Ball-rolling games

[Obiwanshinobi]

How come those tend to have such adorable presentation? Not only Super Monkey Ball 1&2 and Kororinpa*) remain some of the best-looking games playable on the Wii, but recently Ballance took me by surprise as aesthetically second to none that I've seen. Didn't play it for long enough to tell if the gameplay rivals the aforementioned (keyboard controls didn't have the same immediate elegance 'Cube/Wii games had spoilt me with), but it sure looks and sounds dreamy.
In fact, I have yet to see a poor-looking game of this genre, as if graphics of the sort were hard to make bad (even Super Monkey Ball Jr. does the franchise justice).
You'd think more developers should be lured be the broad appeal of those supposedly easily-built games, but I'm not seeing it. The genre seems latent.
It may still wait for its superstar mascot (so far only Katamari - if that counts - and Super Monkey Ball came somewhere near cult following, yet nowhere near Angry Birds kind of craze), but then I don't think all that many legit supermascots of gaming exist. Vehicular games, for instance, don't appear to have spawned any. That doesn't stop racers from hogging spotlight every now and then.

Relevant - if you watch some Ballance gameplay videos, make sure you listen to the sounds.

*) From what I know, Kororinpa on Wii doesn't output prog-scanned picture, so if you don't have a decent CRT handy, believe me - it's a looker if properly showcased.

[Ruldra]

Rock of Ages is pretty fun. In versus mode you use your boulder to destroy the enemy gate while also building defenses to stop the enemy boulder from destroying yours.

You don't even need to buy the game, the demo lets you play versus as much as you want.

[DoYouWantKarate]

Marble Madness

[Obiwanshinobi]

I didn't have a chance to sample how Marble Madness plays with a trackball. Is the MAME's mouse support considered approximate enough?

[spadgy]

Marble Madness is by Mark Cerny, right? I presume, then, that the PS4's insides use tiny marbles rolling through grooves in the circuitry.

Anyway, on the matter of great ball rolling games, heres an Amiga freeware favourite from my childhood, Jump and Roll. My wife, too, had loved it as a child, and so I vowed to find her a copy as a present one year. Evetually I tracked it down to Amiga Format Issue 42's cover disk, and got one on eBay. Who knew that an tatty old cover mount disk could make a partner so happy?! But it's become about her most treasure gaming possession. It's clearly just a Trailblazer clone, but such great fun, and I feel it trumps Trailblazer. And it comes with the Mrs spadgy seal of approval! Just listen to the wicked audio as heard in this complete play-through video. It throws lots of tricks at you like control reversal, aggressive speed changes and so on, so a real mind game. Great little gem.

EDIT: Rock of Ages looks bats hit crazy great. I must try that.

Oh, and on the subject of visually lovely ball rolling games, of course The Katamari series is a wonderful thing.

[Koa Zo]

The Tengen port of Marble Madness for Mega Drive supports an upside-down mouse for track ball play.

My suggestion for an overlooked ball rolling game would be Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg.

(edit: spelling)

[Xyga]

Not exactly 'rolling' but I remember the headaches playing Kula World.
Really good game if you can handle the spinning.

[Obiwanshinobi]

My suggestion for an overlooked ball rolling game would be Billy Hacher and the Giant Egg.

Totally going to get it. Anyone knows if the PC version contains the minigames originally playable on GBA?

[Ruldra]

Billy Hatcher reminds me of Penguin Land. Good game but horribly frustrating.

[louisg]

The first Super Monkey Ball is one of my favorite games of that generation

[lilmanjs]

If you're up for a challenge, there is the Nifflas game Nightsky, which is as he's said a few times about it, his version of Marble Madness, since he's never been able to figure out how to get that perspective in a game engine. That game gets to being pretty hard towards the end, and then you have the hard mode which is crazy!

[boagman]

I didn't have a chance to sample how Marble Madness plays with a trackball. Is the MAME's mouse support considered approximate enough?

There really isn't any other experience with *any* rolling ball game that compares with a correctly-working Marble Madness trackball. It's just tops. You *feel* like the ball, honestly.

[BrianC]

I found Pac 'n Roll and Kirby's Canvas Curse on the DS to be great fun. I also like what I have played of the original Cameltry.

[Herr Schatten]

Anyway, on the matter of great ball rolling games, heres an Amiga freeware favourite from my childhood, Jump and Roll. My wife, too, had loved it as a child, and so I vowed to find her a copy as a present one year. Evetually I tracked it down to Amiga Format Issue 42's cover disk, and got one on eBay. Who knew that an tatty old cover mount disk could make a partner so happy?! But it's become about her most treasure gaming possession. It's clearly just a Trailblazer clone, but such great fun, and I feel it trumps Trailblazer. And it comes with the Mrs spadgy seal of approval! Just listen to the wicked audio as heard in this complete play-through video. It throws lots of tricks at you like control reversal, aggressive speed changes and so on, so a real mind game. Great little gem.

That music is lovely, indeed. I never heard of the game before. It seems to be inspired by Cosmic Causeway (Trailblazer II) rather than the original Trailblazer, which is definitely a good thing.

On the topic of ball rolling games with fantastic music, I cannot recommend Rock'n'Roll enough.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I remember playing the crap out of the DOS version of OXYD.

[spadgy]

That music is lovely, indeed. I never heard of the game before. It seems to be inspired by Cosmic Causeway (Trailblazer II) rather than the original Trailblazer, which is definitely a good thing.

On the topic of ball rolling games with fantastic music, I cannot recommend Rock'n'Roll enough.

I named an Amiga game you weren't already au fait with?! I didn't realise there were any!

As Amiga games are muscling in on this one, Soccer Kid is an interesting – if mediocre – spin on ball rolling. It's a platformer where you have to not just get a typical humanoid character through the levels, but also his football. The said ball is essentially a weapon, but something to be kicked and rolled through the levels as your character progresses. I'm fairly sure I remember it being shite, but the reviews say otherwise. Whatever the critique, it is ball rolling outside the normal genre and mechanics.

EDIT:

I also like what I have played of the original Cameltry.

I'd forgotten Cameltry. I really enjoyed that. Its original Driftout style screen rotation was a bit much, but great fun!

[Obiwanshinobi]

It must be said that Kororinpa on split-screen makes for a near-PERFECT simultaneous 2 player game, regardless of skill difference. In hindsight, Super Monkey Ball's cardinal flaw is the lack of such a mode (SMB engine supports split-screen, but I don't think you can chase each other's ghost simultaneously there, TrackMania way).
Music-wise, some pretty old Hudson tunes get re-used in Kororinpa, so have some fun discovering which could those be.

[XoPachi]

Not exactly ball rolling, but Cameltry was one I really liked...

(And Sanic. :u)

Switchball and Influx are also VERY beautiful games.
Marble Blast Ultra is KING though.

[boagman]

This thread got me to go to YouTube and watch a couple of playthroughs. For Marble Madness, the Speed Run through the arcade version is nothing shy of spectacular. What a display of ability and knowledge! Love it!

Of course, then I got to watching a couple of Capcom's The Punisher walkthroughs, and as impressive as the 1P 1LC was, there's also a 2P 1LC where they offer some *severe* limitations on themselves: no death (obviously), no use of bombs (Fury gets rid of a couple of them at the beginning of some stages just to be rid of them), and *no food*. They literally never pick up any food, even accidentally, either player.

While certain portions are definitely easier using two people, it's still an *incredible* play through of the game, and there were at least a couple of times I found myself getting tense thinking they weren't going to make it. I find it nigh-incredible that they honestly didn't pick up any food/recovery items at all (yes, the player's health is restored at the beginning of every stage), because some of them are literally dropped by enemies in the middle of the fight, and they'd be hard not to pick up just by accident.

Very nicely performed.

[austere]

Another ball-rolling game of note is Hamster Ball by Raptisoft (Windows only), mainly due to the music by Skaven (Peter Hajba). Nothing comes close to the "adorable" theme of Kororinpa though, they drove that one to its logical conclusion.

[GSK]

KoroKoro Postnin almost counts, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtbY2u7NjtM

[Stormwatch]

I think Mac-exclusive GooBall is like Monkey Ball with a stronger platformey feel. It was one of the earliest Unity games.

Moho / Ball Breakers, for PS1 and Dreamcast, is not exactly about rolling, but it has some interesting rolling physics.

[Austin]

Mojo is a ball rolling game for the PS2 and XBOX (maybe Game Cube as well?). It was an early 2000's budget release by FarSight. I do not remember if it was any good or not, I had only tried it for a few minutes when it was released.

[Ed Oscuro]

Cameltry gets my vote too! Good arcade format too.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I remember Cameltry being one of the Taito Legends 2's highlights, merely because analogue stick made sense as a substitute for the rotary system. (Doesn't the SNES version support mouse?)

[SuperDeadite]

Cameltry is a must own for all X68000 owners. It uses the mouse for full analog control, and every copy included an interesting contraption which turns the mouse into a spinner. Works very well with Cameltry, Arkanoid 2, and everyone's favorite Metal Orange EX. Can be hard to find these days, but so worth it.



Also Marble Madness on X68k is a perfect port really. Supports both the track-ball mouse (used in the pic above) as well as the standalone full size track ball, though that is really rare these days sadly.

[spadgy]

That peculiar metal frame thing was a bundled peripheral? Wow. It almost looks like a custom thing.

[retrojc]

Hello all,

Directed here from the Off-Topic Kickstarter thread.

I currently am making a ball game, called Forgotten Ball. I had never known there were so many ball games out there! I really enjoyed Marbel Madness as a child, and along with Kula World was one of my main inspirations for this game, as was Portal (back in the day) now, it's a platformer puzzle where you control a ball, through a tower labyrinth/maze kinda thing.

Kickstarter link here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/19 ... sed-advent

See a really big world WIP over viewhttp://forgottenball.co.uk/blog/wp-cont ... ro_one.png

I have made a gameplay trailer, uploading tonight
Ask me some questions

[Obiwanshinobi]

Not many questions I have to ask before any playable demo appears. I like the idea and graphics, but it's the controls that make or break those games. I can rant on the subject and I will later in the day, rest reassured.

It's going to be action-adventure of sorts, isn't it? If so, there should be some arcade-like "quick play" modes or challenges showcasing the gameplay. Local multiplayer even (hey, even Ico had it). If you can get this right, I believe more folks will take the projest seriously. Nothing wrong with Portal, but I miss the times where extra challenge was added by extra game design rather than "achievements".

[retrojc]

Demo is on the Kickstarter page, the controls for the game are a big deal for me, and though what you play now is very physics based (move faster in air) it's not something that won't be tweaked as the immediate feedback has had people torn, sadly. On Mobile I went to great lengths to give an acceleromator control system (tilt) which I allow the end user to alter the sensitivity of; but I also offer a fixed control layout; 3 buttons, exactly how I think a 2D game should be played.

As for people taking it seriously, that's something I don't quite understand, but I can accept that not everyone is going to see this game and think 'hey I believe in this project, and that guy'. I also accept the graphics aren't to everyone's taste, but this is one very big world, running on your iPhone 4.

I think our view of Portal differs; there is no achievements in this game per say; unlockable skins are the only rewards outside of actually getting past tricky areas. The game is built in the vain of my old favourite SMS/SNES platformers, I think they're a good inspiration Seriously though, I am a old school gamer (of sorts) and I believe in good design and reward, not "get over there for a trophy". I mean Sens Fortress of Dark Souls had some input too in this xD

I've seen people play this game and really smile when they get past the difficult bits; I think I have found a good balance but I won't know for sure until I release Forgotten Ball!