Nintendo Entertainment System Marble Madness USA
0Gameplay
The blue, player-controlled marble traverses an isometric course. Scores and available time are tracked at the top of the screen.Marble Madness is an isometric platform game in which the player manipulates an onscreen marble from a third-person perspective. The player controls the marble's movements with a trackball, though most home versions use game controllers with directional pads. The aim of the game is for the player to complete six maze-like, isometric race courses before a set amount of time expires. When a player completes a race, the remaining time is added to the next race's allotted time. The game also allows two players to compete against each other.[1][2][3][4]
Courses are populated with various objects and enemies designed to obstruct the player. As the game progresses, the courses become increasingly difficult and introduce more enemies and obstacles. Each course has a distinct visual theme. For example, the first race, titled "Practice", is a simple course that is much shorter than the others, while the fifth race, named "Silly", features polka-dot patterns and is oriented in a direction opposite from the other courses.[1][2][3][4]
DevelopmentMarble Madness was developed by Atari Games, with Mark Cerny as the lead designer and Bob Flanagan as the software engineer.[5] Both Cerny and Flanagan handled programming the game.[2] It uses the Atari System 1 hardware, an interchangeable system of circuit boards, control panels, and artwork.[6] The game features pixel graphics on a 19 inch Electrohome G07 model CRT monitor, and uses a Motorola 68010 central processing unit (CPU) with a MOS Technology 6502 subsystem to control the audio and coin operations.[7] Marble Madness was Atari's first game to use an FM sound chip produced by Yamaha, which is similar to a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer and creates the music in real time so that it is in synchronization with the game's on-screen action.[2][8] The game's music was composed by Brad Fuller and Hal Canon who spent a few months becoming familiar with the capabilities of the sound chip.[2]
Cerny and Flanagan first collaborated on a video game based on Michael Jackson's Thriller. The project, however, was canceled and the two began work an idea of Cerny's that eventually became Marble Madness. Development lasted 10 months.[5] Following the North American video game crash of 1983, video game development within Atari focused on providing a distinctive experience through the use of a unique control system and by emphasizing a simultaneous two-player mode. Cerny designed Marble Madness in accordance with these company goals. He was first inspired by miniature golf and captivated by the idea that a play field's contours influenced the ball's path. Cerny began testing various ideas using Atari's digital art system. After deciding to use an isometric grid, Cerny began developing the game's concept. His initial idea involved hitting a ball in a way similar to miniature golf, but Atari was unenthusiastic. Cerny next thought of racing games and planned for races on long tracks against an opponent. Technology limitations at the time were unable to handle the in-game physics necessary for the idea, and Cerny switched the game's objective to a race against time.[2]
The Motorola CPU includes a compiler for the C programming language, which the two programmers were familiar with. After Atari had conducted performance evaluations, it approved usage of the language.[5] Cerny and Flanagan's decision to program Marble Madness in the C language had positive and negative consequences. Atari games had previously been programmed in assembly language. The C language was easier to program, but was less efficient, so the game operates at the slower speed of 30 Hz instead of the normal 60 Hz frequency of arcade games at the time. Cerny decided to use a trackball system (marketed by Atari as Trak-Ball) to give the game a unique control system, and he chose a motorized trackball for faster spinning and braking when the in-game ball traveled downhill and uphill, respectively. As it was building the prototypes, Atari's design department informed Cerny that the motorized trackball's design had an inherent flaw—one of the four supports had poor contact with the ball—and the use of a regular trackball was more feasible. Additionally, Cerny had anticipated the use of powerful custom chips that would allow RAM-based sprites to be animated by the CPU, but the available hardware was a less-advanced system using ROM-based, static sprites.[2]
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