Charlotte Marshall brings STORM SPHERE to life with Braveshell
Charlotte Marshall has teamed up with Braveshell on an exciting new project, STORM SPHERE.
In 2024, after his VR game studio changed ownership and underwent layoffs, David Clare co-founded Braveshell with former colleagues, launching its debut title, STORM SPHERE.
Charlotte Marshall, a close friend of David’s for over twenty years, had long collaborated with him on high fantasy writing projects, building a strong creative connection. He later approached them on behalf of the team to contribute freelance work to the game, a swashbuckling sky-bound adventure inspired by The War of the Currents with a Final Fantasy-style edge.
Charlotte shared more about their collaboration with Braveshell:
“Braveshell’s goal was to secure funds for their game demo, and they needed help in developing their vision for their flagship title. It started with creating character designs which would double as in-game assets for dialogue boxes, so we set to work on developing Aldonza.
Aldonza is the first of two central characters, a woman in her mid to late sixties who acts as the moral heart of the story. Developing her was a lot of fun, as her namesake draws on elements of the story of Don Quixote. This ended up being a fun nod between David and I, as we were first introduced to Don Quixote in our twelfth grade English class. The 17th century masterpiece, with its themes of radical change, comedy, tragedy, and acceptance, has been an ongoing inspiration to us both. It gave Aldonza a little extra flair that was unanticipated, and wholly unique. Though she lives in the poorest and most downtrodden sphere of the game map, Aldonza uses her creativity and endless enthusiasm to imagine a brighter world. With a thirst for adventure and a touch of madness, she’s my favourite of the main quartet of playable characters.
It was a challenge at first to secure the grant we needed to really get STORM SPHERE off the ground. The team managed to get by with microgrants until finally we secured funding for the game demo. Since our funding began I’ve designed five character assets for the game, two full size illustrations, and several sheets of concept sketches including ships, items, artefacts and creatures.
In art school I shied away from the idea of working in game development based on the lack of security in the industry. But working with Braveshell has been a treat since the start. Each member of the team brings a host of experiences from their time in creative industries, and they know what they want while maintaining a collaborative environment.
This experience has really opened my eyes to the possibilities of work in the games industry, and I would love to expand into not only other digital game experiences, but board game design as well!”
If you’d like to work with Charlotte, please contact: [email protected]
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