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Marble Madness Design Doc

Jeff Rubin of College Humor posted a link to a great resource today. It's a big old watermarked PDF file detailing the first ruminations responsible for the final product we all know as Marble Madness. It's interesting to note what got cut, what stayed in, and what got lost in ports. The game seems so simple today, but reading it explained, as it was for the first time, shows how forward thinking these original gamesters were.

Posted Jan 20 2009, 09:00 AM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments

Filed under: marble madness, cole stryker, design document

Trailer Review: Edge

Take a gander at this trailer for Edge, the new iPhone/iPod Touch game released today by mobile phone game developer mobigame and feel the waves of nostalgia for a game you've never even played.

In its presentation, Edge is equal parts Marble Madness, Q*Bert, and Tron, but it clearly has potential to be ever so much more.

Posted Jan 05 2009, 03:30 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 4 comment(s)

Filed under: marble madness, trailer review, derrick sanskrit, everyday shooter, edge, ipod, iphone, eden, pixeljunk, tron, echochrome, cubello, orbient, art style

Watcha Playing: Kororinpa Marble Mania

Way back in the day, I played a quirky little game called Marble Madness. It was a game where you controlled a marble and had to safely roll it through mazes filled with marble eating tube worms and other obstacles, all while trying not to fall off the edge. This was back on the NES so you didn't tilt the maze, you controlled the marble directly, though it still had pretty darn good weight and momentum as you directed it through the M.C. Escher-esque mazes. That's one nifty thing about 2-D. You can use it to draw 3-D looking objects that defy three dimensional reality.

Posted Aug 21 2008, 11:00 AM by Amber Ahlborn with | with no comments

Filed under: marble madness, wii, nes, amber ahlborn, watcha playing, marble mania, kororinpa, super monkey ball

Overworld: Marble Madness

Overworld examines how one game or series establishes a unique sense of place.

Checking out the trailer for Steven Spielberg's Boom Blox, I've got to admit it looks like a good time. And God knows any decent additions to the Wii's anemic library are a good thing. But one not particularly surprising thing about Blox is the degree of cartooniness in the presentation. There's nothing wrong with that, and granted, action/puzzle games have been cartoony more or less ever since technology started to allow it, but in the distant past, there were other stylistic options. Here's one:

When I was a kid, Marble Madness freaked me out.

Posted May 09 2008, 01:00 PM by Peter Smith with | with no comments

Filed under: boom blox, overworld, marble madness, crash bandicoot, peter smith, steven spielberg, mark cerny

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.