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Marble Madness
Developer	Atari Games
Publisher	Atari Games
Designer	Mark Cerny
Released	1984
Genre	Platform/Racing
Mode(s)	Up to 2 players simultaneously
Platform(s)	Arcade game, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Apple IIGS, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Gear, PC, Mobile Phone, NES, Sega Master System, Mega Drive/Genesis, Tandy 1000, ZX Spectrum
Input methods	Trackball
Arcade cabinet	Custom upright
Arcade system	Atari System 1
Arcade CPU	Motorola 68010
Arcade sound system	Yamaha YM2151, POKEY
Arcade display	19" Horizontal orientation, Raster, standard resolution (Used: 336 x 240)

Marble Madness is an arcade game by Atari Games released in 1984 by Czech programmer Mark Cerny. Using trackballs, players race marbles through an isometric labyrinth against a strict time limit. While Marble Madness is a fairly short game, with victorious plays through its six levels rarely lasting longer than five minutes, its high degree of challenge and charming theme, sound, and graphics made it a hit. The game can be played solo, or by two players competing against each other. The game is harder with two players, so to compensate each player is allowed to continue the game once, and receives bonus time for beating the other player to the finish line. In single player mode, the player can use both trackballs at once, allowing more-rapid changes of direction. Image File history File links Question_book-3. ... screenshot from the game Marble Madness This is a screenshot of a copyrighted computer game or video game. ... A video game developer is a software developer (a business or an individual) that creates video games. ... Atari Games was an American producer of arcade games, and originally part of Atari Inc. ... Atari Games was an American producer of arcade games, and originally part of Atari Inc. ... A game designer is a person who designs games. ... Mark Cerny (born 1964) has worked on many computer and video games in his career as a designer, programmer, producer, and business executive. ... 1984 1984 in games 1983 in video gaming 1985 in video gaming Notable events of 1984 in video gaming. ... Video games are categorized into genres based on their gameplay. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... A racing game is any game that involves competing in races through a surrogate playing piece or vehicle, either getting it from one point to another or completing a number of circuits in the shortest time. ... In computing, a platform describes some sort of framework, either in hardware or software, which allows software to run. ... Centipede by Atari is a typical example of a 1980s era arcade game. ... This article is about the family of home computers. ... The Amstrad CPC was a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad during the 1980s and early 1990s. ... The Apple II was one of the most popular personal computers of the 1980s. ... The Apple IIGS, the fifth model inception of the Apple II, was the most powerful member of the Apple II series of personal computers made by Apple Computer. ... The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was commercially popular from 1985 to the early 1990s. ... C-64 redirects here. ... For the entire Game Boy series of handheld consoles, see Game Boy line. ... The Game Boy Color , shortened to GBC) is Nintendos successor to the Game Boy and was released on October 21, 1998 in Japan and in November of 1998 in the United States and 1999 in Europe. ... The Sega Game Gear was Segas first portable gaming system. ... The IBM PC (Personal Computer), was the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. ... “NES” redirects here. ... The Sega Master System ) or SMS for short (1986 - 2000), is an 8-bit cartridge-based video game console that was manufactured by Sega. ... The Sega Mega Drive ) is a video game console released by Sega in Japan in 1988, North America in 1989, and the PAL region in 1990. ... The Tandy 1000 was a line of more or less IBM PC compatible home computer systems produced by the Tandy Corporation for sale in its Radio Shack chain of stores. ... The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd. ... Logitech TrackMan A trackball is a pointing device consisting of a ball housed in a socket containing sensors to detect rotation of the ball about two axes—like an upside-down mouse with an exposed protruding ball. ... This arcade cabinet, containing Centipede, is an upright. ... An arcade system board is a standardized printed circuit board or group of printed circuit boards that are used as the basis for multiple arcade games with very similar hardware requirements. ... The Atari System 1 was Atari Games first upgradeable arcade game hardware platform. ... CPU redirects here. ... The Motorola MC68010 processor is a 16/32-bit microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1982 [1]. It is largely similar to the Motorola 68000 CPU with the exception of the addition of several instructions for breakpoint and register control (ccr instead of sr), as well as the ability to save... A sound chip is an integrated circuit (i. ... The Yamaha YM2151, also known as the OP-M (FM Operator Type-M) is a sound chip in the YM2100 family. ... There are several meanings for Pokey. ... A computer display monitor, usually called simply a monitor, is a piece of electrical equipment which displays viewable images generated by a computer without producing a permanent record. ... Imagine the smiley face in the top left corner as an RGB bitmap image. ... Centipede by Atari is a typical example of a 1980s era arcade game. ... Atari Games was an American producer of arcade games, and originally part of Atari Inc. ... 1984 1984 in games 1983 in video gaming 1985 in video gaming Notable events of 1984 in video gaming. ... Mark Cerny (born 1964) has worked on many computer and video games in his career as a designer, programmer, producer, and business executive. ... Logitech TrackMan A trackball is a pointing device consisting of a ball housed in a socket containing sensors to detect rotation of the ball about two axes—like an upside-down mouse with an exposed protruding ball. ... Look up isometric in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article is about the mazelike structure from Greek mythology. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... In computer games and video games, single-player refers to the variant of a particular game where input from only one player is expected throughout the course of the gaming session. ...

After the first training level, Practice, the player is given an amount of time to maneuver through five successively harder levels: Beginner, Intermediate, Aerial, Silly and Ultimate. Time from previous levels is carried over to the next, with modest additional awards granted at the start of each one.

The cryptic and somewhat eerie message "Everything you know is wrong" appears on the Silly stage due to the fact that the stage goes from lowest point to highest point, which is the exact opposite of all the other levels; and some physics are changed, such as upward ramps making the ball go faster; and tiny enemies players can squash.

A small assortment of enemies are scattered through the levels, but the player's greatest foes are the levels themselves, which contain many sudden drops and difficult passages.

This was the first Atari System 1 game; it was also the first video game with true stereo sound, featuring music composed by Brad Fuller and Hal Canon and instrument design by Earl Vickers. (Konami's Gyruss, released a year earlier, had simulated "stereo" sound using discrete audio circuits). The Atari System 1 was Atari Games first upgradeable arcade game hardware platform. ... Label for 2. ... Konami Corporation ) (TYO: 9766 NYSE: KNM SGX: K20) is a leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys, trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, slot machines and video games. ... Gyruss is a shoot-em-up video arcade game developed by Konami, and released in 1983. ...

Ports

The game was ported to various home computers and video game consoles. A few ports for personal computers were made by Electronic Arts, with the most accurate arcade translation seemingly being the Amiga version. The Commodore 64, Apple II, Apple IIGS, and PC versions had a secret level called the Water Maze which players could get to by being on the leftmost bottom platform of the first level at a certain time (13 seconds). Once reaching the Water Maze, the player was transported out of the level as soon as a mistake was made. The walkthrough can be found here (pick the latest date) and it requires two players to complete. The ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC ports came in a DeLuxe Edition with a Marble Madness Construction Set to create new levels. These versions were published by Melbourne House who had already released an unofficial clone called Gyroscope. Children playing on a Amstrad CPC 464 in the 1980s. ... Game console redirects here. ... Electronic Arts (EA) (NASDAQ: ERTS) is an American developer, marketer, publisher, and distributor of computer and video games. ... This article is about the family of home computers. ... C-64 redirects here. ... The Apple II was one of the most popular personal computers of the 1980s. ... The Apple IIGS, the fifth model inception of the Apple II, was the most powerful member of the Apple II series of personal computers made by Apple Computer. ... The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd. ... The Amstrad CPC was a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad during the 1980s and early 1990s. ... Melbourne House is a game development studio owned by Atari and based in Melbourne, Australia. ... In the computer and video game industry, a clone is a game or game series which is very similar to or heavily inspired by a previous popular game or game series. ... Gyroscope is an action video game published by Melbourne House in 1985 for a number of home computers. ...

In 2005, a Game Boy Advance port was included on DSI Games "Marble Madness/Klax", however the Marble Madness port was given poor reviews due to only having the first three levels. There is also an Unreal Tournament 2003 mod. An emulated version of the arcade game is available on Midway Arcade Treasures for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox. Despite the plethora of ports, few of these systems support trackball controllers, so an authentic Marble Madness experience is now extremely rare. Fans of the game hope that the Wii will support Marble Madness with its motion sensor (similar games such as Kororinpa: Marble Mania and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz have already been released). Rolling Madness 3D is an OpenGL remake. Unreal Tournament 2003 or UT2003 is a first-person shooter video game designed mainly for multiplayer gaming although the game had a built in single-player mode that mimics multiplayer gaming by featuring AI-bots. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Midway Arcade Treasures is a collection of 24 arcade games developed by Digital Eclipse and released by Midway for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC. A second collection, Midway Arcade Treasures 2, was released for the same consoles in October 2004 and a third console compilation, Midway Arcade Treasures... PS2 redirects here. ... The Nintendo GameCube (GCN) is Nintendos fourth home video game console, belonging to the sixth generation era. ... The Xbox is a sixth generation era video game console produced by Microsoft Corporation. ... The Wii (pronounced as the pronoun we, IPA: ) is the fifth home video game console released by Nintendo. ... OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a standard specification defining a cross-language cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. ...

Influences

Similar games, each influenced by Marble Madness have been produced, such as Marble Blast, Marble Blast Ultra, Super Monkey Ball, Hamsterball Gold, Archer Maclean's Mercury, Spindizzy, Airball, Gyroscope, Kororinpa: Marble Mania, Ballance and Switchball. Marble Blast is a 3D puzzle game involving a marble, available for the PC (namely Windows, Mac OS X and Linux). ... Marble Blast Ultra is a 3D puzzle/action game involving a marble, available for the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade for 800 Microsoft Points ($10 USD). ... Super Monkey Ball is an arcade platform game developed by Amusement Vision and distributed by Sega featuring a cast of humorous monkey characters (see below). ... Hamsterball is a 3-D computer game made by Raptisoft. ... Archer Macleans Mercury is a video game for the PlayStation Portable, first released in April 2005 in North America. ... Spindizzy is a computer game released in 1986 for the Commodore 64 computer. ... Airball is an MS-DOS videogame released in 1987 by Microdeal. ... Gyroscope is an action video game published by Melbourne House in 1985 for a number of home computers. ... Ballance is a 3D puzzle computer game. ... Typical gameplay screenshot. ...

Problems

Owners of Marble Madness machines found that maintenance of the game became costly and difficult. The game required vigorous spinning of the track ball in order for the marble to reach high speeds. This caused the track balls (especially the left "Player 1" ball) to wear out quickly. Replacement of the track balls was expensive and time-consuming. Failure to replace partially-worn balls would lead to a frustrating (and often impossible) experience for its players.

In order to compensate for the easily-worn "Player 1" track ball, game developers allowed either track ball to control the marble during 1-player games. However, this was not apparent to most players, so this workaround had limited usefulness.

The lack of durability of the controllers is the primary reason why Marble Madness became difficult to find in arcades years after its release. By the mid-1990s, very few working Marble Madness games could be found anywhere. Today, even fewer exist.

Gallery

Sequel

In 1991, a sequel, Marble Madness 2: Marble Man, was in development. Reportedly the first round of playtesting of a very rough prototype did not yield an extremely favorable response, and Atari at that time was only interested in producing games they expected to be big hits. Marketing believed the problem was that kids didn't like trackballs, so they had the engineers replace them with joysticks. This caused the next round of playtesting to have substantially worse results. Most of the few surviving cabinets have joysticks. Notable events of 1991 in computer and video games. ... For other uses, see Joystick (disambiguation). ...

Marble Man ROM dumps (joystick version) and a driver for the MAME emulator exist, but are not publicly available at this time due to restrictions that were placed on the purchase of the machines from which the dumps were made. A ROM image, or simply ROM, is a computer file which contains a copy of the data from a read-only memory chip, often from a video game cartridge, a computers firmware, or from an arcade games main board. ... MAME is an emulator application designed to recreate the hardware of arcade game systems in software, with the intent of preserving gaming history and preventing vintage games from being lost or forgotten. ...

Marble Madness in popular culture

• In the movie Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, the game (among others) is mentioned in a song that plays while Jack Black is moving through lasers.

This article or section contains a plot summary that is overly long or excessively detailed compared to the rest of the article. ... For other persons named Jack Black, see Jack Black (disambiguation). ...

External links

• Marble Madness Homepage Unofficial Marble Madness homepage.
• Marble Madness at MobyGames
• Information about Marble Madness from the MAME emulator pages
• Marble Madness at the Killer List of Videogames
• Marble Madness at World of Spectrum
• Marble Madness on the Amiga at the Hall of Light (HOL)