themes

Who We Look For

What we're looking for

• Hands-on prototyping skills in Phaser.js, JavaScript, and HTML5 (or a comparable web/lightweight stack you can pivot from quickly)
• A portfolio of personal projects, game jam entries, or school work that shows you can take an idea from concept to playable
• Strong design instincts - you can articulate why a mechanic feels fun, not just describe what it does
• Comfort with ambiguity and rapid iteration; you're energised by short loops and don't need a fully written spec to start
• Curiosity about what makes games replayable - roguelikes, party games, autobattlers, deckbuilders, whatever the genre

Bonus points

• You use AI-assisted dev tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot) in your workflow
• Game jam wins or notable releases (itch.io, Steam, App Store)
• Familiarity with replay-driven systems: procgen, meta-progression, asymmetric matchmaking, live-ops loops
• Some art/audio/UX chops to make prototypes feel a notch above programmer-art

Equal Employment Opportunity at Tencent

As an equal opportunity employer, we firmly believe that diverse voices fuel our innovation and allow us to better serve our users and the community. We foster an environment where every employee of Tencent feels supported and inspired to achieve individual and common goals.