Author Topic: Marble-Man Marble Madness 2  (Read 64893 times)

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Offline GHS

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Re: Marble-Man Marble Madness 2
« Reply #15 on: June 01, 2016, 04:15:44 pm »
So far no response from mamedev.
Any ideas? or do I call it quits.

Offline GHS

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Re: Marble-Man Marble Madness 2
« Reply #16 on: June 12, 2016, 12:01:02 pm »
I finally got an email from MAMEDEV and the rumors are false. They dont have the rom or wip drivers.
so no luck there.
 

Offline TerraEsperZ

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Re: Marble-Man Marble Madness 2
« Reply #17 on: June 13, 2016, 12:53:25 pm »
Well, you gave it a nice go at least. It's just frustrating to know that something unique like this game, a literal piece of videogame history, might end up being lost forever simply by virtue of someone hoping to make big bucks by keeping it exclusive :(.
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Offline GHS

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Re: Marble-Man Marble Madness 2
« Reply #18 on: January 09, 2020, 07:54:19 pm »
New info, it seems that their are 4 MM2 arcade machines to exist acording to lost media archive and guru's rom dumping news as well as some forum rumors. 2 by scott, 1 possibly by YouTube user phantomdj, and 1 assumed to be owned by developer Bob Flanagan.
I tried to contact phantombj but got no response (one his video of MM2 he says "I DO NOT OWN NOR DO I HAVE ACCESS TO THIS ROM".
Now I am trying to fined out how to get in contact with Bob Flanagan, but its proving difficult.
« Last Edit: January 09, 2020, 08:06:02 pm by GHS »

Offline GHS

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Re: Marble-Man Marble Madness 2
« Reply #19 on: October 28, 2020, 05:11:50 pm »
Found anather person that has it. Vector Initiative arcade auction. just sent them an email, so lets hope this works.

Vector Initiative #Hangarcade at facebook

Offline TerraEsperZ

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Re: Marble-Man Marble Madness 2
« Reply #20 on: October 28, 2020, 07:49:12 pm »
That's real gaming archaeology work right there!

I wish you good luck in getting access to such a rarity.
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Offline GHS

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Re: Marble-Man Marble Madness 2
« Reply #21 on: November 01, 2020, 06:13:38 am »
NO luck. all i got back was "Message not delivered" "The recipient server did not accept our requests to connect." I cant seem to fine a way to get in contact with him. https://forums.arcade-museum.com/members/visionik.71337/

Offline GHS

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Re: Marble-Man Marble Madness 2
« Reply #22 on: November 06, 2020, 05:28:53 am »
There is some good news. I reached out to some one (reliable source) in the mame team and he has confirmed that It is dumped and in a private build of MAME "that's a given". Kined of like how primal rage 2 is. I guess the game is secured from what ever happens to the hardware.
So when it will be released is up to the rom owners.

Offline GHS

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Re: Marble-Man Marble Madness 2
« Reply #23 on: August 16, 2021, 12:05:56 pm »
more info on MM2
I talke to the guy in the video (Scott, no not scott evans). He is doing FPGA duplicates of MM2 to "get it into more hands". Any more than that he does not comment. MM2 is its own unique hardware and thats all I got from him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZuNhFp0-Ak&t=8080s
« Last Edit: August 16, 2021, 12:44:18 pm by GHS »

Offline JonLeung

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Re: Marble-Man Marble Madness 2
« Reply #24 on: December 05, 2021, 10:25:46 am »
If you didn't notice the update today...
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/Arcade/index.htm#MarbleMadnessII

Yes, we have maps of the final version of this game now.  I was sent these maps from an anonymous source.

I think I can share some details that they shared with me about the game, and rewrite it all in my own words, so you can't analyze word choice and sentence structure to identify the mystery Marble Madness II mapper... LOL.

---

In the original test build, the marble turns into "Marble Man" at the end of the level.  Afterwards, all references to "Marble Man" have been removed, so this should just be known as "Marble Madness II".

Level details:

Oasis: The palm trees throw coconuts at you.

North Pole: The snowmen throw snowballs at you, and the icicles fall down repeatedly whenever you pass by.  There are also more than are visible on the map.

Sunburst: The dark clouds get angry faces and strike you with lightning when you go under them.  Shooting stars fly at you at certain areas.

Wacky: The frying pans smack you, and the forks jump on you, both of which shatter you.  The red squares are where jack-in-the-box characters pop out.

Deep Sea: This is underwater, with bubbles constantly floating up.  You fall really slowly, so you can roll off higher drops and still survive. Eels come out of the holes on the wall, and the stingrays can land on you and eat you.

Wierd Walls: Yes, "Weird" is misspelled in the game.  Fists pop out of the walls to stun and crush you.  Acid leaks out of the walls at certain points.

Silly: Unlike most other levels, here, you go backwards, from the bottom to the top.  New here are purple birds that fly out at you at certain points, which kill you if they hit you.

King Of The Mountain: Another bottom-to-top level.  The Grinch-looking characters throw rocks at you, and are very accurate.  If you roll into them, they jump off the ledge and land on their face.  The iced ramp at the end is very difficult to scale, especially with the time limit.

---

So, at last, this mysterious game has been mapped.  I guess there's still intrigue that the ROM is extremely hard to come by...  But is it at least satisfying that we now have the maps?

Offline TerraEsperZ

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Re: Marble-Man Marble Madness 2
« Reply #25 on: December 05, 2021, 08:11:51 pm »
To whoever mapped this game, good job!

Although there are a lot more maps than in the original games, they appear to be more generic instead of all being really unique.

But more than anything, I'm just really intrigued by all the secrecy...
Current project:
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Offline GHS

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Re: Marble-Man Marble Madness 2
« Reply #26 on: December 06, 2021, 09:55:58 am »
Big thanks to Anonymous for offering them up.
Just to be clear what version are the maps? Alpha, Marble Madness 2 or Beta, Marble Man.
Is there anymore info on the differences between versions?

Offline GHS

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Re: Marble-Man Marble Madness 2
« Reply #27 on: December 06, 2021, 10:09:37 am »
Neverminde. I see that the maps are of Alph version looking on youtube.

Offline JonLeung

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Re: Marble-Man Marble Madness 2
« Reply #28 on: December 06, 2021, 11:27:08 am »
Since I've been linking this post in a few places, here's the link to all the directly-extracted maps of Marble Madness II again:
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/Arcade/index.htm#MarbleMadnessII

As for the changes, I was also sent a PDF of a document (originally on Atarigames.com) detailing the changes between the Beta version and the final version.  (In a previous message they also said Alpha and Beta versions are reversed.)  I have made the PDF into an image which you can read here:


They also included three other images which I didn't put up initially, since they aren't maps, but since there is interest around this game, I might as well include them here.

First is the unedited title screen.


Then we have the Maze Select screen, as you can select which to start on.   (Note that it shows that "Wierd Walls" is indeed spelled that way...)


And we have a screenshot of fireworks upon reaching the goal in the final maze, "King Of The Mountain".


"Anonymous" said it's okay to mention that they have a special MAME build for this, and have had it for 18 years, but actually forgot about it for a while, almost expecting it to have been publicly released by now, but apparently not.  They managed to play an actual Marble Madness II machine at California Extreme (an annual arcade game event in San Jose), but it was not appealing, as it is the one with joysticks instead of a trackball.  As for mapping this using MAME, they had to make a cheat for infinite time in order to so.

Also, further clarification... the anonymous person not only knows about and follows this topic, but it was thanks to this very topic that they discovered VGMaps.com in the first place!  I am sure that is exciting for George, who we can all thank, for without this topic, we might not have these maps today.  And a new mapper friend, who we may see more from, though you may never know when we do.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2021, 08:27:39 am by JonLeung »

Offline TerraEsperZ

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Re: Marble-Man Marble Madness 2
« Reply #29 on: December 06, 2021, 08:05:45 pm »
Those original development notes are a really neat find.

I've always enjoyed reading about how movies and video games evolve over the course of their making.
The early pitch, the overly ambitious but ill-defined ideas, the grandiose and wild concept art... and the final, often much more limited and conventional result resulting from the various limitations in terms of time, money, feasibility, early customer feedback.

Thanks for the hard work Anonymous, whoever you are 8).
Current project:
Mega Man: Powered Up (PSP)