A rainbow marble racing along a curving track through a pink sky full of rings

Work

Marble platforming franchise

Organization
The Marble Collective
Role
Founder / Game Design Lead
Years
2017–present
Platforms
Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, PC, Mac, Apple Arcade

Marble It Up! is a marble platforming franchise built on precise physics, world-class level design, and the pull of shaving another tenth of a second off your best time. It comes from the minds and history behind Marble Blast.

The franchise spans three releases:

  • Marble It Up! launched in 2018 on Nintendo Switch and PC.
  • Marble It Up: Mayhem! brought the game to Apple Arcade.
  • Marble It Up! Ultra launched on August 17, 2023, on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X|S, Steam (including Mac, Linux, and Steam Deck), and the Epic Games Store.

Ultra is the definitive version. Its single-player campaign runs to more than 100 levels across six primary and four bonus chapters, full of shifting gravity, bouncy floors, and power-ups. Five cross-platform multiplayer modes let players hunt gems, score goals, and escape zombies together online.

My Role

I’m a founder of The Marble Collective and the franchise’s lead designer and producer. I own the game design across all three releases, from hands-on level building to gameplay and meta-game design.

I designed and built more than 100 levels, from blockout to final, tuning each for flow, pacing, and readability. I also designed the gameplay elements those levels are built from (surfaces, power-ups, hazards, movers, triggers, and challenges) as reusable pieces the team could combine and iterate on quickly, and developed the game’s initial visuals before handing off to the art team.

For Marble It Up: Mayhem! on Apple Arcade, I recruited a team of designers and led a complete content rebuild: more than 50 new levels in four months. I designed three new multiplayer modes for Mayhem and Ultra around short, chaotic rounds, and built the core example levels the team worked from. Rapid playtesting with an internal panel and beta testers let us tune the leaderboards, close shortcuts, and revise routes and difficulty.

I also manage the franchise’s storefronts and discounting strategy on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation.

The Marble Collective is a collaboration between several indie game makers who all have our roots in the original Marble Blast team.

Marble It Up! Ultra trailer
Marble It Up: Mayhem! key art
Marble It Up: Mayhem! key art
A glossy marble rolling along a curving neon track, with the race timer overhead
Marbles of every style, from an 8-ball to a hamburger, racing across a goal arena
A winding track suspended in a bright blue sky
A taxi marble boosting with a trail of flame along a pink track in space
A mustached marble in a bowler hat rolling past a giant green eyeball marble
A lineup of character marbles, including a soccer ball, a hamburger, and an 8-ball, in a stadium