

His initial idea involved hitting a ball in a way similar to miniature golf, but Atari was not enthusiastic. After deciding to use an isometric grid, Cerny began developing the game's concept. Cerny began testing various ideas using Atari's art system. He was first inspired by miniature golf and captivated by the idea that a play field's contours influenced the ball's path. Cerny designed Marble Madness in accordance with these company goals. Following the North American video game crash of 1983, video game development within Atari focused on providing a distinctive experience through the use of a unique control system and by emphasizing a simultaneous two-player mode. The project, however, was canceled and the two began work an idea of Cerny's that eventually became Marble Madness. Cerny and Flanagan first collaborated on a video game based on Michael Jackson's Thriller. The game's music was composed by Brad Fuller and Hal Canon who spent a few months becoming familiar with the capabilities of the sound chip. Marble Madness was Atari's first game to use an FM sound chip produced by Yamaha, which is similar to a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer and creates the music in real time so that it is in synchronization with the game action.


The game features pixel graphics on a 19 inch Electrohome G07 model CRT monitor, and uses a Motorola 68010 central processing unit (CPU) with a MOS Technology 6502 subsystem to control the audio and coin operations. It uses the Atari System 1 hardware, an interchangeable system of circuit boards, control panels, and artwork. Both Cerny and Flanagan handled programming the game.
#DX7 PATCHES NINTENDO SOFTWARE#
Marble Madness was developed by Atari Games, with Mark Cerny as the lead designer and Bob Flanagan as the software engineer. For example, the first course, "Practice", is a simple course that is much shorter than the others, while the fifth course, "Silly", features polka-dot patterns and is oriented in an opposite direction from the other courses. As the game progresses, the courses become increasingly difficult and introduce more enemies and obstacles. Courses are populated with various objects and enemies designed to obstruct the player. The game also features an option which allows two players to race against each other on the courses. Each course has its own time limit, with the remaining time left over from completing a course added to the succeeding one. The aim of the game is for the player to traverse six maze-like, isometric courses before a set amount of time expires. The player controls the marble's movements with a trackball, though most home versions use game controllers with directional pads. Marble Madness is an isometric platform game where the player manipulates an onscreen marble from a third-person perspective. A sequel was developed and planned for release in 1991, but canceled when location testing showed that the game could not succeed in competition with other titles. The game was ported to numerous platforms and inspired the development of other games. Praise among critics focused on the game's difficulty, unique visual design, and stereo soundtrack. Upon its release, Marble Madness was commercially successful, becoming a profitable arcade game. Throughout development, he was frequently impeded by limitations in technology and had to forgo several design ideas. Cerny applied a minimalist approach in designing the appearance of the game's courses and enemies. He aimed to create a game that offered a distinct experience with a unique control system. In designing the game, Cerny drew inspiration from miniature golf, racing games, and artwork by M. Marble Madness is known for using innovative game technologies it was one of the first games to use true stereo sound-previous games used either monaural sound or simulated stereo-and it was Atari's first to use the Atari System 1 hardware and to be programmed in C. The player controls the marble by using a trackball.

It is a platform game in which the player must guide an onscreen marble through six courses, populated with obstacles and enemies, within a time limit. Marble Madness is an arcade video game designed by Mark Cerny, and published by Atari Games in 1984.
