As suggested by Parker to play as it was one of their inspirations for Kinetic Panic! I was lead to a link called OPENMBU, where a port of Marble Blast Ultra with community fixes and mods was available. I used the online version (https://marbleblastultra.randomityguy.me/) to play the game.
Already when I started playing, I could see the similarities between this and Kinetic Panic!’s design. The rolling mechanic and the puzzle solving are the first things that immediately came to mind. I love how smoothly the marble rolls and you can hear it with how the marble sound changes with each texture, making the game satisfyingly realistic. For example, in the level where friction is introduced, you can feel the friction between the ice and marble.
The design of the marble itself is very cool. The patterns in the marble also seem to move, similar to what we are doing for Eta in KP where they will be moving inside the ball as the ball rolls. Just look at the design below, it’s so beautifully shiny and matches the aesthetic of the game!
Speaking of the aesthetic of the game, you can see the 2000s design style peaking through. From the textures to the ball to the voices that tell you which power-up you’ve activated, it’s clear that the design philosophy of the game is rather hopeful and pristine. The levels are perfectly crafted and there is no backstory to this marble, you are just placed into this ambient marble puzzle solving haven.
The repeating euro beat music in the background really sells it for me, it is really such a puzzle-solving platformer. Nothing more and nothing less.
I love love love the texture of the ball and the textures of all of the world’s objects. The sky box is how I imagined the KP! sky box to be, something to set the tone of the level. In our case, our level is a city level, so my classmate Carter is creating a city background for our skybox.
My qualms with this game is that I feel that the marble is a little too slippery for even the normal green surface. It can be frustrating with a speed up mechanic where you basically just fling out of bounds… In Kinetic Panic, I’d like there to be more friction so the player is less likely to fling off the map and become frustrated.
Overall… the game is fun and I can see why I was told to play the game. I feel that it has given me an insight into how rolling games work and the ways the world comes together, through the textures, design choices and level design. The levels are appropriately designed for the player level (such as Difficulty 1 = easy, Difficulty 3 = hard) and so I think the game would also be extremely useful as a reference for our level designer, Guy. For the difficulty 3 puzzles, I really felt my hair greying… the designers really meant difficulty 3!
Honestly, playing this game has made me more excited to see how our game will turn out, so stay tuned! In the meantime, play this game for a little!
