Marble Madness

Marble Madness is an action game originally released in arcades by Atari Games in December 1984 and later ported to many home computers and game consoles. The goal of the game is for players to guide a marble through six courses filled with obstacles within a limited amount of time. The game can be played by one player or two players at the same time.

Marble Madness provides an isometric view of a maze-like obstacle course players need to guide a marble through before time runs out. The course consists of numerous turns and platforms players need to navigate through; if the marble falls off of the course path, some time is lost and the marble is restarted near where it left the course. Several types of other obstacles can block progress as well; these include other marbles that attempt to knock the player's marble off of the course, various enemies that eat the marbles, and mechanical mechanisms in the path such as moving bridges. As the game progresses, the courses become more complex and include more obstacles. When a course is completed, any leftover time is added to the clock when the next course begins. If two players are competing, bonus points and time are awarded to the first player to cross the finish line on each course. The original arcade version of Marble Madness used a trackball to control the in-game marble while most home versions used more typical controls for the type of system such as a joystick or keyboard. Points are earned in the game for moving the marble through the course, travelling through tunnels and tubes, killing the enemy marbles or other enemies (when possible), completing a course, and completing the game.