Interesting MARBLE MADNESS post-mortem by Mark Cerny

[RayB]

Here's a bit of history of Mark Cerny, Atari, arcade game development and in particular Marble Madness.

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014629/Classic-Game-Postmortem-MARBLE

[leapinlew]

Cool post. Just listened to it. Very interesting. He mentioned something about Marble Madness speed runs so I looked it up:

[pinballwizard79]

Awesome vid but I think its fake, sometimes the ball looked off + its in MAME

[Flip_Willie]

Here's a bit of history of Mark Cerny, Atari, arcade game development and in particular Marble Madness.

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014629/Classic-Game-Postmortem-MARBLE

Very cool. Thank you for posting.

[leapinlew]

Awesome vid but I think its fake, sometimes the ball looked off + its in MAME

Photoshop has made everyone a skeptic. Do you think he faked the video for the fame? 

[shrunkenmaster]

Thanks for that RayB, very interesting.

What makes you think the speedrun is MAME, pinballwizard?

[Gray_Area]

Yes, very cool. Great stories about Atari and the industry at the time, and again some real backstory on a game shrouded in myth, in this case Marble Man.

That MM video is crazy. I wondere whether Cerny even thought of 'shortcuts' like that.

[Mario]

Thanks for posting this. I enjoyed watching the video. I especially liked his technical discussions. Back then memory was so limited, and it's interesting to learn about the techniques used to work within the limitations.

MArio

[VanillaGorilla]

That video is insane, I had no idea marble madness could be played like that..

[Xiaou2]

A little trick about Marble Madness:

 In the Coin Op machine, when you play as a single player, you can use Both
trackballs at once.

 Thus, you can move hella fast, as the extra input readings really add up.

 It was probably to allow the player to use either left of right trackball, but players getting ticked off when they chose the wrong ball and wasted time... so programmers left both enabled the entire game.


 Im not sure if mame emulates this feature of the game.

[Gray_Area]

A little trick about Marble Madness:

 In the Coin Op machine, when you play as a single player, you can use Both
trackballs at once.

 Thus, you can move hella fast, as the extra input readings really add up.

 It was probably to allow the player to use either left of right trackball, but players getting ticked off when they chose the wrong ball and wasted time... so programmers left both enabled the entire game.


 Im not sure if mame emulates this feature of the game.

I thought the color-coding of the balls on-screen and the track balls, or even just the side of the screen the ball was on, made it sort of obvious. Left, right, left, right.....

[RayB]

Why would they design it so either ball could be used? Do you know how annoying it would be if a friend or stranger started screwing with the other ball while you're playing?

From the Marble Madness manual:

"The player controls a red marble or a blue marble via the correspondingly colored Trak-Ball controls."

[leapinlew]

Why would they design it so either ball could be used? Do you know how annoying it would be if a friend or stranger started screwing with the other ball while you're playing?

From the Marble Madness manual:

"The player controls a red marble or a blue marble via the correspondingly colored Trak-Ball controls."

Thats how I remember it working.

[Gray_Area]

Watching that video above again, I think of kittie paws flailing at string.

[VanillaGorilla]

[Gray_Area]

Awwww. Kitteh-ness.