Marble Blast - The Revival

Every Marble Blast fan must be looking forward to a new game in the series. GarageGames have said there will be another Marble Blast game but ‘not in the immediate future’. That doesn’t stop us from exciting ourselves from the thought of a new game. There are many ways the new Marble Blast game could improve, or become more dynamic. This page lists some of the most popular suggestions thought of by Marble Blast fans and the 360-Live staff. If you would like to submit your own suggestions, please post them on the forums in this thread.

Racing
There should be a new gametype which allows players to race in certain maps. For example, the Single Player Map Black Diamond is perfect for a racing map! Also having checkpoints can help users restore their location if they fall off.

Marble Design
Players should be able to design their own marbles, using a paint system within Marble Blast Ultra, they should also have the ability to take pictures with their Xbox Live Vision Camera to use as a texture on their marble. Also, more designs should be pre- loaded with the next version.

Team Collection
Marble Blast Ultra should allow teams. As a maximum of 8 players are allowed to play simultaneously, a 2 team 4 vs. 4 match should be possible and of course any configuration that adds upto 8 players or less. This would surely be very popular and extremely fun. Teams could either collect the same gems as each other or collect different coloured gems (e.g. Team 1 collects red, Team 2 collects blue)

Tag
Tagging may be difficult, but it will certainly be a fun game. A simple ‘tag’ game type where one player is the tagger and has to tag other players in a specified time frame. Each player should start with an equal number of points and the person who must tag should be chosen at random. Points are deducted if you are ‘it’, or if you fall off the map. Points are added to your score if you successfully tag somebody. Powerups should only be available to the tagger. The winner is the person with the most points at the end.

Saving Gameplay Footage (Record ghost)
Players should be able to record their gameplay in a certain level and then save it if they liked it. The same feature was available in the Halo 3 beta where you could record your whole match. Recording your gameplay would simply be sampling the marble co-ordinates for the duration of your gameplay. Playback would be rendered in real-time as the recorded video is just in fact a file with co-ordinates being read from it.

Marble Arena
Imagine you’re on a map like King of the Marble, and your goal is to knock as many people off within the time limit, the more you knock off, the more points you get, or it could be the last marble standing! This would be one hell of a fun gametype.

More surfaces
More types of friction-varying surfaces such as water, sand, tarmac, carpet, bouncy and others. There shouldn’t be any problem implementing these using the Torque/TorqueX engine.

Free look
Clicking the right thumbstick should change the camera view so it faces directly upwards. This would definitely be useful when looking around a map.

Different coloured gems
In single player, different coloured gems like in Marble Blast Gold. Or perhaps randomly coloured gems, so each time you play the gems are different colours to last time.

Timed gems in multiplayer
A special coloured gem worth 10 points spawns (rarely) but only stays for 10 seconds or less. If it does not get collected by any player, it disappears.

No modding
Many people see modding controllers as cheating. The maximum speed the marble can roll with a modded controller whilst going perfectly diagonal should be kept the same in the new Marble Blast game. Of course this time the controller should not have to be modded and the speed should be attainable in any direction on an unmodded controller.

Single Player Time Limit
In single player, the player should be able to set a time limit on a level he/she chooses. If the level is not completed within the certain time limit, the level is automatically restarted.

Multiplayer Time Limit
In multiplayer, the time limit should be variable from a few minutes to unlimited so that lengths of multiplayer matches can be player determined and not dependant on the map being played.

Single Player Time Limit
In single player, the player should be able to set a time limit on a level he/she chooses. If the level is not completed within the certain time limit, the level is automatically restarted.

AI
Also known as ‘bots’, marbles controlled by the computer but based on real players. The bots should be able to mimic moves done by real players (which can be recorded by volunteers).

Advanced Statistics
After the game has ended, a more detailed report should be shown for players to see. For example, how many gems collected and which colours. For each player, individual statistics should be available to show how many games they have played in ranked, custom or normal gametypes. Each player should have points indicating the number of wins they have achieved in the form of ‘experience points’.