About Doorstep Lane
Doorstep Lane is where it all starts: the child's own street, right outside the front door. In the morning the shutters open, the first bread comes out of the bakery and the neighbours water their window boxes. It is the friendliest place in town to learn the ropes, and it is the first map you play, levels 1 to 20.
The road is lined with cream cottages of one or two floors, each with its own front steps and a tiled roof in sage, coral, lilac, butter yellow or sky blue. Mailboxes, lamp posts, benches, wells and picket fences sit along the pavement, and round oaks and blossom trees drop petals across the lanes. Places along the way have names like Mailbox Row, Cat Nap Steps and Laundry Line Lane.
On Mom's list
Mom keeps it simple here. Her list is made of the everyday things a family runs out of first: bread, milk and butter. On the early levels she asks for one kind at a time, and from level 5 some levels ask for two. Bring back at least 70% of each kind and you earn a star, which is enough to open the next level.
Tip
Doorstep Lane is also the tutorial street. On levels 1 to 5, time slows right down before each new move and a little hand shows you what to do: change lanes, jump, slide, double jump and boost. Take your time with it. Ramps arrive on level 2 and crate walls on level 4, and a crate wall has to be jumped onto, not run into.
What it looks like
Cottages of one and two floors line the road, built from cream plaster and sand-coloured stone, with chimneys and front steps. The tiled roofs come in sage, coral, lilac, butter yellow and sky blue, so no two houses on the street look the same. Mailboxes, lamp posts, benches, picket fences, wells and laundry lines fill the gaps.
Trees and ground
Round oaks, fruit trees and blossom trees shade the pavement, and leafy shrubs grow along the back gardens. Underfoot you run on warm terracotta cobbles, cream flagstones, soft lawn and the odd dirt plot.
Music and sounds
The music is ukulele and glockenspiel, light and bouncy. Between the notes you hear songbirds, the chime of a shop door and a dog barking somewhere down the road. Petals drift across the lanes.
The finale landmark: Clock Tower
The last level of every Doorstep Lane map ends at the Clock Tower in the little plaza, the landmark every child on the street knows.
Bread
Milk
Butter