Sorelle is a whimsical 3D puzzle-platformer that immerses you in the magical seaside town of Isola Chiara. Play as sisters Alessandra, Bella, and Capri as you explore the magic of sisterhood in a puzzle-solving adventure to restore magic and save the summer festival.

For this project I implemented:

  • Music management system allowing real-time tuning of sound effects to chord progressions
  • Three unique abilities with dynamic musical elements
  • Wwise integration for multi-positional sounds on Niagara particles
  • 300+ lines of voice over with basic procedural animations
  • Dynamic reverb system based off Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
  • Physics based collision audio
  • Unique foley for each sister across different surfaces
  • Musically synced credits sequence
  • Dynamic music systems (progression based layering and a unique layers for each sister)

Chord Based Sound Effect System

Sorelle’s sound design is incredibly tonal and musical with each sister being represented by a different set of instruments. This choice required a system to ensure that the sound effects don’t clash with the music. To facilitate this I created a system using Wwise’s interactive music markers to allow our composer to denote the key of each piece of music and any chord changes within the piece. Using the callbacks on these markers the audio subsystem keeps track of the current key of the music and creates an array that stores all notes that fall within the key in MIDI note numbers. The tuned elements of Sorelle’s sound design are set up as various MIDI instruments inside of Wwise. When a sound is played the MIDI instrument is triggered using one of the MIDI notes that is within the key of the current music. This system allows for sounds to be played on a specific scale degree regardless of the current key. The below video shows off Capri’s light ray reflecting off mirrors and playing an ascending scale staying in same key as the music as the chords change.

Levitation

Alessandra the oldest sister with the power to levitate uses stringed instruments as her primary sonic elements. Hover the reticle over different objects she can levitate the player can play scales in the key of the music.

Ground Pound

Bella the middle sister has the power to jump higher and smash down destroying breakable objects on the way down. Her design primarily uses percussion and more atonal elements. The ground pound design includes a descending that is synced to the music.

Light Ray

Capri the youngest sister can create light. The light she shoots can reflect off surfaces and uses bells and sparkles in its design palette. The string lights section shows off her powers and a variety of small systems full of sparkles and magic.

Early in development something continually sounded off about Capri’s light ray in the string light’s section. This section was the main section in the game where Capri was frequently directly shooting switches with her light ray. Because of this large and dramatic sounds were being triggered on the second scale degree causing a small amount of dissonance. To create more satisfying impacts when Capri hits a switch without reflecting off a mirror the sound will instead be played on the root instead of the next note in the scale.

Sister Music Layers

To emphasize each sister’s personality, a special music layer plays when you control each sister. Using primarily the same instruments as their sound palette Alessandra’s layer includes strings, Bella’s layer include percussion, and Capri’s layer includes chimes and bells.

Magic Particle Music Layer

Throughout Sorelle glowing magical animals float around and interact with the player. To help support the magic of these experience a unique music layer of bells and sparkles is positioned on these particles. To achieve this efficiently I created a custom Wwise integration for Niagara that allows for Niagara particles to interface with Wwise’s multi-positional emitter system. This ensures that despite there being a large number of particles on the screen there is only one instance of the music playing while still positioning the music based off the particles.

Sister Foley

Each sister has unique foley for every surface in the game. The footsteps use Animation Notifies and Unreal’s Surface Type system to play the appropriate sound.

Physics Based Object Audio

The objects that Alessandra can levitate also use the Unreal’s Surface Types to react to being thrown and dropped on different materials.

Additional work I did on Sorelle can be found here.