Marble Madness 2: Marble Man

[Keatah]

Meantime while hemming'n'hawwing is happening about cabinet parts, everyone can go downloadz them romzers and play at home. No need to undertake costly time-consuming voyages to conventions to play. Or worry about parts..

[Supergun]

On 6/2/2022 at 12:57 AM, negative1 said:

i'm waiting for missile command 2 to come out now.

 

let the hunt begin for that.

 

later

-1

…just curious…

which one are you waiting for?

 

Missile Command 2

 

or

 

Missile Command II

 

 

[negative1]

1 hour ago, Supergun said:

…just curious…

which one are you waiting for?

 

Missile Command 2

 

or

 

Missile Command II

 

 

the first one, thats 2 player simultaneous.

 

later

-1

[Keatah]

There was another one, a clone/bootleg, Missile Attack. I don't completely recall (and am too busy/lazy to look it up), but it may have had different bomber, satellite and smartbomb behavior than the OG.

[Atariboy]

Was that the one GCC did before Ms. Pac-Man?

[Dutchman2000]

10 hours ago, Atariboy said:

Was that the one GCC did before Ms. Pac-Man?

Yes, they developed Super Missile Attack as a speed up kit for Missile Command.  Atari promptly sued them and after the case was settled went to work for Warner Communications doing engineering work. 

[gambler172]

On 6/1/2022 at 9:24 PM, Keatah said:

Yes there is!

any link?

[Keatah]

Internet Archive should have it. Keyword search "marble madness II".

[Rik1138]

Don't see why we can't share the link here:

https://archive.org/details/mm2_20220521

 

The Web Archive is a legit site, if they have reason to believe the ROM shouldn't be shared, they'll take it down...

 

Here's my tiny Marble Man only MAME build if you don't have a build handy that plays it:  (No ROM in this, just MAME...)

https://we.tl/t-wBpa5HJtYJ

 

New version of MAME should be out in 2-ish weeks with this officially in it...

 

[sirlynxalot]

Here's my two cents:

 

I loved original Marble Madness, I thought it was really creative and quite fun. I started playing MM2 and in the first 4 or so levels, I thought "hey this is very similar to MM1, I'm having a lot of fun."  However as the next set of 4 levels went by, and then the following 4 came up, the game started dragging.  That wasn't necessarily because the game had too many levels, rather the tower style of the levels makes them seem less distinct than the MM1 levels and seem more "samey". Also, the cheapo difficulty spikes from the black marbles and fast projectiles really make the last 4 just feel like a chore and not fun at all. The Silly maze level was completely unenjoyable for me, the maze component in the beginning feels sooo long and the quantity of enemies seemed like too much.  I was disappointed how fast the black marbles can chase you, I didn't seem to be able to outrun them with the turbo button. On some stages it really seems like if you activate the black marbles you're basically doomed and will have to take a continue.  I really enjoy the music and it was great that they reused certain sfx from the original game.  I could have done without the cartoon faces and voices for the marble and some enemies. In my mind MM1 is a serious game with its foreboding sounding music and dark atmosphere. Adding in these cartoony elements isn't bad per se, but it doesn't jive with how my imagination interpreted the first game.  All in all, I think I still like the game and it totally has merit on its own, but even though it has more content and levels than MM1, my lasting impression is that its not as fun.

 

[negative1]

5 hours ago, sirlynxalot said:

Here's my two cents:

 

I loved original Marble Madness, I thought it was really creative and quite fun. I started playing MM2 and in the first 4 or so levels, I thought "hey this is very similar to MM1, I'm having a lot of fun."  However as the next set of 4 levels went by, and then the following 4 came up, the game started dragging.  That wasn't necessarily because the game had too many levels, rather the tower style of the levels makes them seem less distinct than the MM1 levels and seem more "samey". Also, the cheapo difficulty spikes from the black marbles and fast projectiles really make the last 4 just feel like a chore and not fun at all. The Silly maze level was completely unenjoyable for me, the maze component in the beginning feels sooo long and the quantity of enemies seemed like too much.  I was disappointed how fast the black marbles can chase you, I didn't seem to be able to outrun them with the turbo button. On some stages it really seems like if you activate the black marbles you're basically doomed and will have to take a continue.  I really enjoy the music and it was great that they reused certain sfx from the original game.  I could have done without the cartoon faces and voices for the marble and some enemies. In my mind MM1 is a serious game with its foreboding sounding music and dark atmosphere. Adding in these cartoony elements isn't bad per se, but it doesn't jive with how my imagination interpreted the first game.  All in all, I think I still like the game and it totally has merit on its own, but even though it has more content and levels than MM1, my lasting impression is that its not as fun.

 

great review.

 

have you ever finished the first marble madness.

 

it has all the same problems and more.

 

starting from the 3rd race, the hammers get in your way constantly, the black ball knocks you off,

the birds on the silly race always hit you, and on the ultimate race its impossible to get past the slime,

or the other obstacles.

 

yes, i've finished it hundreds of times.

but the game is so short, there is nothing to do after you finish it, except get faster only if you are lucky.

 

marble madness 2 is a flawed game, but there is so much better level design, powerups, and other elements.

(i don't like the cutesy aspects either), but the game is way too easy, once you collect points, you get 5 seconds

extra, which means you dont run out of time. the powerups are too powerful, and the turbo doesn't run out.

 

====

fixes i want to make.

remap the sprites / animation to just plain marbles

remove the poor sounds and effects

remove the extra 5 seconds extra for 5k completely, or ramp it up to 50k 

balance the time needed

remove the unlimited turbo

 

add trackball support (optional, don't know if it can be done)

 

later

-1

[Supergun]

On 6/13/2022 at 10:52 PM, negative1 said:

add trackball support (optional, don't know if it can be done)

Yes, this can be done and actually was already done. Twice in fact. There are actually 2 different trackball compatible rom builds. The original from when the game was testing back in the day, and a recent one that was done in the past year or two.

 

I’m not sure if those rom builds are as easily located on the net as the joystick build, but certainly they exist.

[sirlynxalot]

I've been playing this game a lot in the last two days and now that I've got a better feel for how to use the power ups, I've decided it's pretty darn good. It's really grown on me and i think I enjoy it more than MM1 now. 

 

I had previously thought to myself that the "camera" in MM1 scrolled side to side rather than only up and down like in MM2, and that therefore the MM1 levels were more sprawling and interesting. But when replaying MM1, it seems like it only goes up and down too, in which case the only real difference in the levels is that MM1's levels tend to be emptier with more drop offs into pits next to narrow platforms, whereas MM2 has plenty of narrow platforms but you might fall 4 blocks down to your shattering death instead of falling off screen into a pit. 

 

It's certainly better than some other atari games that were being designed at that time. I don't have any criticism of the turbo function, after all, isn't that just the same thing as simulating spinning the non existent track ball quickly?

 

Although it's not really in this version the idea of the zany marble man mascot is growing on me too. I guess I'm very impressionable lol

Edited June 16, 2022 by sirlynxalot

[Rik1138]

On 6/15/2022 at 3:49 PM, Supergun said:

Yes, this can be done and actually was already done. Twice in fact. There are actually 2 different trackball compatible rom builds. The original from when the game was testing back in the day, and a recent one that was done in the past year or two.

 

I’m not sure if those rom builds are as easily located on the net as the joystick build, but certainly they exist.

Do you know if the original trackball ROM has been successfully recovered?  The last I heard the only known copy was source code on 8" floppy discs from some ancient mainframe computer system.  I think Scott (Safestuff) was talking to a museum that still had one of these mainframes operational to try to get the code off the discs, but I never heard if he was successful (and that was years ago...)  To my knowledge he never brought a trackball version to CAX, so I was never certain how far he got...

[Supergun]

I was told that the original trackball version (programmed by Atari themselves) which was used for the initial testing before they decided to switch the game to joysticks, was still in the rom code. (the data was present, just disabled)

 

(Keep in mind that not all 4 of the known Jamma boards had the exact same revisions so I have no idea which one of the 4 they extrapolated it from)

 

The second trackball version is a modern reprogramming project.

[negative1]

6 hours ago, Supergun said:

I was told that the original trackball version (programmed by Atari themselves) which was used for the initial testing before they decided to switch the game to joysticks, was still in the rom code. (the data was present, just disabled)

 

(Keep in mind that not all 4 of the known Jamma boards had the exact same revisions so I have no idea which one of the 4 they extrapolated it from)

 

The second trackball version is a modern reprogramming project.

Yes, i know it should be out there.

but considering how hard it was to get these.

 

i'm not counting on those versions showing up anytime soon.

 

later

-1

[Tempest]

6 hours ago, Supergun said:

I was told that the original trackball version (programmed by Atari themselves) which was used for the initial testing before they decided to switch the game to joysticks, was still in the rom code. (the data was present, just disabled)

Well since it appears that @Dutchman2000 has the source code (based on what he posted earlier) that should be easy to check.

[negative1]

nice historical look back at the game:

 

later

-1

 

[Greg2600]

anti-climatic but great to read it's finally dumped.

[H.E.R.O.]

MAME 245 is live, lads, for those who practice in such things.

[negative1]

5 hours ago, H.E.R.O. said:

MAME 245 is live, lads, for those who practice in such things.

getting it now as we speak.

 

later

-1

[Keatah]

Yes. If media is not available to me. Well. It might as well not exist.

[Justin De Lucia]

I heard from a friend of mine that owns a local mall arcade that someone is trying to make a kit for original Marble Madness machines that would allow you to house both MM1 and MM2 in the same cabinet.

I don't know if this is true or not since my friend gave no source or context to the kit's existence.

[negative1]

13 hours ago, Justin De Lucia said:

I heard from a friend of mine that owns a local mall arcade that someone is trying to make a kit for original Marble Madness machines that would allow you to house both MM1 and MM2 in the same cabinet.

I don't know if this is true or not since my friend gave no source or context to the kit's existence.

already reported back earlier in this thread

 

and on KLOV, still waiting on details.

 

later

-1

Edited July 5, 2022 by negative1

[sirlynxalot]

Is there any MM2 cab artwork (marquee, bezel, control panel, side art) that might be at high enough quality to use for an arcade1up conversion?  Maybe related to the conversions people are working on?

Edited July 8, 2022 by sirlynxalot