Marble Marcher
A downloadable game for Windows
Marble Marcher is entirely ray-marched (similar to ray-tracing) in real time and is played on the surface of evolving fractals. The goal is to get your marble to the goal as quickly as possible. There are 24 unique levels to master.
Background
This game is the result of a fractal physics engine I developed that allows fast collisions with fractals and other procedurally rendered objects. As far as I'm aware, it is the first game to ever use this technique.
The game is also open source: https://github.com/HackerPoet/MarbleMarcher
The game is no longer in active development. However, due to the open source nature of the project, further development can be found with "Marble Marcher Community Edition" which can be downloaded here and has many new features: https://michaelmoroz.itch.io/mmce
System Requirements
You will almost certainly need a dedicated GPU to run this game at 60fps without lag. Older GPUs may need to run at the lowest resolutions, while high-end ones can run fine at the higher resolutions.
Playtime
30 to 45 minutes
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
Comments
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how do you beat mind the gap its impossible
I just discovered that this game used wrong, slower GPU instead of my RTX and it lagged, now I have it smooth after changing graphics settings on Windows.
this game made my trash computer explode, 10/10
This game is an awesome display of real-time fractals. Can we have an uncapped framerate please? GPUs have gotten fast and monitor refresh rates have gotten high (480 Hz!). I'd love to see it running beyond 60 Hz. :)
A couple of years back my friend asked me to make him a video to go along with a song he was working on. I had been playing Marble Marcher around that time and made this using entirely in-game graphics. Music from Cathartic Productions. Thanks for the awesome game!
Excelente juego, estoy desarrollando un proyecto a cerca de la presencia de los fractales en el cine y videojuegos. Me gustaría poder usar Marble Marcher y a la vez me gustaría conocer su funcionamiento y sobre todo el desarrollo de los fractales para poder recrear uno por mi cuenta, gracias.
Yedoma Globula has similar gameplay to what you're describing, so you might what to check it out. Cheers! https://bananaft.itch.io/yedomaglobula
How to activate cheats
How do you complete "around the citadel"?
Just go around the citadel :)
One of the most spectacular demo experiences I've ever had. Mind-boggling graphics, an immersive soundtrack, excellent sound design, and intuitively tuned controls. The only changes I would make would be to expand the hitbox for the winning flag to prevent player annoyance and add a dash/jump to better improve mobility.
Wish there were an Android port of this. Tilting to navigate would be fun!
you should make it so people that use a Mac/Macintosh computer can use this game too, reason why I'm mentioning this is because some game file types on windows aren't supported on Mac so the game might not work for those people
Is there any way to support 21x9 aspect resolutions? Fullscreen on my monitor: a) cuts off part of the menu, b) turns the marble into an ellipsoid, and squashes the map too.
release for mac please
I am sure a mac will not have a GPU good enough for this game. RTX3060Ti running almost full power for this game
It runs flawlessly through wine (on Linux at least), so you could give that a go.
Me: maybe I'll try to see if it works like that
System: you cannot run "marble marcher.exe" because windows files are not supported on Mac.
Me: W̴̥͐H̷̢̃Y̴̡̐ ̸̖̈́C̵̱͑À̷̘N̴̨̽'̵͈͂T̶̘̈ ̴̭̓L̴͓̀I̸͗ͅF̵̪̎Ë̷̳́ ̸̖̈́J̶͙̾Ȗ̴̢S̵̹̍T̷̘͝ ̶̩̈B̴̖̅Ḙ̶̕ ̶͓͝N̶̖̽Ȍ̵̞R̴̞͌M̷̞̆Â̴͔L̵̩͠ ̸̗͘F̴̢̍O̴̳̎R̵͕̀ ̵̨͗O̷͚͗N̴̺̓Ĉ̶͇
I think we are overdue for more levels or a sequel.
holds out a bowl in his tiny trembling hands, and says in a tiny trembling voice;
"Please sir.... can I have some more ?"
Then in stepped the Marble Marcher Community with a huge ladle full of second helpings and pudding to follow.
https://github.com/WAUthethird/Marble-Marcher-Community-Edition
Is it a virus?
what? no, its just a super monkey ball type game.
good
Marble Madness and Super Monkey Ball took acid and had a baby.
10/10 couldn't work on my world geography final because of this game. would recommend.
* sad mac user noises*
You can just build it yourself on any OS:
https://github.com/HackerPoet/MarbleMarcher
If we could disable shadows it would probably be able to run easily on about any hardware. I run on the second lowest setting on intel HD Graphics 620, and it's butter smooth on scren saver (50-60 fps), and between 30 and 40 fps when playing. Maybe an opaque marble could save a few resources for lower-end devices too.
As for the gameplay and the music : simple and nice.
We have potato?
Potato changes the resolution for rendering everything, with an insanely low 320x180 (I don't know who would actually play like this). It does run smoothly on low-end GPUs but is nowhere near looking like enjoyable.
Adding settings for shadows (which can be very power expensive) and reflections (same goes) would allow for higher quality rendering but better performance on every hardware, including low-end, perhaps drastically.
I use the potato setting...
i also potato!
CodeParade Made a video about the rendering process and(according to him) due to the way ray marching works
Shadows come at pretty much no extra work when rendering
Sorry, I said shadow but I was talking about the AO, my bad
I have no idea how much the shadows would cost
Most games use rasterization, this one uses ray marching, so it works in a very different way. This game can't use rasterization because the fractals are not made with polygons like any other 3D model in any other game
I love the catwalk and the sponge, keep up the great work
interesting... trippy kinda feel or something. Really cool looking art!
noice, a game that features fractals. Kinda wanna try
marble marcher for mac is gone! crabrave?
no. this is a serious problem.
im on mac too
It looks amazing
Anyone else had to learn the hard way that right click resets? That made me feel literal pain.
omg yessssssssssssssssss
i cant jump
that is not possible. You can jump by going over ramps
Or over bumps so tiny they don't even fill a pixel on the screen lol
try to make it for crome if posable
Are you talking about a Chrome Book? When yes you can just enable linux mode and recompile it.
what is linux mode
It's a 2016 chromebook it's not the one 2here can do the roof style
https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/9145439?hl=en That
can you give me some step by step intructions on how to load it through linux
When hhaving that activated you have an app folder called Linux in that there is a terminal. That will you need. In the terminal you need to download the source code. Run in the terminal "sudo apt install git libeigen3-dev libsfml-dev make cmake" to install the dependencies. Now run "git clone https://github.com/HackerPoet/MarbleMarcher" to clone the git repo. Then "cd MarbleMarcher" to open that folder and then execute "mkdir build && cd build" to create a new folder and open it "cmake .." to setup the build system "cd .." to get back to the root folder "cmake --build build" to build it
wish he had support for other platforms. looks interesting.
i personally use linux
how do i do that? (nvm)
How do I fly or just explore?
i want this open for mac, please. please.
Hello! First of all, congrats on the great work, really interesting. That being said, have you written any papers, tech reports or material that can be used to study the theories involved and your application of them in making the game?
I ask that because I am a university teacher here in Brasil and I currently have a student working on procedural generation of game scenarios and he has found your game and now he is very interested in doing something similar.
Thanks in advance!
I have not written any papers on the collision detection used in the game (my main contribution here). However, there are many papers and tutorials already about ray marching rendering and procedural fractals or terrains. Specifically, you could check out the work of Inigo Quilez. But for collisions, I do have a more robust implementation in my python framework PySpace that generalizes the NP function to other SDFs besides Marble Marcher.
Thank you again for the quick response! I'll make sure to check the reference you provided as well as your python framework.
Now with the release of the RTX 3000 cards, do you plan on adding a 4K patch?
most likely there won't be an update for that but you can take a look at the Marble Marcher Community Edition, that has support for custom resolutions and also has better graphics and performance.
Hope all work is good for hyperbolica . So, I watch your garfeild video and thought about you making something with a similar tecnology, but with random shapes for each picture.If you make something like this, thank you and have a great day.
Thank you!
I WANT FOR MacOS!
running it under wine works pretty well!
I had this bookmarked for the longest time.
Finally tried it, and it's great!