Marble Blast successor Marble It Up rolls onto PC today
Lost marbles returning home
Who remembers the Marble Blast games? Brilliant little 3D physics platformers, a bit like Super Monkey Ball but with a jump button, some clever power-ups and often non-linear levels. Marble It Up is a spiritual sequel from many of the original developers, now operating under their own namesake - 'Marble It Up LLC'. It's out now on PC today after a well-received debut on Switch. Today's new incarnation includes a PC-exclusive level editor and Steam Workshop support to share your creations with the world. Roll on the launch trailer below.
The Marble Blast series has such a great feel to it, right up there with Sega's Super Monkey Ball. Your marble feels solid and heavy, but after each bounce (which can be chained by pressing jump before a landing) you can apply spin while you're still in the air. Master this and you can do wild things to your trajectory each landing. It's a simple time-attack game - collect all the gems in the level and get to the finish, with online leaderboards with ghost replays adding competition. Simple, but easy to lose hours to as you chase better times and hunt shortcuts in each level.
The core of the game remains simple and accessible, but Marble It Up gets more creative with its levels. There's more complex moving segments in Super Monkey Ball fashion and areas of subjective gravity to wrangle your clicky, clacky little ball through. Expert play unlocks more marble skins, but this is a game of intrinsic rewards - a clean run and a high ranking is always satisfying. There are some big free updates planned, too, with more official level packs and several multiplayer modes (including 'baller royale', no joke) detailed in this dev roadmap video here.
Marble it Up is out now on Steam for £13.16/€14.27/$16.99, published by Alvios, with an official page here. If you want to try earlier incarnations, fans are still keeping the GarageGames's original Marble Blast Gold alive, complete with multiplayer servers and mods here. There's also an unofficial port of the now-defunct Marble Blast Ultra (an Xbox Live Arcade exclusive) here.