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Marble Madness Mod For Unreal Tournament

Posted by simoniker on from the where's-the-dual-trackball-action? dept.

orangerobot writes "Marble Madness is one of my all time favorite video games. I first played it in the original Atari standup arcade game in 1984 with a trackball, but was only able to beat it a couple years later when it was released by Electronic Arts for the Amiga 1000. The game seems ripe for a port to the new world of accelerated 3D hardware but surprisingly, no-one has done it.. until now. Yesterday, the first demo of the unofficial Marble Madness 2003 mod for Unreal Tournament 2003 was released to the public." Yet again, talented mod creators get together and produce something really smart.

27 comments

  1. The 80's ruled. by BoomerSooner · · Score: 0

    Tron, Dragon's Lair (to a lesser extent Space Ace and Cliff Hanger), Galaga, Excitebike, ...

    Ah, I love the 80's (great show too on VH1 I think).

  2. Marble Blast by rmull · · Score: 4, Informative

    Related game: Marble Blast. It's quite a lot of fun for only 15 bucks.

    --
    See you, space cowboy...
  3. Damn by Cassius105 · · Score: 1

    wish i had UT2003 now

    1. Re:Damn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really? Because I looked at the screenshots on the site and they don't look all that impressive. In fact, they look no better than the original. I was hoping for some shiny neat graphics and stuff. I mean, it IS using the Unreal engine... so....

  4. UT2003 Demo by mufasio · · Score: 1

    Does anybody know if this mod works with the ut2003_demo?

  5. 3D marble madness workalike by mufasio · · Score: 5, Informative

    The game seems ripe for a port to the new world of accelerated 3D hardware but surprisingly, no-one has done it.. until now.

    Actually there is already a game that is a 3D version of marble madness called Trackballs. Very fun and challenging on some of the advance levels. They are looking for looking for additional levels if anybody wants to whip one up with the included level editor and contribute it.

  6. Brilliant by jvmatthe · · Score: 4, Funny

    The best part of this, really, is that maps should be amazingly easy for even a schmuck user to make. I mean, it's on a regular grid with plain-jane textures: no artistic ability required! However, you do need to be clever and have a good feeling for three dimensional worlds, but a well-made map editor should help with the latter. (A brain, naturally, will be required for the former.)

    --
    Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
  7. Super Monkey Ball by JMZero · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you've ever played Super Monkey Ball for the GC, you'll know how much better this kind of game feels with a good analog control stick.

    Always feels bad to miss out on a good game like this - couldn't they have done this in Half-Life? Or in C++ (like my soon to be complete retro game, plugged below)? I'd hate to pour my time into developing something like this, knowing that I'm writing for such a small part of my potential audience.

    --
    Let's not stir that bag of worms...
  8. The original Atari prototype..... by Benno... · · Score: 4, Informative

    Interesting information about the original Atari prototype for Marble Madness II can be found here: http://www.safestuff.com/marbleman.htm

  9. This must stop now! by dirtmerchant · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The game seems ripe for a port to the new world of accelerated 3D hardware


    Forgive me, but I've just got to rant for a moment. Is it just me or does it seem that no one has been able to come up with an original idea for the last 20 years. It seems like I can't go a week without hearing about some game, movie or cartoon being "re-envisioned" by some post-gen-x hack that either: thinks that they genuinely have something to contribute to the meme (but never do), or more often, are purely motivated by a whorish greed to make another pile of cash off of a previously established money-maker.


    just my $.02
    1. Re:This must stop now! by Saige · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Forgive me, but I've just got to rant for a moment. Is it just me or does it seem that no one has been able to come up with an original idea for the last 20 years.

      I suspect there are a couple reasons for this. One is the 'nostalgia' factor - we all remember shows, movies, and games that we loved once upon a time, but that don't have the same attraction now, and people try to recreate and recapture some of that attention and feeling produced by the original. Some might see it as a quick way to make money, but I suspect most people involved have good intetions.

      Second, original ideas that work well are not easy to come up with - or we would see a lot of them. Perhaps you should grace us with a nice listing of original ideas for people to work with, as options to reusing existing ideas. I agree, I'd like to see more of them also, but I understand the difficulty.

      --
      "You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
    2. Re:This must stop now! by bmorton · · Score: 1

      It isn't just you. There's probably not much that could really be considered original in the past 200 years. I think you're just taking it a little too hard. :)

      Besides, new is not always better?

      As for the whorish greed part and what not...no one's making money off this Unreal mod. I think it's probably just a bunch of guys who really loved marble madness and would like to see an up to date version. Can't say I blame them.

    3. Re:This must stop now! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if I had mod points, you'd be getting them. and you'd be going down.

    4. Re:This must stop now! by anthony_dipierro · · Score: 1

      Forgive me, but I've just got to rant for a moment. Is it just me or does it seem that no one has been able to come up with an original idea for the last 20 years. It seems like I can't go a week without hearing about some game, movie or cartoon being "re-envisioned" by some post-gen-x hack that either: thinks that they genuinely have something to contribute to the meme (but never do), or more often, are purely motivated by a whorish greed to make another pile of cash off of a previously established money-maker.

  10. Trackballs by Ratbert42 · · Score: 1

    I originally bought a Logitech Marble Mouse just to play MAME Marble Madness. Now I have 3 of them and use them everywhere.

  11. Have you seen trackballs ? by jaeyke · · Score: 1

    http://freshmeat.net/projects/trackballs/ This project is very similar.

  12. Another game by oGMo · · Score: 1

    Another similar game which is quite cool and growing better every release is Trackballs. If you have a trackball, the control is incredible, but that's to be expected for a game like this. Plus, it's free. ;-)

    --

    Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage

  13. Actually, have you ever played... by JackMonkey · · Score: 1
    The game seems ripe for a port to the new world of accelerated 3D hardware but surprisingly, no-one has done it.. until now.
    Actually, Super Monkey Ball for the GameCube pretty much is a 3D version of Marble Madness...only with monkey balls...and bananas. (Damn, that almost sounds naughty.)
  14. Marble Madness Secret Level? by dsyu · · Score: 1

    Is it just me, or does anyone else remember the secret level that was in the PC conversion of Marble Madness? As I recall, you had to make the "jump" to left near the end of the first level and wait in a certain spot until ~13 seconds were left, at which point a hole would open up and take you to a bizarre (and extremely hard) level with a river and other oddness.

    Perhaps I just dreamed all of this. But I swear I played it.

    1. Re:Marble Madness Secret Level? by nutsy · · Score: 1

      The secret level is in the Commodore 64 version, and possibly others. As for being "bizarre (and extremely hard)"--aren't they all bizarre and extremely hard?

    2. Re:Marble Madness Secret Level? by dsyu · · Score: 1

      Thanks -- that jogs the memory cells a bit. I also found a page that describes the level and how to finish it (text without screenshots, sadly). I seem to remember it was harder than most of the other levels, comparable perhaps to the last level.

  15. That website is Horrible!! by PeeweeJD · · Score: 1

    Is it me, or is that marble maddness website a complete eyesore?

    1. Re:That website is Horrible!! by nutsy · · Score: 1

      Bitch, bitch, bitch. There's a lot of interesting info in the Bodenstaendig site, including hints and tips, discussion of ports, and--yeah!--the entire ingame soundtrack (pity it's in mono though).

    2. Re:That website is Horrible!! by PeeweeJD · · Score: 1

      yeah, and navigating to all that great info is easy thanks to the crap-tastic web design...

  16. GarageGames just shipped Marble Blast Gold today.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looks like garagegames just released Marble Blast Gold. It adds another 28 expert levels to the original Marble Blast (bringing the total up to 100). Fun stuff...

  17. No worse than games.slashdot.org by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why oh WHY do the moderators insist on maintaining this horrid purple/blue color that makes my eyes physically ache? I check in about once a week to see if they've changed it, but they haven't. Obviously.