Marble's Marbles

Marble's Marbles Marbles Marbles is truly the Marble Souls of Dark Marbles. This game really makes you FEEL like Marbles, because of the brilliant immersive design choice to make the marbles scream when they die. Where is the mouth? Who knows! But for real it's good. Great / 5 game. The limited isometric camera angles ensure that the camera isn't screwing you, which is good because the level design is more demanding of the player than anything you'd encounter in the likes of Marble Skies and Marble It Up Ultra. While in the other two games you can generally fly through the levels in one shot, here, you are expected to take your time with each level to become familiar with their obstacles so you can eventually blast through it in that one flawless run. It's lots of trial and error, but the levels are small enough to justify it and the semi-fixed camera goes a long way in making it playable. One thing I'm not quite a fan of is the perspective tricks. It's neat and clever in theory, and it looks pretty, like a cross between an Escher and Marble Madness, but in practice it's more often than not frustrating because it gets so hard to tell what you can and can't reach. I get that that's probably the point given the game's inspiration, and that you can press Y or tilt the camera up to get an extra perspective, but I don't care--it detracts from the experience and I don't feel that struggling to decipher wtf you're even looking at is in the spirit of a precision platformer, where the goal is to skillfully navigate an unforgiving landscape (not to get an eye exam), in the same way that fighting with the physics engine is against the spirit of a puzzle, where the goal is to figure out and execute a logical solution (not to bash your head against the controls like a caveman). Being retro-inspired is no excuse to neglect accessibility. Since it's a superficial issue, I'd expect to see an opt-in accessibility option in the video settings like "global illumination" to light the platforms naturally. Please consider. Accessibility isn't just for people with disabilities. It's for everyone. Another nitpick I have is that if you die, even without having touched a checkpoint or hourglass, it counts as a death. This means when you are running for a deathless run, you have to be diligent about manually resetting every time you die. This created a pretty annoying situation for me when I did Dark Dungeon 01 deathless only to find out on the stats screen that I had apparently died and forgotten to manually reset the level, and didn't notice my death counter was at 1 the whole time, so even though I technically completed the level in one life without touching a single checkpoint or hourglass, it didn't count and I had to do it again. None of these things are dealbreakers. Just simple quality-of-life fixes.

I don't want to be scathing, or anything, because I think the game does what it does just fine... It just doesn't really... Like... Leave any impact or seriously stand out on its own, I guess? Sounds are really satisfying, I like the clinks the marbles make when they touch stuff, but I feel like there's 100 other games like this with the same motif and gimic that probably have more content. Also why have a gallery of all the marbles I unlocked if I can't bring them into other levels? C'mon, man.

Alright, I beat the first level. Pretty fun, love the Marble Madness vibes. With that said, I have three criticisms so far: 1. There should be an "instant reset level (or last checkpoint)" button. Having to go to the menu over and over is frustrating. 2. The start button on a controller should open the menu. If you want the B button to also open it, that's fine. But there's no reason why the start button shouldn't open the menu like in the vast majority of other games. 3. WHY. WOULD. YOU. PICK. THIS. FONT?! It's awful, borderline unreadable at times. Easily the worst thing about the game. I get wanting a certain art style, but not at the cost of basic functionality. Otherwise it's enjoyable so far, excited to finish it and see more content in the future!

Overall, it's a fun little Marble Madness like game. It really only gets frustrating when your Marble is up in the air as it's very difficult to judge depth perception.

вроде музыка умиротворяющая, медитативный геймплей, но после каждого проигрыша произносится истошный крик непонятно откуда и зачем. это выбивает из погруженности, и если вы на моменте, где одно неловкое движение, и вас ждет пропасть, готовьтесь слышать нон стопом этот сводящий с ума крик. звук подбора часов так же не вписывается и раздражает, стоило сделать нежный, ненавязчивый звук. звуковая работа ужасная. геймплей... обычный. становится репетативным быстрее чем того бы хотелось. и не ждите, что ваша находчивость будет поощряться как в марио 64. нет, если ты придумал какой то необычный путь, не предусматривающийся разработчиком( а он предусматривал линейное прохождение), скорее всего у тебя не получится его реализовать, тк левелы составлены так, что расстояние между объектами выверено ровно для линейного прохождения. единственное, что можно получить, исследуя уровень, это добавка к времени. ну или скоропостижная смерть)). чекпоинты расположены странно... часто сразу после них идет скучный медлительный сегмент, а потом прыжки или перекаты на точность, и выходит так, что, умирая на сложном участке, возрождаешься прямо перед филлерным медленным участком, что раздражает и увеличивает время прохождения искусственно. на пару с таймером не лучшее геймдизайнерское решение. на любителя игра. мне бы зашла как тому самому любителю, но все рушит аудио составляющая. только если играть без звука теперь... апдейт: я узнал, что крик можно выключить в настройках. от разработчика в ответах на отзывы. стоило в начале игры добавить выбор: играть с криками или без.

Saw the developer post it on Reddit. Decided to check it out. It's pretty fun and challenging.

This takes me back to playing Marble Madness in 1980s arcades.