Stumbling through Marble Madness

[davidn]

I'm fairly churning these out now, aren't I? I've been working on the iPhone version of Running Free for most of the weekend after both my parents were absolutely captivated by it while they were here, but for a bit of a break, I had a go of Marble Madness. Because it's like playing a game, except with working on something also attached.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSVPrW5bCqw

This isn't really one of my more earth-shattering efforts - it turns out there's not a whole lot to say about the game, it's just four attempts (with varying degrees of success) at getting through its blatantly unfair obstacle courses. And according to subsequent research, I get up to halfway through the second-last level! That's not bad, is it? Though it does take some embarrassingly Wheatley-like gibberish trains of thought spoken out loud for me to get there.

Comments

[kjorteo]

You made it almost to the end of the Silly race without being aware that holding A makes you go faster. And you even took the long way on the Beginner race every time (though the shorter, bumpier way sort of requires the speed boost to manage the bumps, so maybe that's for the best.) I'd say that's pretty impressive!

[kjorteo]

Also, now that you've experienced Marble Madness, you will appreciate what the Water Maze writeup is talking about ... you know, that whole thing where the C64 and Apple IIe ports apparently had a bored programmer with enough extra space that he decided to make I Wanna Be the Marble.

[davidn]

I'd never heard of it, but I absolutely love that. With the magnitude of today's games, it's no longer possible to hide very much at all from people working on it - the idea of an entire level being put there in secret is amazing to me. And not just an extra level that reused existing game content - a completely new one with its own unique mechanics and approach to the game... it must have added significantly to the time it took to make the port!

[davidn]

...there's a speed boost?! This is my problem when doing these videos (apart from "forgetting to take the straight path", obviously) - I was so... concentrated on the directional controls that I never even considered that the A and B buttons might do anything at all. Given that, that impossible-seeming jump over the gap in the intermediate level might become possible - and getting past the hammers (or whatever you think they are) might prove a little easier as well.

I didn't even notice that there was an alternative, shorter route on the Beginner level until you pointed it out, as well - I must have got the idea of one route so much into my head that I didn't even look for other possible options.

[kjorteo]

Marlbe Madness loves the whole "would you rather take the shorter, obstacle-ier route or the long flat way around" choice, since three races in a row (in a game that only has six races counting Practice) do it. Which is the better deal, of course, depends on the nature of the obstacles and of the alternate routes--I swear the long way around in the Intermediate race is actually harder, for example. I personally have found it best to always take the shortcuts in Beginner and Intermediate and never take the one in Advanced, even with the speed boost.

[davidn]

Difficult as it is to remember that this entry was once about Marble Madness given everything going on below, it definitely seemed to me that it was preferable to be told to hurry up a bit by the waves along that green route than go down and up the ninety-degree dip (especially without knowing the speed boost).

I actually ran through it one more time knowing about that and found myself with a lot more time left over - though you really do have to use it sparingly, otherwise you tend to just fall off. And I was still better at the long way around on Beginner rather than negotiating the bumps!

[kjorteo]

I'm amazed at your discipline if you've only played it one more time after this! The game's setup is almost built to lure you in, with how incredibly short it is, how easy it is to get close to victory (you made it almost to the end of the Silly race without the speed boost, on your second try!) and yet how elusive it seems to be. For me, I kept making it to the Ultimate race with not quite enough time for it to be possible, and kept thinking "if I could do this part of Ultimate faster, but also if I could shave off just a little bit more from my earlier run and give me just a little bit more to work with...." and next thing I know I've been playing for years.

I finally got it in ... it was before I started logging dates but would have had to have been before December 2005, considering that's when I finished the game after it.

[davidn]

Well, I say "played it one more time", which is technically true, even if it really means "had it on all evening and eventually save-stated slightly through it to see the end". The simple device of having the entire game be a short race with every action affecting how much time you have much later on does make it very compelling, in a way that sounds rather like Prince of Persia now that I say that.

The Ultimate race really is a bit nasty, though - not only introducing platforms that blink in and out of existence right at the very end, but having solid ground underneath so that it plays the ever-so-slightly timewasting "sweeping up" animation every time you fall off! I actually made it to the start of that race with plenty of time left legitimately, but didn't manage anywhere near one perfect run of it (lining up for the jump from the very top giving me a fair bit of difficulty on its own).

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

0:10
Actually for most of my life I have said "NES" as a word, but I've started mentally saying N-E-S.. within the last few days, actually.
And you're getting more confident. =)

1:50
Slinky?

2:30
Nice start there... also, the marble sounds very sad when it dies.

2:48
"Don't miss our next compilation tape: All The Bizarre Noises That David Makes While Doing These Videos" - I'm going to start transcribing these now. This time it was "Aaaaaahh! *Hufff*".

3:00
You'll be pleased to know that the lights are, indeed, green.

3:23
"Oh! Ooh-ooh-ooh!"

4:00
"Oh.. stop it!"
I'm sure it will listen!

5:40
Ooh, you're really getting the hang of it.
-then-
Oh dear...

7:43
"Oh the hoovers... or vacuums, thank you very much."
Haha, thank you.

8:15
This level really makes me want to play Final Fantasy Tactics again.. it's just the isometric, tiled nature of it, I suppose. Incidentally, I like the idea that it's one big race rather than a level-by-level thing.. it really gives a sense of cohesion and replayability, and makes you feel like even your early mistakes matter.

8:30
Squiggly french fries?

8:45
"Silly Race. Everything you know is wrong."
Oh God, this won't be good...
-then-
I take it back, this is amazing. Further commentary on size alteration in video games to come at a later date. In the meantime, kill those slinkies!

10:05
I can't be the only one that wants you to not bleep your interjections out...

10:38
"Oh! Stop it!"
It makes me laugh an unreasonable amount every time you say that...

11:10
Stop saying it!

14:25
"I forgot to go the straight way."
Me too. That's a good excuse, actually.

15:00
One of those was "Bastard", wasn't it?

I rather enjoyed watching that, so I'm sorry I don't have much of worth to say... I suppose when I can't fall back on picking on the Shadowgate protagonist or making Monkey Island references my dearth of wit reveals itself.

[davidn]

There's not a whole lot to say about the game, once you've fallen over and smashed twenty or thirty times - but your 8:45 comment is interesting and I'm looking forward to whatever that later date may be :)

The continuous timer definitely adds some urgency, and allows you to make things easier for yourself by doing really, really well earlier on (which I don't). I was confused at first, because the time from the very first race doesn't get added to your time for the next one, but all the rest do.

The saddest noise I've ever heard a computer make is the noise you used to get when an SVN update failed - but this one is definitely along the same lines. They eventually changed that sound, much to my pleasure because when an update fails I no longer feel like I've dreadfully upset it.

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

The "commentary" was probably just going to consist of my flailing attempts to describe why I find it so fascinating, but there probably is some actual analytical benefit if I really think about it. So perhaps I'll do just that!

I actually missed the fact that the first level doesn't add to your time, and thought it odd that it "did" - given that it's called the practice level, and all.

If SVN's updates are anywhere near as annoying as half the programs out there, I'd probably have taken a savage pleasure in hearing it fail like that...

[davidn]

Well, you update SVN (in a sort of Soviet Russia arrangement) - it's a code repository that keeps track of multiple people's changes to text files. That noise plays when it rejects one of your own updates for some reason.

The best of which I've ever had being "Cannot reverse-merge a range from a path's own future history". Breaking the rules of the Time Lords is not allowed!

I'm looking forward to your thoughts behind the shrinking - I always do :)

[lupineangel.livejournal.com]

"Cannot reverse-merge a range from a path's own future history"

So it's a networked computer with detailed understanding of time-travel and temporal paradoxes... if it starts asking you about where Sarah Connor is, I'd unplug it ASAP. :P

D.F.

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

Unplug it? Are you mad? That's what causes it to launch its missiles!

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

I always said "Enny Ess", but some of my friends would say "Ness".

"I mean dear me, this is quite irritating." <3

"I forgot to go the straight way - some might say this has always been my problem"? Huh? X3

[davidn]

It's not even "Ness" (not to be pedantic, impossible as it is for me) - it's more like "Nez", the difference between "is" and "amiss". I actually habitually call it that because it was always called that on Bad Influence, the premier games programme of the 90s - but then I realized that few others did, so I'd been trying to avoid it and slipped up this time.

I'm glad that you continue to appreciate my voice ;)

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

I picked up on the 'nezz' thing, hence I spelled out the way my friends said it. ;)

[davidn]

Ah, I see...! Well... it's clearly not "Ness!" It's only got one S. At least I can convince myself that mine makes more sense, here.

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

It's so cute that you're acting like english has some consistent set of rules for pronunciation. :D

[davidn]

"Cute" - I thought it was just the Americans who had the mastery of the sheer level of condescension of this word! "Cute", in my own vocabulary, involves being small, pink and fluffy with large blue eyes.

Still. Business, heiress, egress, Skegness, Hauksness, address, abscess, ailes, tiles, wiles, wires, tyres, tires, fires... I honestly can't think of a word that breaks that pattern here, even though I know that it's a rarity of an English rule if it really is uncontested.

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

"This".

[davidn]

Arse. Yes, that would do it.

[davidn]

No it doesn't! That's -is, not -es(s). Although I did sort of mess up the issue above when I clearly used two examples that didn't end with the letters that I was meant to be talking about.

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

Well you can subdivide any rule until it's a rule that describes just the set of examples that you want it to... I think a more meaningful rule to find would be places where an acronym has gained an accepted pronunciation despite its differing from english pronunciation rules statistical-likelihoods... Maybe something like "raydar" instead of "raddar"?

[davidn]

Well, I'm not about to further subdivide the words we're looking at into "words ending with -es and -ess that are pronounced the way that they look like they're pronounced". Especially as the simplest counterexample ever has just been given below...

I think I can actually readily think of more "rayd" words than "radd" - radon, radial, radio, radiator. Radish.

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

"Yes."

[davidn]

Aaagh. That's right - what a counterexample to miss!

[kjorteo]

No one in furry goes the straight way.

Also, I've always just pronounced NES by spelling it, too.

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

I guess after a certain point, NOT going the straight way means going the straight way! Or..... something.

[kjorteo]

I WOULDN'T KNOW

[davidn]

How on earth did you manage this in a post about Marble Madness?

I suppose I started it. This time.

[scani.livejournal.com]

I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that the Beginner Race music is awesome. Everything else is firmly in the realm of "creepy".

[davidn]

It really is... square-wave music can be non-human enough at the best of times, but the atonal dirges in this game (with the curious exception of that one level) are really strange.

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

Have we discussed how even-eerier the FM-synth versions are? I know I've written about it...

[davidn]

Show me :) I can't really remember...

[kjorteo]

They actually remixed the Intermediate race theme in the NES version to be more upbeat, for some reason--originally it's like you're marbling it up in a haunted house for some reason. (And Aerial pretty much sounds like you died in Intermediate and have gone to Hell.)

[davidn]

That definitely wouldn't be out of place in the Chzo series. Most of the game's... sound seems to be this collection of snippets of madness rather than anything that could sanely be described as music. (Strangely, there's a definite "SE-GAAAA" just after the start of the Aerial race.) And I don't mind telling you that I get a bit of Runtime Error fear from the way that the bonuses at the end of a level are displayed...

Also, what an absolutely devastating video, for its conclusion...!

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

Okay, I've been digging around for far, far too long now, and I cannot find it. It was about the music in Ecco, and Marble Madness, and some side-scrolling game with a dude with a sword and lightning or something, and how creeped out we all were by them despite there being arguably nothing creepy about them (until the later levels of Ecco), and then my pointing out that the commonality between them all was FM-synth drones with a particular sound in the music, which sounded to me like it was a case of having an overtone series that doesn't really add up right, i.e. an "impossible" sound (as far as the natural world is concerned), which might be one of those things that children are sensitive to despite adults not even perceiving it, which made me think about how much the synthesizers in the Warner Brothers VHS logo used to make my skin crawl as a child.

[davidn]

Could it have been in videogame_tales?

I know exactly what you mean, though - the way that the Megadrive in general, as well as older games with Adlib music, produced these absolutely unnatural sounds that don't resemble any real instrument (no matter what the general MIDI library tried to say otherwise).

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

I went through the videogame_tales archive, all the way to the beginning,and it didn't leap out at me, although the topic may have come up in the comment thread of an unrelated game. I also couldn't find it via google...

[davidn]

For all the things that I like about Livejournal that more modern sites seem to miss in favour of putting a few more "Like" buttons on everything, it could really do with a search feature that works. LJ Archive has helped me out with that a few times in the past, though it's on my old work laptop and I haven't updated it in ages.