Marble Madness
Marble Madness is an arcade game that was released in 1984. Later it was ported to many home computer.
Game Description
The character is a ball which can be moved ( in computers with a mouse or joystick ) on a three-dimensional surface trackball and is exposed to influences such as acceleration, deceleration, impact against a wall or fall into an abyss. There are also special level effects, such as ice or mechanisms carrying the game ball in the air.
In single-player mode, the player's ball is occasionally distracted by balls, which are controlled by the computer. There are six levels in the game: Practice, Beginner, Intermediate, Aerial, Silly and Ultimate. In practice level the player gets acquainted only with the controls and can gain bonus points for skilled leadership of his ball. In the penultimate level ( Silly ) the rules and the law of gravity are turned upside down: the players chasing ball miniature versions of the opponent and runs by itself ramps up.
The 3D view is isometric. Designer of the game is Mark Cerny, who was 18 years old at publication.
Arcade hardware was, like Gauntlet, Atari system I.
The Amiga version was the first 1:1 conversion of the machine on a home computer, in terms of graphics. Only the sound and the speed of the game play had on the Amiga slight compromises have to be accepted. On all other platforms, then the game with smears had to be implemented.
Successor
In 1991, a prototype was Marble Madness 2: Marble Man developed. This was meant for three players and contains an underwater level. There is at least a functioning machine. The owner has agreed not to publish the ROMs of the game. There are many similar versions for modern PCs or other systems.
Similar games
- Marble Maze ( for Tandy TRS -80 Color Computer )
- Neverball (for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X)
- Trackball for Linux and Windows
- Gyroscope ( for C64, 1985 by Catalyst Coders )
- Spindizzy ( for C64, 1986 by Electric Dreams )
- Super Monkey Ball ( Sega )
- Katamari Damacy
- Kororinpa ( Wii from Hudson)
- Hamster Ball for Windows
- Oxide ( distantly related )