Marble Match

Title: Marble Match
Author: ToastSoft
License: Freeware
Website: http://rydia.net/udder/prog/mm/

Marble Match is a little old, maybe two years, but still fun. It has simple graphics and simple audio, but still fun. The goal of each level is to remove all of the marbles by "matching" similar colored marbles in rows of three or more. You move balls until they hit a wall or another ball, the usual thing. The interesting twist is that you can only move a marble which is adjacent to your character. This adds some complexity to the mix. You have to plan ahead to gain access to various parts of the board.

Marble Match includes several special objects: teleporters, one-way arrows, teleports. There are water tiles which marbles can pass through, but your character cannot. Marbles get stuck on the sand tiles. All usual stuff, you will pick it up quickly.



Some levels contain monsters. They move one space everytime you move. If one type of monster catches up to you, death. There is another type which kills if you get within its line of sight. Of course, there are arrows which you can use to kill monsters. I have to say, I did not like the levels with monsters. I just worked through them to get to the next level.

Another twist is that there is a move limit. You have to complete the level in certain number of marble moves. There are three difficulty levels. In the normal mode, the move limit is rarely a factor. In the hard mode, there are limit is reduced and marbles cannot move diagonally. This limit can be a factor. In Maniac mode, they add a time limit.

Marble Match comes with 100 levels. You have to complete the levels sequentially, but a little hex editing magic of mm_level you can get around this. A level editor is included. The pacing of the levels is not great, but there are some tough ones.