![]() ![]() ![]() Thus, we would like to change the trakball to a joystick and see if we gain a wider audience."įlanagan would later call the shift to a joystick-and-accelerator-button control scheme a "mistake" driven by a lack of faith in players. "But, the joystick was perceived as an easier control for a beginner to learn the game. "From the Focus we learned that the trakball is the more intuitive control to roll a marble, and that it is the desired control for the high-end player," Atari wrote in an internal "Changes to Marble Madness II" document archived by the historians at. While that might have been the result of stiff competition from flashier new cabinets like Street Fighter II, Atari blamed the performance on the game's trackball controls. Initial tests of Marble Man cabinets with internal focus groups and at an external test location didn't go well, though. The original Marble Man prototype of Marble Madness II featured some over-the-top animations. That prototype sequel, subtitled Marble Man, packed in 17 large and complicated mazes, loads of new enemies, three-player support, a pinball-style bonus game, and even power-ups that let players fly across the level or crush threats in their path. In 1991, seven years after the hit release of Marble Madness, Atari Games set out to create a sequel that included "more of everything," as designer Bob Flanagan put it in a 2020 interview with Antstream. That changed this week, though, with the unexpected and unexplained leak of a full Marble Madness II ROM that can now be played by the world at large.Īfter confirming the ROM's authenticity by comparing its gameplay to extant footage, we looked into the how and why of getting this game running via emulation-and talked to community experts about Marble Madness II's unique mix of exciting arcade history and disappointing gameplay.įirst, a bit of background. This has limited gameplay access to a handful of rare cabinet collectors and convention goers. I am excited that this long-anticipated game is out in the wild, because people can realize how uninteresting the game is and move on.For decades, Atari's scrapped prototype arcade sequel Marble Madness II has been one of the un-emulated "holy grails" for popular multi-platform emulator MAME. “ Marble Madness II is a classic example of a beautiful game is created and the sequel completely forgets why the original was great. Jason Scott, of the Internet Archive itself, concurred, but did not have the kindest things to say about the game itself. “I think the most likely explanation is the simplest: a PCB turned up, the owner dumped the ROM data from it and put it on The Internet Archive, not wanting the attention it would bring with a more public announcement,” Haywood said. As Ars Technica highlights, “it’s unclear who is responsible for the dump, but longtime MAME contributor David Haywood has a theory.” Said theory being? Have a read. “Recently, an emulator-ready ROM of Marble Madness II started circulating on the Internet,” states the report. As TechSpot reports, a build of the sequel has leaked online… some three decades after it was created. If you just couldn’t get enough of that ball-numbing action, you were out of luck. Massive deviation from the original (superhero mascots and pinball elements were added) and gimmicky controls were cited as the reasons for dumping the follow-up, and for years Marble Madness II languished in obscurity, existing only in the form of a few prototype cabinets that found their way into the wild. See, the thing is, a sequel was made, titled Marble Madness II of all things, but following a bit of market research it was deemed unlikely to turn a profit. Hey, I’ve seen this Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 park! ![]()
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