iMacmatician's videos

lmao, nice one. Now try 2:35 of mine hits in Mine Field.

Hilarious video. You might want to do a remake with ice shard hits in a certain PQ level.

Hilarious, well done!

Marble Blast Levels 20: [1/2] MBG Custom Levels —

Marble Blast Levels 20: [2/2] MBP Custom Levels and Extras —

[1/2]

Well, after over 2 months, Marble Blast Levels 20 is here, and it is my largest and most extensive compilation that is not a No Gems video. This video is part 1, which contains the MBG custom levels. Part 2 contains MBP custom levels and extras. I hope you enjoy them.

Level list and comments on levels:

9 Pillars: [None]

100: You have to launch the Super Speed early enough otherwise you won’t directly get to the finish pad.

Adventure: Note the slight roll on the trapdoor after the 2nd gem. That is because jumping on landing will greatly slow down the marble’s speed.

Aim or Shame: Stuck the landing (on the TT) and finished, although it took me a while. I missed a 17.64 and this level can go sub-17.50 (I think).

Catherine’s Level: Got a nice maneuver after the 5th gem.

Clean Your Room: [None]

Climb up the Marble Land Tower: One of the long custom levels I enjoyed playing even 3 years ago. The late part of the run can be improved in a number of places, but few of my runs even got to the skyscraper part.

Danger Zone: [None]

Doglet Left: [None]

Fast Lane: [None]

Gem Collection: When I had CLA on my Mac many years ago, this level wouldn’t load for some reason, but the neighboring MBU Learning to Roll level would, so I would play that instead. Now I can play this level but Learning to Roll won’t open. Strange.

Ghost: I’d say I can go 0.08 faster but this run was the best I got.

The Green Brick Road: Don’t you hate it when the time restarts for 0.02 second at the end of a run?

The Jonesville Marble Course: I nearly fell off after the 4th gem, but that’s okay, since I didn’t fall off. Also you can hit the slope of the start pad after the Super Speed action, which should save time but it was quite rare for me to do so.

King of the Iceberg: (Note that the ice in this level is regular friction surface.) I had a well-earned 4.78 back in April 2009 or so. I beat it by quite a bit using a modified way to get the TT, although I can now also beat 4.78 using the method I used in 2009.

The Marble Room: I can Super Jump lower, but that slows down my ending.

Mud Jump: [None]

Pitbowl: [None]

Simple Course Around: [None]

The Snakeroad: The new edge hit is *much* easier than the old edge hit. However, the tweak I use in this run (come up below the upper platform) is quite hard to do.

Speed Bounce: If you thought the Snakeroad path was something obvious in hindsight that was missed for a long time, wait until you see this path.

Spot Landings: [None]

The Suicide Slide: My first finish on this level around 4 years ago was about 10 minutes (this is another long level I liked to play back in the day). I’ve come a long way since then.

Swinger: [None]

Tower of Peril: Apparently it is faster to not go for the TT at the start.

The Ultimate Race: [None]

Vertigo: [None]

Winding Platforms: The ending shown probably isn’t the fastest possible (it’s not that easy to begin with), but faster ones are much harder to do especially in a real run due to the Gyrocopter running out too soon.

Songs: My Chemical Romance - Summertime, Nightwish - Walking in the Air, and Nightwish - Ghost River

[2/2]

2nd part!

Level list and comments on levels:

Castle Madness: [None]

Caw’s Skill Course 1.01: [None]

Collection Conundrum: Found a path for a low time. The first part (up to the 27.97 TM) was a bit slow (ideally I’d like to catch that TM 0.5 second faster) but the 2nd part more than made up for it.

Complex Maze: For some reason I would constantly overshoot diamond #23. I tried to minimize that in this run.

Hidden Valley: Got this run within a minute of recording, couldn’t get anywhere near as good in subsequent attempts.

Mountainous Meander: Annoying path but it’s cool when watching it. Recorded using Easy Screen Record Lite because the fans would always screw up the .rec’s. So it can go somewhat faster with less camera lag.

Quick Race: [None]

Simplicity MBP: [None]

Tower arises: [None]

Tower of Ice: Sped up perishingflames’s path, but in return it is even harder for the marble to wall-hit to the finish. I had a lot of difficulty doing his path until I used the right jump pattern (and even then it wasn’t easy).

Tubular Twist: [None]

Yellow Yodler: The landing on the 7th diamond is hard in the sense that most landings don’t rebound the marble in the right direction.

Extras section:
Fast Lane: I wish I got a successful run of this path!
The Marble Room: One of a number of possible paths that apparently can’t make it up to the finish platform.
Tower of Ice: Before I saw perishingflames’s Tower of Ice path, I had an edge hit path that is comparable in final time to his path (the run you see here is nowhere near fully optimized, it can go sub-22). Note that there is a sort of preliminary edge hit a few seconds before the main edge hit, to easily stop the marble from falling off the platform after the wall-hit.

Songs: Nephew - Igen & Igen & and Nightwish - Last Ride of the Day

Some information and trivia about this compilation:

Total number of levels: 39 (28 MBG and 11 MBP)

Video recording software, resolution, frame rate, and iMovie export bit rate: Screenflick, 1152x720, 60 FPS (thanks to the second GPU in my MacBook Pro, a 9600M), and 25 Mbps (MBG) and 27.5 Mbps (MBP) (not including audio). The exception is the Mountainous Meander run which was Easy Screen Record Lite, 1024x640 (game resolution while recording, the actual recording resolution was much lower), and 20 FPS.

Chronologically the first and last recordings that made it into the final compilation as a full run: Mud Jump (June 8, 2012) and Tower of Ice (August 16, 2012)

The most number of .rec’s associated with a particular level: Fast Lane (33) (the average is 8.

My favorite path (that I could pull off): The Marble Room

Most annoying path: Mountainous Meander

Longest level in terms of elapsed time: Climb up the Marble Land Tower (1:47 or so elapsed time)

Levels I spent the least and most time on: Hidden Valley (I got the run in the video less than 1 minute since I started recording, tried again, got nothing even close to that run), Fast Lane (at least 7 hours).

Can you make videos available on mobile devices?

No I can't.

That is one of the most brilliant compilation videos I have seen in a very, very long time. I salute you for all your hard work and I loved every moment of this. Some of the videos made my jaw drop faster than I anticipated, and some just made me scream in how was that even possible. The bloopers and extras are hilarious but I would have gone insane if those had happened to me.

All in all, one of the best deserving must-watch videos to have hit our community in a very long time.

Absolutely amazing videos! I have so many favorite runs it's impossible for me to choose one.

Just amazing, please continue to make videos and play the game.

You know it will rock when Matan comments like that on youtube haha! P

You have...GOT to be kidding me! Epicness in a crazy level!!! Well done on pulling this beast out mate, REALLY gives me something to think about before releasing mine, so much competition :

Wow, that was quite impressive actually. Nice work.

Going Higher (2.26) —

I decided to play a nice little level I saw while watching MB videos on YouTube. I figured out a path that would get me a 4.xx, then I tweaked it to get a high 2.xx. It was speed and a few extra tweaks that enabled me to finish before the time restarted. This path is quite hard to get right, as usually the time would restart right before I caught the TM near the 3rd diamond. Also, the lower the first TM catch, the harder it is to make a successful wall-hit.

My best TM catch is 2.21 and my best TM catch prior to a successful wall-hit is 2.22. I find it not easy to get sub-2.30 on the TMs.

Song: The Outsiders - Lack of Afro

Good run!

Very fast-paced.

Nice run, and keep making videos.

3 Keep on Rollin' Runs —

3 Keep on Rollin' runs using various paths.

The first run is my fastest time doing it the long way without getting the TM. If you pause the video at the right place you'll notice I passed the TM at about 4.60.

The second run is my best time on this level (I got the TM).

The third run is based on my 6.46 path (seen at the end of Marble Blast Levels X) but with a big optimization that saves over a second. It's harder than the 6.46 path mainly because it takes precision to hit the slope on the way down.

Song: Psy - Gangnam Style (as a bit of trivia, I'm Korean and was born in South Korea).

Great runs!

Good job as always!

No Gems: The Second Compilation Update 2 —

Well, here’s my second update to the No Gems 2 compilation. It started out as a number of IC levels, so I debated on whether or not I would even release it, but then I did some longer and more complex levels, plus a few of the short paths are very interesting in their own right. I’m pretty sure these times all match or beat my PRs for these levels and most are WRs or WR ties.

Key: WR = World Record, prevPR = Previous Personal Record, VR: public Video Record, prev = previous. Note that With Gems runs are automatically also No Gems runs, since you can remove the gems from a With Gems run and it will work the exact same way and get the exact same final time.

Jump jump jump (2.38, WR = 2.37, prevPR = 2.38, prevPVR = 2.40)

Skate Park (2.75, prevWR = prevPR = prevPVR = 2.79)

Stepping Stones (1.81, prevWR = prevPR = 1.84, prevPVR = 1.85):
The MBG and MBP versions of the level have slightly different start pad positioning. In the NGC2, I used the MBP version to get a best time of 1.85. Here, I used the MBG version and I got 0.04 lower. This recording won’t work properly in the MBP version. I didn’t do the potential top time path (edge hit a stone), which got me a 1.84 in the MBP version, and I’m not sure it even saves time on the MBG version.

Trap Door Madness (1.77, prevWR = prevPR = prevPVR = 1.80?)

Around the World in 30 seconds (0.90, prevWR = prevPR = 0.91, prevPVR = 0.93):
0.03 better than the NGC2 run, due to a rare and subtle jump pattern difference (it was probably how I got my previous top time of 0.91).

Plumber’s Portal (2.16, prevWR = prevPR = 2.16, prevPVR = 2.18)

Ramps Reloaded (1.18, prevWR = prevPR = 1.18, prevPVR = 1.20):
I had a 1.18 for the NGC2, but I accidentally used a 1.20 instead (the caption even reads 1.18). I forgot to include the 1.18 in the NGC2 update 1, but I haven’t missed a third time!

Pinball Wizard (1.51, prevWR = prevPR = 1.52, prevPVR = 1.57)

Darwin’s Dilemma (2.26, prevWR = prevPR = 2.26, prevPVR = 2.27)

Roll Like the Wind (4.95, prevWR = prevPR = prevPVR = 5.46)

Floor Climb (4.48, prevWR = prevPR = prevPVR = 5.26):
Didn’t realize this path was a lot quicker than my NGC2 path. Also due to the rebound, it takes much less time to get from the TMs to the finish than in the previous path, which reduces the chance of the TMs restarting.

Treachery (2.49, prevWR = prevPR = prevPVR = 2.54):
A new start (I nickname the “slow start pad trick”) is the key to saving time here, due to the placement of the holes and platforms. If you look closely, I don’t actually hit the TM platform, but the part right to its side, a very rare tweak which I didn’t plan on doing. It should be theoretically slightly faster, but I also got a 2.49 (higher 3rd decimal place) without this tweak.

Nuke Field (1.30, prevWR = prevPR = prevPVR = 1.32):
I didn’t realize the start pad trick would save time in this particular level, I can get 1.31 on my Mac without using the SPT (0.01 lower than on the PC), but the SPT saves another 0.01 if you do it right.

Platform Race 2 (5.95, prevWR = prevPR = prevPVR = 6.51):
Some of you may recall that my NGC2 run was slower (6.64) than my NGC1 run (6.51) since I lost my NGC1 .rec. So I decided to do it again, and with devastating consequences.
NGC2 run: Leaves trap launch right after 5.26 and hits the finish sign at 6.57 for a time of 1.31 second.
NGC2 update 2 run: Leaves trap launch right after 5.27 and hits the finish sign at 5.92 for a time of 0.65 seconds.
That’s twice as fast!

Treacherous Path (5.72, prevWR = 6.69, prevPR = prevPVR = 7.01):
I found a new way to get the first TM that saves around half a second compared to the previous way, my best catch that I was able to stay on the level without delay was 3.02 or so.
I actually tried this level for NGC2 update 1, but couldn’t do it.

Thief (4.26, prevWR = prevPR = prevPVR = 5.39):
I believe there is a way to finish without the time restarting, and this path is one step towards that.
I tried to get the TM on the end of the part with the nukes, bumpers, etc. but the magnets kept messing with me.

Frictional Battlecube (1.17, prevWR = prevPR = 1.23, prevPVR = 1.24):
The run used in NGC2 was one of the oldest runs I used for the compilation, it was one of the few Rainbow Marble runs used, and I used the Rainbow Marble from October 2008 to June 2009. The run was made in late 2008 or early 2009, it was old even by NGC1 standards, and you can see my n00b skills after the TM catch. So I’ve had a special interest in getting a lower time, but it was hard to even reach 1.24-1.25, and I got a 1.23 once but never while recording. Long story short, I beat it conclusively in the end, and this run should convince you (if you weren’t convinced already) that given a sufficiently complex level, even the shortest runs can have strange new paths.

Space Station (8.44, prevWR = 9.50, prevPR = prevPVR = 9.54):
The key here is being able to pull back sooner and more than in the 9 second path.

Song: Megadeth feat. Cristina Scabbia - À Tout le Monde (Set Me Free)

EDIT: Congratulations! Your account is now enabled for uploads longer than 15 minutes.

Dat traplaunch was insane. Honestly though, the MBP levels were more impressive due to complexity of the paths and how well they were pulled and some of them needed serious luck probably. Great job!

Marble Blast: No Jumping 7 —

Well, after a year and a half, I have a new video in my No Jumping series. There are a number of paths that I think you'll especially enjoy. A bit of trivia: NJ 3 and this video end with the same two levels.

Ramp Matrix: New path from my 22.18 in NJ 1.

Take the High Road: This path uses the same idea as the Mudslide path (see below).

Points of the Compass: This level was always a bit too annoying for me to do no jumping. I found a path that wasn't too annoying.

Plumber's PORTAL: If you like edge hits….

Whirl: Compared to my earlier 19.86 (in 3 MBG Levels Done Using Alternate Paths), I went for the TMs. That change necessitated I use a different ending. The ending I used in MBL 5 was superfluous for a with jumping run (the loop exit path works well), but it was just the right ending for a no jumping run! Note that I did a longer and faster run-up to the double Super Speed compared with the MBL 5 run, which made this ending path much easier.

Ski Slopes: The 1st TT is essentially a pure blind catch for some reason, I missed it a lot in my attempts.

Ramps Reloaded: The same path as in NJ 1 but faster.

Mudslide: narvoxx's path. In his video () he writes Sub 22 deffo possibe sub 20 not sure. I can say that sub-20 is definitely possible.

Diamond Round-Up: Similar and based off the alternate (with jumping) path I used in MBL 16.

Spin Practice: I thought this level might be impossible to do no jumping. I didn't think it was possible to get to the top of the level. But then I thought of the path of my 2.48 No Gems run, and realized that the ice slope in the corner might actually be enough to push the marble to the top. Might turned into can, and here you go.

Medieval Maze: I'm not quite sure how to avoid hitting the wall part of the castle immediately before finishing.

Technoropes: How many times have you seen [that part of the level] used in that way before? Saves time over the old path (12.71 in NJ 6).

Sprint: The diagonal movement on the ropes was a bit tricky.

Powerup Practice: It took me a while to get the Helicopter launch right. Too high (it's very easy to go too high) and you'll waste time.

Byzantine Helix: New path from my 11.46 in NJ 1.

Floor Climb: I knew this was possible no jumping for a while. However, I don't think a second edge hit would save a lot of time over one edge hit, at least among the starting paths I checked.

Divergence: New path from my 6.73 in NJ 3. Answers the question I've been having for quite some time: is it possible to get the TM on the trapdoor stairs using the Jump Boost?

Michael's Adventure: MBP: New path from my 7.79 in NJ 3. This path fixes the only real problem with my 7.79 path, which was the idling while waiting for the Jump Boost to respawn.

Songs: My Chemical Romance - Party Poison, My Chemical Romance - Vampire Money, the middle part of Victims of Science - The Device Has Been Modified (version 2) (which is the part of the Portal remix that Dushine left out for obvious reasons), and Portal - 4000 Degrees Kelvin.

Yeah, I spent 16 hours in the past 5 days playing Portal and Portal 2. Awesome games BTW.

My expresions where from ._. to O_O while seeing the video, amazing work!

A brilliant show on some levels that I didn't think could be beaten. Some routes completely caught me off guard and those edge hits were brilliant. Would love to see more of your... art

Lots of awesome runs there, great work.

Great job! Points of the Compass was stunning. Great double-SS combo on Whirl. Glad to see the wooden scenery helped you in Powerup Practice. And someone finally uses the Marble Recoils in Byzantine Helix!

Marble Blast Levels 21 —

Ended up a bit longer than I planned.

In this compilation you’ll see my runs of a number of CLA levels I’ve known and played since late 2008 / early 2009, but not too many. I’ve got to keep a few for MBL 22 anyway.

Notes:

Mini Mountain: Got something close to the WR path.

Technoropes: Only natural after my No Jumping run.

Sprint: None.

Slippery Steps: None.

Bouncy: A level I’ve known and played since late 2008 / early 2009.

Cactus: One of a number of levels from Theo Pringle I decided to do for this video. More of them will be featured in MBL 22.

The Falling Marble: The edge hit was tricky but so worth it.

Final Speedrun: Two paths, the latter from Nihahhat’s video. Too bad I couldn’t beat his time.

Fortress of Solitude: Those blocks of green kryptonite (magnets) were a pain to work with. This run is of a lower time than Matan’s old run of this level but I’m not sure why.

Gauntlet Revisited: I know the loop exit at the end isn’t optimal, but I kept messing up at that point so I decided to leave it at that. I make up for it later in the video.

Level Competition: 360!: Another level I’ve known for a while. I had 18.xx back in the old days.

Little Blasting Course: None.

The Loop: Another Theo Pringle level.

The Maze of Gems: An interesting level from Theo Pringle. I had a 10.xx path, then I looked at a 13.95 video by Alanonala. I soon saw that if I combined parts of my path with Alanonala’s path, then the resulting path could be considerably lower than either (especially when (s)he missed a few TTs). So the path you see here was born.

Mine Hazard: Kinda annoying but still fun. Best catch 2.2x.

Miniature Balance: The edge hit at the start is a bit tricky but doable. One then has to stay on the level for the rest of the way. The catch of the last gem and subsequent finish was a bit slow but that’s excusable at the end of this type of level and path.

Steal the train!: The first gem hit is blind in the sense that I don’t know what part of the “coal” I’ll also hit and that determines which way the marble flies out after hitting it.

Tightrope Challenge 1: A level I had originally planned for MBL 21 (that’s why I’m using the blue and black 2011-2012 marble). Now that I’ve done a Tightrope Challenge 2 run, I decided to throw this one in as well. I found the edge hit quite hard to do.

Traffic Jam: I found a path that allows the time to remain stopped after the 1st TT. It’s also forgiving of minor mistakes, as this run will show you. Best catch 1.22.

Whirl 2: What did I tell you about that loop exit?!

Songs: Delain - April Rain, Delain - Control the Storm, Portal 2 - The Part Where… (full name redacted to not spoil the game, for those of you who haven’t played it yet)

That was great! I particulary enjoyed the maze of gems, and it was great to see you play some longer-levels rather than the same short ones.
Great paths on many levels, and quite a number of hard edge hits pulled off. Well done!

Great video. Who made Steal the Train? The scenery is impressive.

Great and Quick runs Some of these levels I hadn't played before and I'll try them out myself.

I think Otto made Steal the Train; same thing as blastedmarble said.