However, cutting the blast feature presented a significant problem. As anecdote, my sister-in-law has an iPod and might play this game, whereas she doesn't have an Xbox and is too intimidated by a game with so many buttons to play the Xbox version. Jumping, item use, and camera control were already a lot to manipulate on the small no-button device, and I wanted the game to be less hardcore than the Xbox version, as the iPod platform has a much broader demographic than the more hardcore leaning Xbox players. In order to simplify the controls and game design, the first thing I did was cut the blast feature. The challenge was to simplify the complex controls as much as possible while still retaining maximum gameplay in order to use the XBLA version as our basis. As if the original game's marble movement, independent camera movement, jumping, and item use weren't complex enough, the XBLA version added a "blast" feature that can give you an extra boost in jumps and can push players away in multiplayer. However, the XBLA version has some of the most complex controls as well. Marble Blast Ultra for XBLA is the most graphically advanced version, and one of the goals for the project was to show off what Torque for the iPhone was capable of, so we had to use the XBLA game as the starting point. The first step towards this was making the game look as great as it possibly could. The first challenge then was to figure out what kind of game we could make that would please old fans, bring new fans in, and keep the IP holder (GarageGames) happy as well. This wasn't a licensed game, but the pressure was the same. As anyone who's worked with licensed IP will tell you, it's always harder to make a game within the constraints of fitting in with that IP than to simply make a brand new game with no license. Over the years the game has built up a huge fan base and passionate community, and hundreds of user generated levels exist for the game.
The game was upgraded with more levels in 2003, bundled with every new iMac G5 in 2004, was one of the few Xbox Live games for the original Xbox in 2005, was majorly updated as a launch title for XBLA in 2006 for the XB360, and was a launch title for the browser based game platform InstantAction in 2008. The Marble Blast franchise has a long and colorful history, having begun as a PC, Mac, and Linux downloadable try-and-buy game in 2002, created in part as a proof of concept that the Torque Game Engine was capable of more than just FPS games from which the engine originated. As it turns out, having previously been a producer at GarageGames for two years, I was already well familiar with the Marble Blast franchise, so it was a perfect fit. South African studio Luma Arcade was handling the port for GarageGames and they needed a designer. Six months ago I was subcontracted as an independent studio, Red Thumb Games, to design Marble Blast Mobile, an iPhone version of the XBLA hit game Marble Blast Ultra.