Sorelle Game Design: Marketplace

Directed & guided design team through a 1-year development cycle.

Made substantial level re-designs for the game’s release to Steam.

Overview

Sorelle’s “Marketplace” level is the second level of the game. The sisters must locate the town baker’s missing ingredients before the summer festival.

The Alley Section

The second section of the level involves using Alessandra’s levitation powers to construct a pathway for Bella, the sister with a double-jump ability, to run across the rooftops of the marketplace and reach the NPC who has one of the missing ingredients the sisters must collect.

Initial Level Design:

Some general designs I wanted to address:

• Gameplay was not challenging enough for a mid-game level progression
• Interactable item tasks felt slightly too simple (i.e, breaking a box to reveal a bridge piece)
• Level space felt empty

Footage of before the re-design:

Level Design Changes:

• Added cutscene to contextualize level goal
• Designed fitting marketplace-inspired environment art through set dressing
• Constrained the space of each gameplay sequence by designing “minor puzzles” within the greater level, creating clearer gameplay progression

Footage after the re-design:

The Barrel Section

The third section of the “Marketplace” level involves rolling the final missing ingredient, a barrel of sugar, down a sequence of pathways that are slowly unlocked through gameplay.

Initial Level Design:

The Sorelle design team tried several iterations of a rolling barrel (including a physics-based barrel rolling puzzle), however, we couldn’t quite get a coherent gameplay sequence to work, ultimately landing on a simple platforming level to finish out the Marketplace.

Footage of before the re-design:

Level Design Changes:

For the re-design, I wanted to try re-introducing the “rolling barrel” concept without the usage of a physics object. I reworked the following:

• Created action-triggered cutscene sequences that move the barrel progressively
• Implemented “moving truck” sequences, highlighting important locations & gameplay objects
• Carved out new level geometry to introduce a new puzzle sequence

Footage after the re-design: