210 Levels of Marble Blast

Hi everyone,

I plan on making 210 fun-filled levels with Marble Blast Gold (the original from 2003, not any modifications) elements:

60 beginner levels

60 intermediate levels

60 advanced levels

and 30 expert levels.

The first half of the beginner levels will be introduction to concepts,

while the second half of the beginner levels will be application levels that are easier than the intermediate levels are.

This is just my plans, I haven't made any levels yet but will start by posting the beginner levels after they are made.

Hello JPF, great that you're getting into level-making.

If you haven't made any levels up until now, maybe its best to shorten your scope, 210 levels is a pretty ambitious number. This would only stress you out in the long run.

How about starting off small? Just so you can appreciate the process of making levels before you get your bearings into bigger projects. It doesn't have to be perfect nor up to standard, just whatever happens to be on your mind at the time. It's only through learning where you'll understand your style and how to make good levels.

It will take time, but eventually, you might build the confidence to make your own level pack. It doesn't necessarily have to be 210 levels, I don't think there are that many creator level packs that exceed that number, let alone 100.

I have experience making levels with the game since I first downloaded the original in 2003, I just registered on the forums only now - 210 levels is definitely not stressful for someone with my expertise.

I am using only the pre-provided interiors that come with the game and not making my own interiors, so some levels will be basically exactly like the original levels that come with the game already (for example level 8 is exactly like beginner level 5, because it introduces the concept of having to stop and wait for a platform, and I didn't see any reason to change it because the level already solidifies the concept for me as it was).

I have made only the first 8 levels so far, but please feel free to let me know how they play and if they are appropriate for absolute beginner levels that are just getting you used to the game and aren't meant to be challenging yet.

Link to Download on my Google Drive

You should upload your levels to Marbleland as it is the de facto place to upload and share custom levels nowadays.

Awesome! Thank you!

Now it's uploaded on Marbleland - I included descriptions for all 8 levels explaining my thought process.

I'm adding more levels cause I figure 8 out of 210 isn't enough - there should be 16 total in my latest upload, and please feel free to let me know if any of them are inappropriate for something that's meant to be an introduction to Marble Blast (IE: if any are too hard for what I want, have unintended solutions or other bugs, etc).

Hey, welcome to the forums! 🤝 Great to see your enthusiasm, I hope you continue to make levels beyond the ones you've uploaded already.

I want to address the several levels that are duplicates of the ones from Marble Blast Gold, particularly since they're among the types that are trying to be avoided on Marbleland. Obviously the point stands that they fill up the catalogue a bit needlessly, but there's also the perspective that someone can play the original levels and have a virtually identical experience. There's been common action of removing duplicates off of Marbleland, but I wanted to give you a heads up first and wait for you to say something before considering going down that route of moderation.

But I don't want this to discourage you at all - I'd love to challenge you to reimagine the tutorial-style levelsa little. I notice that a few of them have been repurposed, which is a good start and better than reusing the Jump Training level to teach jumping , but consider branching out a bit!

The five images below are all different takes of typical tutorial levels, three of which were made with the level editor and the other two uses incredibly simple geometry. They were all made by different people, so you can see the differences in stylistic approach. You can also look at the several user mods out there that also have these tutorial levels.


I hope this sparks some interest to explore a bit further! Take full advantage of the hundreds of interiors available to you through the CLA. I admit I would normally recommend not bothering with tutorial levels, since no one who's play this game for more than a week needs to learn what gems are, but I understand from personal experience too that they're easy ones to knock out when level building in this context, so run wild with them.

Hop on the Discord server if you want some real-time feedback too. Best of luck!

Hope to see more interesting levels, but I just have a few things to say:

- You shouldn't copy paste MBG levels and then make very minimal changes to it (such as Branched Path, your first level, which is just Ramp Matrix with swapped finish and start pads). You also shouldn't just directly copy MBG levels and re-upload them (like you did with "To The Pain!", which is just Jump Training with no changes made to it.
- As an extension to that: You can do so much more with the level editor rather than placing one interior, and both Start/End pads. Try playing some CLA levels from back in the day and you'll see what I mean.
- I'm aware you have stated that you only want to use the default MBG interiors, but Constructor (or any Quake map editor such as Trenchbroom or Quark) allows you to make custom interiors (which is what most of the levels on Marbleland uses, and what was used to create the MBG interiors that you are currently using. Obviously, not required, but just a suggestion.
- Oh, and are you sure you have 210 ideas for levels? Seems like a lot, you should try just "casual" level building (if this makes sense at all) instead of immediately starting a big project like this.
- I would also recommend finishing all the levels first before you upload them, because the front page of Marbleland has been flooded with your levels, and other people who would want to upload their levels will quickly see their uploaded work get washed away quickly.

Awesome feedback from both you guys. I know if it's a series as I intend for the levels to be in a linear progression, I should post one big zip in a package (which is an option on the site too) rather than just flooding 210 levels seperately and obscuring peoples' work who put in the time and effort to make their own levels from the ground up.

The aim of my project is just to re-tell Marble Blast Gold in 210 levels rather than 100, and I still will not use my own levels - both of you guys are right though if the level has absolutely zero changes (like levels 3 or 13) it feels like a ripoff without any creativity of my own put into it, and I've demonstrated I am capable of it in the other levels you guys pointed out, so I will fix those.

However, levels like 7 or 9 where the only change I make is to omit a few or all of the gems and swap the end points are intentional, because those things will make the levels play differently than the original vesrion.

I forgot to say this earlier, but take advantage of the pack system on Marbleland too. Particularly, you can arrange levels to your choosing so the intended order is clearer.

When I try uploading the levels after uploading them the first time to upload a pack (on the upload levels screen at first, you can only choose zip or choose folder, you can't make a pack yet), I get told the levels have already been uploaded.

This is fair because it's obviously true, but my question is if I uploaded the levels already how do I upload the pack then?

Create the level pack (which you don't actively need to be uploading a level to do), and then just add the levels afterwards. One of those cases where it's easier to figure out just by floating around on Marbleland rather than trying to explain it intricately.

Awesome! I got them all in the pack now.

Note the final level is intentionally the most similar to an original Marble Blast level with the only change being the qualify time, but now all the other levels should be different enough (and yes, I say level 7 is different enough than the original Ramp Matrix with the removal of the gems and the start and end points swapped).

Levels 31 thru 60, as mentioned above, I haven't made yet but they will be beginner friendly levels that are more challenging and aren't just tutorial levels, like something like levels 22 and 24 of the beginner levels for example.

Of course, not all Marble Blast Gold elements are introduced in the first 30 levels, and I will address that too, but again the levels are going to be more challenging and aren't going to be ridiculously easy to solve anymore.