I Finished PlatinumQuest the Other Night, Here Are My Thoughts.

Good afternoon. Prior to my introduction thread I was informed this would be the best place to share my thoughts on PQ, so here I am!

I will say first my experience is primarily with MBG (and MBU years later, which I think might be my favorite iteration of MarbleBlast in general). I also tried a little bit of the original Platinum back in the day, but not a whole lot.

But as far as PlatinumQuest goes? I think this was quite an enjoyable experience, that has a ton of ambition. My primary issue with the OG Platinum was that it felt a bit too tough as nails for me; it was clearly geared towards masters of the original game, and I just didn't have the skill level or patience to see the whole thing through, especially with its use of engine quirks that were mandatory for finishing some levels (whereas in Gold they were just optional speedrunning strats). But in PQ it feels like an earnest effort was made to make the game feel more accessible to a wider range of players, which instantly sets it apart from its predecessor.

With all said and done I enjoyed PQ a lot. The soft, pastel-ly colors to the textures are very pleasing to the eyes, but still manages to make the environments very colorful. Everything about the look of this game is pretty much a direct upgrade to what came before. Even the smaller things, like the addition of architecture and nature-like objects makes the levels feel more lively. I really enjoy the grass and flowers, the cartoonishly round trees feel right in place, and even all the thin wooden and glass-like structures give it a very cozy feel to it. I also really like the marble selection. It's very rare that I like the default marble skin, but that deep indigo marble with the soft cloudy patterns I found to be really well-designed and I kept it for my whole playthrough.

Now the main meat of the game, the levels, I found to be really enjoyable for the most part. Although I could do without some of the "revisited" levels (which sort of makes me feel like there may have been a struggle to fill the level groups with enough content), they weren't too frequent and overall the selection was quite varied. I think some personal stand outs for me were all the construction levels, the serendipity garden level is just stunning to look at and explore through as well. I also really enjoyed the playground level too, though personally the par time felt a bit too strict to really enjoy exploring the architecture in, it might have worked better just as a level where you collect all the gems and then head to a static finish pad. Speaking of the gem levels, I really have to commend the concept for some levels where you only have to collect a certain amount out of the overall total available, but you can optionally try to get every single one to "ace" the level. Honestly the amount of gimmicks present in the levels really feel nice and mix things up in a way where I probably would have gotten burnt out in the original Platinum.

Now, while I did enjoy my time with PQ, I do need to get a bit salty, because I have a plate of beef that I need to address. I mentioned this in one of my support threads, but the graphics on my Mac were a little blurry and gritty. This is likely due to Macs these days utilizing their patented retina displays so I can't really blame the development team for this, but it did still bother me a little because I bet this game would have looked even nicer with a clean screen resolution. (I may try testing something with Whisky/Wine in regards to this).

I will also add that not all levels were winners. I must address first that when I played MBG I preferred using WASD for the camera movement and the arrow keys for the marble movement, as I just wasn't a fan of using the mouse for this kind of game. With that said, I had a great deal of difficulty trying to complete some levels with my preferred key setup. There were a couple levels that were pretty much impossible for me to beat because it expected the precise movement of the mouse to keep up with all the action.

I also did not like the levels where you're forced to stay above a certain speed. Because of how unstable the speed build up is in this engine I always play more cautiously so I don't end up flinging myself off the level, but in these levels I'm basically being punished for going fast, but not crazy fast. "Momentum" (and its revisit in the expert group) is the biggest offender for me, due to its rather unfair obstacles that will kill your speed instantly if you so much as brush against them. Honestly I think these levels would be better if the whole speed minimum gimmick was just scrapped. These levels already encourage you to go fast, so this just felt like an unneeded level of frustration.

I was also not a fan of the 2D levels. Although I think its an ambitious gimmick, its mainly marred by not being able to see out far enough, which causes some levels to invoke the "blind leap of faith" trope, which is not very fun in my opinion. If the camera could pan out more (or inversely, shrink the size of the levels), it would be a lot more manageable.

There's also a couple other misc. things that bugged me. Such as the bonus unlock system, which I honestly didn't really like. I think it would be better if the bonus levels had more general requirements (such as "beat all intermediate levels," etc.) or maybe if the category itself unlocked after you beat "Manic Bounce" and reached the end credits, and you could just play everything inside it afterwords. I was also bugged by the online mode's custom levels tab because it was so tedious to search through that massive list of levels. It also bothered me that there was a dropdown list for "installed" custom levels, but the list kept clearing every time I closed the game (so they weren't actually installed). It would be so much better if you could, say, hit a download button somewhere, which would automatically download the level to your local missions folder, or if there was some kind of heart button that would bookmark the levels you enjoyed for easy access (it could replace the "installed" tab in the dropdown menu).

And I think that about wraps up my thoughts? I'm very sorry if this was quite a bit to read, but I had a lot to share in regards to PQ. Overall I found it to be a very enjoyable game. Plus with it having the level archives from previous games (as well as keeping their unique sounds and graphics for maximum authenticity), I think this could be the definitive way to enjoy MarbleBlast in the modern era. It just has a few bumps (as mentioned in the above paragraphs) that keep it from being a perfect experience.

Heya, great feedback about the game, however I have a few things to clarify your criticisms here:

I was also bugged by the online mode's custom levels tab because it was so tedious to search through that massive list of levels

This is actually an integration of the custom levels website called Marbleland, you can also search through this list in a much better way through it's website here: marbleland.vaniverse.io

t also bothered me that there was a dropdown list for "installed" custom levels, but the list kept clearing every time I closed the game (so they weren't actually installed). It would be so much better if you could, say, hit a download button somewhere, which would automatically download the level to your local missions folder, or if there was some kind of heart button that would bookmark the levels you enjoyed for easy access (it could replace the "installed" tab in the dropdown menu).
 

In earlier versions of the game, those levels used to be stored to disk upon downloading (which happens when you first load them). However it caused a pile of download custom levels to build up on Player's machines alongside taking up a ton of valuable disk space which overall contributed to bogging down the game and slowed down loading times. This behavior was changed by having these downloaded levels store in memory instead and it is also toggleable through Options > Gameplay > Advanced Options > Save Marbleland Customs Locally option. Additionally, the "heart" feature you talked about is also present on the Marbleland website, although you can't really connect your game to the user profile on Marbleland.

That is actually very good to know about the toggle option, though now that you mentioned the origin of where the custom levels came from I think I'll look through that instead and handpick what I wish to download. Marbleland looks to be a very helpful resource (also if you have any level recommendations that are around the intermediate to lower-advanced scale I'd love to check them out)

Shameless plug: I imagine you'll enjoy the MBG Reloaded pack I made a couple years ago that revisit the beginner levels. The intermediate set is staaaaarting to sneak into meme territory of if and when it will actually be finished, but a couple of them at least exist.

Other than that, there are so many custom levels out there (almost 7,000 on Marbleland, I think?) so it's difficult to just name a few suggestions. An alternative is to check out the  Quarterly Marbleland Highlights  thread I started last year and see what piques your interest. Some level builders I'd recommend looking at in general are Endy, Connie, Phil, Threefolder, Technostar, Blasted (James C.), and myself. 

Nockess wrote:

Shameless plug: I imagine you'll enjoy the MBG Reloaded pack I made a couple years ago that revisit the beginner levels. The intermediate set is staaaaarting to sneak into meme territory of if and when it will actually be finished, but a couple of them at least exist.

 

Will try that! I also checked out your Luminascent level, and it's one of the prettiest levels I've ever seen in a MB game. Your use of the soft PQ textures makes it very pleasing to the eyes.

A well written thoughtful commentary of this game we love. Beautiful. Thank you for writing this. 

Thanks for posting this! It's always fascinating to hear what new people think of this game.

To me, the visuals are some of the best parts of the game, and I too love the nature-themed levels. The Spoils of Serendipity Gardens is, in my opinion, the most beautiful level in the game. That alone makes the game more fun to play than it otherwise would. I also agree that PQ as a whole did a better job of balancing the skill required to complete it than MBP did. I remember being a kid and never knowing how to complete Roll Like the Wind in MBP because I didn't know you could roll up walls with shock absorbers (it never told you that), so I was stuck on it for a whole month until I eventually looked up a video on how to complete it. I like how PQ gives you the option to skip levels that you're stuck on, and in order to beat the game (beat Manic Bounce) you don't even have to beat every other level. So the level unlock system actually works well for me and I think that's one of PQ's strong points.

Now being a Mac user, I completely agree about the lack of support for Retina displays. It makes the game more difficult to play and see, especially if you have  bad eyesight . I've had a Mac with a Retina display since 2018, and with the console specifically where every character is 3 x 6 pixels on a normal display, putting that on a Retina display makes it completely illegible for me.



Curious to hear how WINE could help this.

I feel like the "revisited" levels were a callback to how those appeared in MBG (Great Divide/Great Divide Revisited, Three-Fold Maze/Escher's Race, Monster Speedway Qualifying/Monster Speedway). I don't think it was a good decision. Just because MBG did it doesn't mean it was a good idea, and more levels does not necessarily equal better levels, especially when they are more like lazy copies, and especially when you're choosing bad levels to copy, like Rush Hour. I also enjoyed Gem Quota, but I think Gem Hunt would be much more in-line with the rest of single player if the gems and starting position were set every time. Then you'd have no randomness and you'd be able to optimize the level with total certainty, just like the rest of single player.

I'm curious about which levels felt nearly impossible to do using keyboard for camera movement. And I agree about Consistency being super annoying, although there's a certain custom level by SummerArmy that at least utilizes Consistency in a creative way, by setting the Consistency speed to 1 and then having ice shards, so that you're always safe unless you hit an ice shard. But that's such a specific case that I don't really think the mode has anything going for it. Same with Haste. I don't like most 2D levels either, but the ones in Bonus are actually very cool and creative. There's also a custom level called Thicket by Lee (I think) which uses both 3D and 2D in conjunction, in a better way than Diminishing Returns ever did. I honestly think many of the PQ-themed custom levels are much better than a lot of official levels included in PQ itself. You can find many of them in Custom Packs 7–8 on the leaderboards.

Again, thanks for writing all this! I always love talking about this game, regardless of anyone's opinions.

Hey thanks for the meaty response, NF. Sorry to hear about your eyesight though.

I had a lot more to reply with originally but the forums might have accidentally gave me an error with replying back and deleted my original comment, aha.

But real quick: I sadly couldn't make any progress with trying WINE. The fork I was using, Whisky, has a built in Retina Mode toggle, but I just could not run the launcher at all when I made the bottle, so unfortunately it was a failed experiment.

I will also say in response to the few levels I could not beat: Conservation of Momentum is really frustrating if only because of its forced par time, which again forces me to be reckless with my speed, which keeps leading to more resets when I fly off the track. Though the BIG one for me now is "Emergency Stopping Only." Frankly I think this is just the worst level in the entire game, and it may be entirely because of my preferred playstyle. I always have a 50% chance of bumping into the architecture at the first jump, and no matter what I do at the end I never have enough speed to make it up that ridiculously big loop (even with diagonal movement). These are the only two levels I feel just needs to be totally redone, because I shouldn't be reseting as much as I have (which I'm sure has risen up to 60 retries now, haha)

Also you are definitely right in that I've been enjoying a lot of the custom PQ levels over the official ones. Nockess and Connie's levels have been real standout ones in visuals alone, but in general yeah the customs have some really fun ideas that honestly should have been put in the official level groups. It's a real shame!

Graviga wrote:

I had a lot more to reply with originally but the forums might have accidentally gave me an error with replying back and deleted my original comment, aha.

This is why I always write my posts in a text editor if I know they'll be long, because these forums are unfortunately pretty bad about that.

Yes, Emergency Stopping Only is an absolutely terrible level. I also want to highlight lowlight Fire When Ready as my personal pick for the worst level in the game. I had no idea you were supposed to go backwards after the first cannon, so I kept aiming for the hole. Then at the space cannon, you don't have any indication of where you're going to launch in terms of height, and you can't even really do anything about it. Then that water wall sends you super high in the air for absolutely no reason, and I'm pretty sure the space platform part is genuinely impossible to do as intended now (I think there was an update to the game at some point where moving platform frictions were changed). I hate it SO MUCH.

In addition to Nockess and Connie, Endy also makes fantastic custom levels! High Maintenance and Flood in particular are great uses of PQ's style and gimmicks done in a more polished and replayable way than the standard PQ levels. It would be cool to see a reimagining of the game that is currently PQ into something that values quality over quantity, sort of like Nockess's MBG Reloaded level pack, except scrapping a lot of the PQ levels and putting some of the better-designed customs in their place. I don't think that's ever going to happen though.

And that's a shame about WINE. But I didn't even know it was theoretically possible to hack in Retina support, so you've impressed me just by knowing that.

NF wrote:

It would be cool to see a reimagining of the game that is currently PQ into something that values quality over quantity, sort of like Nockess's MBG Reloaded level pack, except scrapping a lot of the PQ levels and putting some of the better-designed customs in their place. I don't think that's ever going to happen though.

I think Ralph's Comeback pack is the closest thing we have to that. Introduces a handful of the PQ concepts pretty comfortably, they're also pleasant to play. Definitely recommend these too.

@Nockess: Wooooah, I'll have to check out that Ralph pack. Yeah the customs have been really nice so far. I would really love to try more.

@NF: I don't know exactly how it works with Whisky/Wine since I'm not the most tech savvy with how programs and apps work, but I assume the mode toggle basically just changes the window settings so it renders the game window at its native size according to the retina desktop. The window at first appears really tiny, but if the window resolution settings in-game can go high enough you can increase it back to the size you originally had it, but now with cleaner game graphics. The only drawback is that the UI elements may stay tiny as a result (due to you setting the screen resolution to something around ~3,000 pixels). But that's how it works to my knowledge. I dunno if this opens up possibilities to experiment with the mac build or not, but I felt it be worth mentioning anyway.

As an update also, I finally managed to beat the remaining expert levels! I will say I've softened up a bit on "Conservation of Momentum" once I learned you could take your time in lap 1 getting all the gems, then take lap 2 faster without worry, which always got me under 1 minute laptime (there's still some crummy geometry to deal with but it's not as bad as I thought before).

My feelings on "Emergency Stopping Only" have remained unchanged, however, and I still think it's the worst level in the whole game. Since the level (thankfully) didn't have a par time, one idea I figured out was going back to the beginning of the runway with a speed booster power-up, then building up my speed again. That way I have two speed boosters to use when going up the loop. This STILL isn't entirely foolproof, but I was eventually able to hit the finish pad with enough speed. But MAN did this level need some more testing, haha.

I did try out adding proper Retina support during development and the result was just like you said: the game allowed setting a higher resolution while the rest of the UI elements remained tiny. It ultimately did not look great and I had to revert those changes. The GUI layout code was also never built to accommodate for UI element scaling either (it is from 2002!) so there wasn't really an easy way to just scale the UI elements so that they don't look tiny without having to do a large refactor..

I imagine such scaling restrictions also affected things like the online chat windows and pop up hints too, that would be quite difficult to read too, so I understand why it would be reverted.

Is there at least any way to make the window title and top menu bars not blurry while the game is active? Or is that deeply linked to the no-retina display?

I'm not sure about the window title and the menu bars since on my end, they don't seem to look any different.

I'll make a support thread about it when I get home since it may be a bug I'm experiencing, based your reply. In any case I appreciate the explanation about the retina display.