We got the team back together and did a spiritual successor, Marble It Up!. If you are still enjoying the original I’d recommend checking it out (on consoles and Steam).
I have many fond memories playing Marble Blast on a G5 iMac as a teen, I think it came to our Internet-less house bundled with the iMac along with Glider Pro which I think came via CD.
I managed to get Marble Blast ultra running on my Steam deck, but the controls weren't amazing.
Marble It Up runs like a top, and scratches that itch I have for the original.
Cool. I have have a least one of my custom maps on there.
It was my son's favorite game when he was 3-5, so I started making maps that couldn't be failed, working my way up to some tricky things.
At one point I made a birthday cake map and my wife decorated a cake to look like it. Ring pops for the gems, and an upside down reese's peanut butter cups decorated with icing for the start/finish pads. Of note, putting icing on a reese's does taste good, it is a step too far for human consumption.
Yo, that's awesome and incredibly sweet. There's actually a centralized repository nowadays with all custom levels for the game, here: https://marbleland.vaniverse.io/
Thank you so much for posting this. This looks a lot like the game I played back then, but I cannot find videos of the last level which I always played... guess there's only one way to find out...
Macs released from 2002-2005 shipped with Marble Blast Gold on them.
Playing it is one of my earliest memories (I was 5 at the time), especially taking absolutely forever to figure out the two Escher's Maze levels.
Is it normal that when I "turn" the camera stays still? Makes it quite unplayable for me (I tried both "Free camera" enabled/disabled, it didn't change anything)
You won't believe this: it _is_ playable on mobile! I see a lot of people playing this on their phones and iPads.
I contemplated adding gyro controls, like in "Marble Blast Mobile" from back in the day, but they are very imprecise and don't really scale well to high-level play. With the current d-pad controls, there's actually a mobile player who holds the world record on many levels. Never would've expected mobile controls to scale this far.
Gyroscopic control might be even more suited for something like Neverball where the physics are based on tilting the board. In Marble Blast the board was stationary but the ball could be moved by acceleration which turns out to be quite different in terms of controls.
If you want a more dedicated game that can be downloaded, check out
https://marbleblastultra.com/
I believe this is a reverse engineered port based on the Xbox 360 version.
I play it on my steamdeck once in a while. I like having native controller support now that I’m getting older.
I was a developer on that version!
We got the team back together and did a spiritual successor, Marble It Up!. If you are still enjoying the original I’d recommend checking it out (on consoles and Steam).
Haha, thank you!
I have many fond memories playing Marble Blast on a G5 iMac as a teen, I think it came to our Internet-less house bundled with the iMac along with Glider Pro which I think came via CD.
I managed to get Marble Blast ultra running on my Steam deck, but the controls weren't amazing. Marble It Up runs like a top, and scratches that itch I have for the original.
My friend had Ultra on his Xbox 360 some 15 years ago and I instantly fell in love. Thank you for making another entry
This is fantastic. I fell in love with Marble Blast Ultra on Xbox 360 and sunk many hours into it.
Fun fact: if you still have a physical Xbox 360 and previously purchased the game, you can still download it and play it.
Of course I might not have gone through the trouble if I knew about these ports, but at least I got a new hobby out of it.
Cool. I have have a least one of my custom maps on there.
It was my son's favorite game when he was 3-5, so I started making maps that couldn't be failed, working my way up to some tricky things.
At one point I made a birthday cake map and my wife decorated a cake to look like it. Ring pops for the gems, and an upside down reese's peanut butter cups decorated with icing for the start/finish pads. Of note, putting icing on a reese's does taste good, it is a step too far for human consumption.
Yo, that's awesome and incredibly sweet. There's actually a centralized repository nowadays with all custom levels for the game, here: https://marbleland.vaniverse.io/
Pretty sure you can find your levels on here.
I still have the levels, though I shudder at the thought of opening quark to edit them :)
Incidentally the cake only existed for about 2 minutes while we got a photo of it, then it was cut up and devoured by ravenous 4 year olds.
It was a fun little community making maps for the game.
The oldies are great such as: https://neverball.org/
Thank you so much for posting this. This looks a lot like the game I played back then, but I cannot find videos of the last level which I always played... guess there's only one way to find out...
I made a rolling ball game a while back. https://sphoxie.com if anyone wants to check it out.
Ahah! So did I https://store.steampowered.com/app/1384840/XOL/ <3
Nice! I like the isometric style look of your game!
Macs released from 2002-2005 shipped with Marble Blast Gold on them. Playing it is one of my earliest memories (I was 5 at the time), especially taking absolutely forever to figure out the two Escher's Maze levels.
Great game :)
I miss it when Macs shipped with games
I am surprised nobody has mentioned this port of Marble Blast Gold.
https://marbleblastgold.randomityguy.me/
He also did Platinum and Ultra.
https://github.com/RandomityGuy/MBHaxe
Is it normal that when I "turn" the camera stays still? Makes it quite unplayable for me (I tried both "Free camera" enabled/disabled, it didn't change anything)
You can use your left hand to steer the marble (via WASD) and then the right hand on your arrow keys to move the camera around.
You have to click and drag.
It isn’t obvious at first but there are touch controls and they work really well.
I wish there was a transparent shadow showing where the d-pad is without touching that part of the screen.
I wish there was a way to turn of the music without going 3 menus deep
Why, how often do you need to do that?
Is there a 'Black Diamond' level from the xbox 360 original? if so, where can i find it
Pretty good for a browser game! Not quite Super Monkey ball, but not far off either.
You might love this then:
https://openarena.live/
Edit: I would love to know what this post did to deserve a "down vote".
Much appreciated <3
My boss absolutely did not need me to find a super monkey ball clone in the middle of what otherwise would have been the workday. Thank you.
I'd call it Marble Drift :)
Marble Tokyo Drift. And it should have a squealing tire noise. ;)
Welp, there goes my day.
This would be really great if
A. Was playable on mobile
B. Could use the phone's gyroscope for controlling the ball
You won't believe this: it _is_ playable on mobile! I see a lot of people playing this on their phones and iPads.
I contemplated adding gyro controls, like in "Marble Blast Mobile" from back in the day, but they are very imprecise and don't really scale well to high-level play. With the current d-pad controls, there's actually a mobile player who holds the world record on many levels. Never would've expected mobile controls to scale this far.
Gyroscopic control might be even more suited for something like Neverball where the physics are based on tilting the board. In Marble Blast the board was stationary but the ball could be moved by acceleration which turns out to be quite different in terms of controls.
Trying to find the powerup button I hit Ctrl and closed the tab
lol