The Little Ball That Could

The Little Ball That Could is one of those games that seems destined to be overlooked. It's a Unity game, and looks a bit dime-a-dozen. Given Steam's complete lack of curation, you could be forgiven for branding it shovelware and moving on to a more vaunted title. That said, looks can be deceiving and within the sparsely-populated marble genre, TLBTC is a surprisingly adept and welcoming package. Marble games tend to dip the paintbrush into three primary pots: blistering pace, collectathons, and exploration platforming. Something like Super Monkey Ball would definitely be a combination of the first two, while The Little Ball That Could mostly eschews speed for a relatively zen experience, despite the optional time target on each level. The basic idea is simple - collect gems, puzzle pieces and reach the finish after dodging obstacles and fatal falls - but notably more sedate and polished than in many other marble games. The movement is highly deliberate, not allowing you to build up an enormous amount of speed, and falling from a height onto a hard surface frequently results in a spectacular shattering of glass shards. This ball is brittle, and the game is designed around this fragility. There are five worlds, each introducing a new environmental mechanic/hazard or two, with general difficulty and level length increasingly as you go. Across the board, though, there are long ramps and spongy platforms to save your spherical skin after a swan dive. Switches, doors, hidden passageways and horizontal lifts (that move slowly enough to induce frustration at points) are also par for the course. Initially, I thought the fixed camera angle to be an odd choice, but it seems the restriction has allowed the devs to design their levels tightly, with multiple routes to the finish...as well as the occasional disguised puzzle piece secreted behind a wall. You'll need to traverse these paths in the right order to get all the gems, which usually means passing up the opportunity to reach the goal before the time target expires, so you'll be playing most levels at least twice. I didn't find this to be a bother, and enjoyed the puzzle aspect to navigating the levels. In addition, after beating the 120 levels, you unlock 'powers' that let you traverse the levels in a different manner, essentially making the NG+ mode feel fresh. Unity is ubiquitous these days, but TLBTC has a sheen to it, a clean aesthetic that is pleasing to view. Lighting changes during darker levels are also welcome, along with the different skins that you unlock as you progress. It's all very IKEA minimalist, with a sadly limited colour palette at times, but it does suit the game. The OST is pleasant, albeit repetitive after a while due to a limited number of tracks, and the SFX are solid. There are faults; the length of the levels can sometimes drag a tad, and you do need to be in a patient mindset to play a game like this, but overall it's an impressive and understated package. Devs NaissusWorks seem to mostly be known for mobile games, with this being their first foray into the world of Steam - I can only tip my hat to them for a game that I thoroughly enjoyed. As a sidenote, Ballistic is a good option if you prefer quicker marble games, with Escape Lizards fulfilling a good collectathon spree. Marblize and Puzzle Dimension are other good plays, but The Little Ball That Could is right up there with them. Recommended.

“Definitively, the THINKING player’s rolling-ball game!” Admittedly, though this reviewer acquired The Little Ball That Could (TLBTC) on Day One, judgement was not immediately ready to be assigned. Though a long-time fan of rolling ball games, it’s another matter to have any degree of success with them. Of the dozens in this player’s collection, none have yet been completed (for various reasons.). TLBTC shows every indication of being THE exception to this long-time rule. At first look, TLBTC seems to be rather sterile, and overwhelmingly repetitive. However, gameplay indicates that there is vastly less truth to that than at first appearance. Each of five areas of 24 levels each simply requires a significant amount of real estate in order to fully utilize that zone’s concepts and possibilities fully. And that is a huge plus, as you listen to very pleasant music. TLBTC is actually more than a single game. True, in order to unlock additional of the four locked worlds (after the original unlocked one) a certain number of tasks need to be accomplished, but the quantity is very accommodating to the vast number of players. Each of 120 levels (seemingly) has the same three tasks: finding a single puzzle piece, finding all three diamond shapes, and completing a speed-run in a generally quite generous time limit. Without conscious effort, this player unlocked the third world while still well within the second one. (The speed-run, generally to be attempted separately form the "searches", also has a highly motivating three-tier leaderboard.) Additionally, TLBTC has achievements with purpose, and not simply “participation trophies”, as is far too common. (Even numerous achievements for failure!) Where TLBTC may seem repetitive is when players originally see the complexity of each level. It can be very daunting indeed, and more so to realize that of each level’s (often) DOZENS of path possibilities, there may only be one optimal path for speed-run success (but likely more), and only one path for locating the needed items. (Thus, an achievement for starting any level ten times.) And to add to the challenge….no control over camera movement, and only a small section of the level available at any time, with the ball dead center. It’s frequent to not see a spot where the ball must go, so the walls become partially transparent for that place (but won’t show a drop-off. HINT: Hidden places very often contain needed objects.) Also fortunate, the player has control over save locations, within the parameters of the “save buttons” that may, or may not be rolled over as is frequently the player’s choice. The ball control within TLBTC is basically perfect, which is necessary considering the many dangers to be encountered. Balls can fall into the ocean, be crushed behind “ball pushers”, be explosively “spiked”, or fall without landing on a cushion pad, breaking into shards. And all this may be overcome just to discover that the level is complete….but without finding the necessary objects. But no worries! Each traverse causes the pool of knowledge of that level to grow. Perhaps TLBTC isn’t as inexpensive as comparable games, but are there comparable games? If this game genre is your passion, there is no reason to delay purchase even another minute.

Brings back memories of the old marble madness (minus the aggressive AI marbles) and has a portal flavour to the graphics, its entertaining, easy to jump in and out of as time allows and offers a nice selection of increasingly complex puzzles. Nicely done.

Marble platformers are my favourite type of game, and it has been awhile since I've found any good ones on Steam. TLBTC has a clean, modern UI and a wonderfully simple art style. Would highly recommend to any other people that enjoy marble platformers!

I'm a sucker for marble games. Marble Blast, Monkey Ball, even obscure games like Hamsterball are games I've put a lot of time into playing simply because they're fun. However, those games all have two main things going for them that The Little Ball That Could (TLBTC) does not. I'm currently about a third of the way through the game, but can't bring myself to play more than a couple levels at a time. The first huge problem is the controls. A marble game absolutely needs tight and responsive control in order to be playable, as the only real input is rolling around, or maybe a jump. TLBTC has no jump (until you beat the game, as an option) and has very slippery control- it's hard to stop moving once you've started. This is very bad here because for some unknown reason the game is viewed isometrically with a fixed camera... at an angle of about 40 degrees. Not 45. This means that moving perfectly diagonally will misalign you with the level! Falling too far / too fast will break the marble, which is fine, except sometimes I'll fall a short distance and break and other times fall a large distance and not break. It doesn't feel consistent. Not being able to stop is horrible once the game introduces slow, moving platforms with small holes in the middle- you'd better be able to rest in that hole before the platform starts moving, or you're falling off and have to wait for it to return. As a final control issue, acceleration in the air appears to be uncapped so if you go off an edge, you can really go flying- the perspective doesn't help with trying to land anywhere, either. To compare to other games- Monkey Ball makes it hard to stop as well, but is also designed in a way that you never really need to *and* the deceleration is enough that you can if you want. Marble Blast is much the same. Hamsterball or Marble Madness both have a full 45 degree isometric view, but again you can stop, the distance you can fall is usually clear, and steering accurately is possible in all of these games. Not so here- the entirety of TLBTC is fighting the controls. But I said I had two problems, and the second is somehow even more glaring: this game has some of the worst level design I've ever seen. There's 120 levels, which is more than almost any other game I've mentioned (except Monkey Ball in some forms). This is a case where quality beats quantity handily- in each of these other games, each level tends to have a clear theme or objective, and a simple name that describes the core conceit. What level in TLBTC did I just nope out of before playing? Blue World 18. What does that even mean? Anyway, every TLBTC level has a time target, 3 gems scattered around, and a puzzle piece to find. You can't get the time target and the collectibles in the same run, so every level must be played at least twice. You also need to get all 3 gems in the same run, and this is where the design issues become apparent. TLBTC level design has lots of branching paths with irreversible drops, checkpoints that can then render earlier parts of the level unreachable, and no way to scout to find out where you need to go/have gone before it's too late. This would be somewhat forgivable if the content was good, but... it's just not. Every level is just an endless mix of the same few mechanics thrown together awkwardly with no mind paid to how they fit together in the level, or even with each other. To look at a similar marble branching level, look no further than the bamboo ball levels in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex. The general structure of getting from point A to point B while optionally collecting everything with periodic checkpoints still exists, branching paths still exist, but instead the levels take care to be memorable, be themed, and have a flow through them. You can miss things, but you can also almost always loop back to pick them up. TLBTC? If you missed something by taking the wrong path of two otherwise indistinguishable paths and hit a checkpoint, you need to restart the level. No alternatives, and this happens frequently. TLBTC is an achievement in how not to design a game. Even if you're a fan of the marble game genre, stay away. There's a new Monkey Ball game that came out recently, go play that instead. Oh, and I guess there's a story and some weird piano/violin music. Signs of a game taking itself more seriously than it is. This doesn't really add or subtract anything from the experience.

You know that (extremely) rare feeling you get when a remake of something actually improves on the original? That's the feeling I get playing this little gem. This is Marble Madness 2: The Marbling. It's not precisely a remake, but it's a spiritual successor for sure. The difficulty-to-fun ratio is perfect. The controls are just touchy enough to remind you of the momentum mechanics without feeling unresponsive. It's a great example of a puzzle platformer done right.

Rating: 9.5/10 What a great game! Wonderful presentation, interesting and varied levels, well-paced increases in difficulty and multiple goals in each level to increase replayability. Most importantly in a game of this type, the controls are tight and the physics feel sufficiently realistic. The checkpoint system is generous, so the game is challenging without being too frustrating. Highly recommended!

I am a big fan of marbles games since Marble Madness. I played countless marbles games in my life since that time, and I can say with certitude that this is the best Marble Madness successor I ever played (and I'm still only at the third world)!!! The only thing I would say "deplorable" is something that have absolutely no impact on the gameplay. I would REALLY like to see a level builder! All the levels are tiled so I think it would not be too hard to do! Then the game would be perfect!

been wanting play a game like this reminds me of when i would play simialr flash games way back then still very fun

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