Game Developer

What you'll do

You make the test material that AI agents are measured on when they try to play, debug and extend games. Each assignment starts with a small project or interactive scene you build yourself in a major engine. Into it you put either a gameplay bug that can only be found by actually playing and watching the screen, or a feature request that touches several systems at once (input, physics, UI, state, animation).

For every task you then write three things: a short brief in the voice of a player, designer or producer filing a ticket; a reference solution that fixes the bug or implements the feature; and success criteria precise enough to check automatically, such as the input sequence to perform, what should appear on screen and which in-game state proves it worked. Finally you playtest the whole thing end to end so the task is solvable and the check is reliable.

The skill being bought is the one good QA-minded developers already have: knowing which bugs are genuinely hard to spot and how to describe "done" without ambiguity.

Who fits

• Real game development experience at any scale: AAA, indie, solo or serious hobby work all count
• A portfolio or verifiable published work (personal site, itch.io, Steam, GitHub, game jam entries, shipped credits). The ad says this weighs more than anything else in selection, so lead with your best work
• Advanced command of Unity, Godot or Unreal, including editor tools, scene management and debugging utilities
• Comfort in C#, GDScript, C++ or Blueprints, enough to read, fix and extend gameplay logic
• A habit of finding issues through iterative playtesting
• Clear writing for task instructions and acceptance criteria

Game QA, technical design, systems design, automated testing or earlier AI evaluation work are listed as pluses. No AI experience is required.

What it pays

The listing shows $25–70/hour, but compensation is output-based: you are paid per task that meets the project specification, and there is a weekly minimum number of tasks (the number is not stated). Your effective rate depends on how quickly you can build, bug and verify a scene that passes review, so a developer with a library of small prototypes to adapt will land higher in the band than one starting each task from an empty project.

How it compares

micro1 also lists a Game Designer / Gameplay Developer role at $50–90/hour. This one has a lower floor and explicitly welcomes hobbyists and solo developers, and the work centres on engineered bug and feature challenges with verifiable end states.

Worth knowing

Good:

• Hobbyist and jam developers are named as welcome, so a strong itch.io page can stand in for studio credits
• 20 openings, flagged high demand
• Any of the three major engines qualifies
• The work is real game development, not labelling

Less good:

• A $25 floor, and per-task pay means rejected tasks earn nothing
• The weekly task minimum is not quantified
• Building a fresh, bug-seeded scene per task is time-consuming; ask what a typical task pays before committing
• Contractor engagement: no benefits, your own tax to manage
• The customer is not named

About this listing

Posted by micro1 on its own jobs portal on 8 October 2026 and read on 12 October 2026. The $25–70/hour band, the 20 openings, the engine and language list and the per-task terms are its published text. Location is given only as remote with no country list, and no weekly hours or project length are stated. See micro1.