Marble Blast Gold is a 2002 3D platform game. It was pre-installed on some Apple Inc. computers like the iMac, iBook, and Mac mini. It is also available for Windows operating systems as well as various Linux distributions.
Basic gameplay involves taking control of a marble, rolling it from a start pad to a finish pad without falling out of bounds. The player controls the marble’s spin and movement, and can also make the marble jump. The player can control the marble’s spin even in the air, which affects both the marble’s acceleration through the air and its momentum when bouncing off a surface. Levels may contain items that can be collected via collision with the marble, such as gems that need to all be collected before a level can be finished and powerups which apply various temporary effects to the gameplay that are beneficial to the player. Levels may also contain hazards which push the marble out of bounds and special surface types which change how the marble interacts with the ground.
A timer at the top of the screen tracks how long it takes the player to finish a level, and the top fastest times for each level are able to be viewed by the player. Levels may require the player to finish within a time limit to unlock the next one. Marble Blast Gold introduces Gold Times, an optional additional time limit specified for each level. Finishing a level below its Gold Time results in a special indicator on its time leaderboard. Beating a Gold Time usually involves finding hidden powerups and/or taking shortcuts.
Marble Blast Gold is abandonware and no longer sold or supported by its publishers. Files are archived here for these platforms:
3d