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

[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).