First Marble Blast video you've ever watched?

Yo, thought I would break the ice on a somewhat interesting subject.

What was the first Marble Blast video you watched at the time?

Sure this does seem like an indirect way of asking "What was your first exposure to Marble Blast?", my thought process with asking this question was expecting a broad range of situations. Whether you've been already a fan of the game and wanted to watch something about it on the Internet, or someone who accidentally stumbled onto it through recommendations. I also thought it would be interesting to hear any stories about how certain videos showed you aspects of the game, whether it be Custom levels or certain speedrunning techniques in the game. Hell, maybe this can go beyond Marble Blast, what videos introduced you to the music you listen to?



For me, funny enough, was the Marble Blast Gold trailer:


This was around the time I played the demo on RealArcade a bunch of times, I was trying to figure out if I can play levels past Ordeal/Upward Spiral (I don't remember which of the two were the last level in the demo.) and happened to stumble onto this video thinking I can find something I missed on the levels. My dumbass didn't know it was just a trailer from the official team.

Beyond that, the first video I saw from the community was Ray playing through a bunch of levels:


There is no story with this, I remember this being the first thing I found when I looked up "Marble Blast Gold" on Youtube. I would later watch other Marble Blast videos by Ray and eventually find Matan through him, but I wasn't an avid viewer there compared to Ray.

There is one more notable video, because it was my first exposure to Linkin Park, but I can't for the life of me find that video. It was another Custom Level playthrough similar to Ray's, but I remember it being recorded through a camera pointed at the monitor, and "Easier to Run" by Linkin Park was playing throughout the video.
Another one was a playthrough with the gravity changed, that one I remember because Marilyn Manson's version of "Sweet Dreams" was the song they used for the first fraction of the video. I remember another song playing afterwards, but that clearly didn't stick with me as much as Sweet Dreams.

As far as I can remember, this was the first video I ever saw. I was probably like 6 years old and I remember being so blown away by how skilled the gameplay is, which is funny because it really isn't anything crazy, but at that time I was probably still trying to get the gold time on There and Back Again so it wasn't too hard to impress me lol. Shoutout to Aayrl for being my introduction to the community.

I don’t think the first Marble Blast video I ever watched is still on YouTube. If I remember correctly, it was a MBU multiplayer video from Computer Clan which I must’ve saw in.. 2014? Through that video I found out about loads of other stuff like the marbleblast website and Matan’s youtube channel.

The first time I saw that Marble Blast was a thing was when I stumbled across the MBG Advanced levels tutorial (part 1) video by Jorbs3210. I was around 4 or 5 at the time. The moment I saw the video, I immediatly wanted to try the game out for myself.


Quickly afterwards, I stumbled upon JackRB's "10 seconds or less (marble blast)" vid in which he showed runs on levels that he completed in under 10s.


Around the same time I was also watching a STOP II run compilation, a MB Powered Up movie (both videos from Edward), as well as multiple Battlecube314 runs compilations.
I was quickly sold.

After some time of convincing, I got my parents to install the game on a 2012 Toshiba laptop upgraded from a Windows 8.1 to a Windows 10 (that would also be the laptop on which I played MC java for the first time) and started balling. I don't recall the name that I used for saving my times (phew!~). I also installed the game on my grandpa's former Windows Vista laptop, which later on, when playing MBSTOP I, comited death and stopped working entirely and had to be thrown out. After a few weeks of playing, I finally got to finish the game (Ski Slopes was the worst level out of the bunch at that time), and moved onto PQ.

That's the story of how I got addicted to rolling balls . Looks like starting from a young age really puts you at an advantage, doesn't it?
(Also I forced my older cousing to play PQ Gem Hunt with me, we were always playing as guests and iirc we were only playing meltdown. I feel bad for him as he still doesn't like the game to this day. I would also come over to play PQ. That would be the only time alongside the forced MP sessions that the game was up on his dad's laptop. I feel bad for him ngl)

I don't remember the exact first video I ever watched, but I can list a few of the videos I remember watching of Marble Blast from when I first started playing:





There are more, but I don't want to spam the thread with them.

I used to watch Marble Blast, Ballance, marble races and those colored ball animations all the time. I would watch it on my iPhone 4s  I remember I was scared whenever YouTube forced me to sign in when I accidentally clicked the YouTube icon on the Photos app. Sadly the iPhone 4s no longer supports the YouTube app in 2021, so I have to go to the web version to be able to watch. In 2022, I suddenly remembered it again. But the only memory I had are marbles and the word "platinum". I searched for results on Google trying to find the game, and voila! I found the game again! I was super excited that I went to this website and downloaded it on my Lenovo Ideapad laptop. I downloaded both Marble Blast Gold and PlatinumQuest on 21st September 2022. And the rest is history...

These Marble Blast videos came to mind when writing this article:




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DoxtonPink wrote:

There is one more notable video, because it was my first exposure to Linkin Park, but I can't for the life of me find that video. It was another Custom Level playthrough similar to Ray's, but I remember it being recorded through a camera pointed at the monitor, and "Easier to Run" by Linkin Park was playing throughout the video.


 

I found it! I was trying to look for a video with a common marble skin but ended up stumbling upon that exact video by accident.



Aside from Linkin Park, this video was notable because of the level "Signs" at around 1:54 in the video. I remember the initial upload for the CLA either forgot to include the level or just replaced it because of similar titles, the only thing that remained was the thumbnail, which for some reason convinced younger me that I can restore the mission file by renaming one of the files. Funny enough, this is still consistent, the Marbleland upload has the level thumbnail but a different mission file. This was also a point of discussion at one point in the Marble Blast discord where I tried to replicate the level to see if anyone can find it

Computer Clan Live, not sure which one but probably the first one I watched in 2015 when they played the game all the time. I can't link it here, and I'm sure many of you know why, but for those who don't, all of the CCL episodes on the Computer Clan Youtube channel were privated in early 2020 to (presumably) make room for the new version that came out at the same time. i regret not archiving them (although at that time I never could do so due to my shitty MacBook Pro) but they live on as memories, at least.

Long ago I used to watch a lot of Marble Blast videos because I couldn't play the full game back then, I only had the demo and my attempts at downloading the full game had been unsuccessful. Thankfully, I kept all backups of all I had done, which included the videos I downloaded as well as vaguely remembering the particular video which is most likely the first one that I had ever watched.
It was this one:

The downloaded flv file I have on the hard drive is dated 28th Dec 2010