Marble Marcher
A downloadable game for Windows
Marble Marcher is entirelyray-marched(similar to ray-tracing) in real time and is played on the surface of evolving fractals. The goal is to get your marble to the goal as quickly as possible. There are 24 unique levels to master.
Background
This game is the result of a fractal physics engine I developed that allows fast collisions with fractals and other procedurally rendered objects. As far as I'm aware, it is the first game to ever use this technique.
The game is also open source: https://github.com/HackerPoet/MarbleMarcher
The game is no longer in active development. However, due to the open source nature of the project, further development can be found with "Marble Marcher Community Edition" which can be downloaded here and has many new features: https://michaelmoroz.itch.io/mmce
System Requirements
You will almost certainly need a dedicated GPU to run this game at 60fps without lag. Older GPUs may need to run at the lowest resolutions, while high-end ones can run fine at the higher resolutions.
Playtime
30 to 45 minutes
| Status | Released |
| Platforms | Windows |
| Rating | Rated 4.7 out of 5 stars (161 total ratings) |
| Author | CodeParade |
| Genre | Racing |
| Made with | SFML |
| Tags | 3D,Experimental,fractal,Open Source,psychedelic,ray-tracing |
| Code license | GNU General Public License v2.0 (GPL) |
| Average session | About a half-hour |
| Inputs | Keyboard,Mouse |
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
Comments
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Yedoma Globula has similar gameplay to what you're describing, so you might what to check it out. Cheers! https://bananaft.itch.io/yedomaglobula
One of the most spectacular demo experiences I've ever had. Mind-boggling graphics, an immersive soundtrack, excellent sound design, and intuitively tuned controls. The only changes I would make would be to expand the hitbox for the winning flag to prevent player annoyance and add a dash/jump to better improve mobility.
I think we are overdue for more levels or a sequel.
holds out a bowl in his tiny trembling hands, and says in a tiny trembling voice;
"Please sir.... can I have some more ?"
Then in stepped the Marble Marcher Community with a huge ladle full of second helpings and pudding to follow.
https://github.com/WAUthethird/Marble-Marcher-Community-Edition
You can just build it yourself on any OS:
https://github.com/HackerPoet/MarbleMarcher
If we could disable shadows it would probably be able to runeasily on about any hardware. I run on the second lowest setting on intel HD Graphics 620, and it's butter smooth on scren saver (50-60 fps), and between 30 and 40 fps when playing. Maybe an opaque marble could save a few resources for lower-end devices too.
As for the gameplay and the music : simple and nice.
Potato changes the resolution for rendering everything, with an insanely low 320x180 (I don't know who would actually play like this). It does run smoothly on low-end GPUs but is nowhere near looking like enjoyable.
Adding settings for shadows (which can bevery power expensive) and reflections (same goes) would allow for higher quality rendering but better performance on every hardware, including low-end, perhaps drastically.
When hhaving that activated you have an app folder called Linux in that there is a terminal. That will you need. In the terminal you need to download the source code. Run in the terminal "sudo apt install git libeigen3-dev libsfml-dev make cmake" to install the dependencies. Now run "git clonehttps://github.com/HackerPoet/MarbleMarcher" to clone the git repo. Then "cd MarbleMarcher" to open that folder and then execute "mkdir build && cd build" to create a new folder and open it "cmake .." to setup the build system "cd .." to get back to the root folder "cmake --build build" to build it
Hello! First of all, congrats on the great work, really interesting. That being said, have you written any papers, tech reports or material that can be used to study the theories involved and your application of them in making the game?
I ask that because I am a university teacher here in Brasil and I currently have a student working on procedural generation of game scenarios and he has found your game and now he is very interested in doing something similar.
Thanks in advance!
I have not written any papers on the collision detection used in the game (my main contribution here). However, there are many papers and tutorials already about ray marching rendering and procedural fractals or terrains. Specifically, you could check out the work of Inigo Quilez. But for collisions, I do have a more robust implementation in my python frameworkPySpace that generalizes the NP function to other SDFs besides Marble Marcher.
