Within a Marbelous Maze
You are dropped into a mysterious maze. Obtain marbles with different abilities and swap between them to ascend to freedom.
Estimated playtime: 1 - 1.5hrs.
Made in 1 month for #MetroidvaniaMonthJam 30!
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A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone from the jam who played and ranked Within a Marbelous Maze - I'm blown away at the positive reception and everyone's thoughtful feedback and couldn't be more honored to have placed 5th out of such an incredible pool of games! I've just released a post-jam update to the game (v10100) which makes a number of improvements to the general world progression, fixes the few softlocks folks were running into (at least the ones that I know about!), includes some slightly enhanced music from Cammy (who knocked it out of the PARK with this OST!!!), and some additional visual polish I didn't have the time to get to before the jam deadline.
I may make one or two other small updates in the coming days to further improve the experience, but the future for Marbelous Maze is likely to be a much more thorough re-evaluation of the entire world progression. I spent almost 2/3 of the entire jam building the different marbles and the assorted mechanics of the game, with around a week to build the entire world, and there's a lot I want to do differently. Stepping back to completely re-evaluate the order marbles unlock, the challenges the player experiences, and sorts of puzzles possible through the tag barrel system will result in a game I'm extremely proud of, and hope to one day rename this page to be the "Jam Version" of a full commercial release. Gotta finish Slime 64 first though!
Once again a huge thanks to everyone who played during the jam period - to the folks who streamed or speedran the game, and to all of my fellow developers who left really great feedback. Enjoy the updates!
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(RECOMMENDED TO PLAY PC BUILD, WEB BUILD IS EXPERIMENTAL)
Known issues with Web Build:
- Sometimes upon pausing inputs can lock up.
- Worse performance than PC build.
- Water visuals and audio do not render properly - it sounds and looks better on Desktop :)
Credits:
- Created by WaveParadigm
- Music by Cammy
- Sound Effects sourced from Sonniss GDC Game Audio Packs 2015 - 2024
- (or recorded by WaveParadigm)
- 'Feijoada' font by Chequered Ink used with paid license.
- (3D Font made by feeding the font into a Blender script by WaveParadigm)
- Created as a fork of 'Slime 64: Slimes of the World' that stripped as many of its assets out as possible while retaining core systems like base locomotion, camera logic, saving, level transitions, game settings, and some base audio and visual effects we built.
- Slime 64 water shaders written by Richard Kopelow.
- Created for #MetroidvaniaMonthJam 30 - Theme: 'Minimalist'
Download
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Comments
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The Soundtrack by Cammy!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxg39PZVcnV0adH3t_BXZ-24S6CwQw-vC
I had so much fun with the distinct characteristics of each environment and the puzzle elements built around them!
The puzzles in the water stage were grand and challenging, but the sense of satisfaction when I solved them was great.
I also liked how many of the orbs had sharper, more specialized properties than I expected—it was really interesting.
I especially love things like the glass orb that shatters when you fall, despite that drawback! (=ↀωↀ=)
That was pretty nice! There’s a lot of cool ideas in the mechanics, and the level-design is gratifying. I finished it in 1h30m, the estimated time is really accurate!
Some of the platforming felt a bit too punitive sometime (especially the Vault), but overall it was enjoyable. There was times I was afraid to not be sure where to go, but surprisingly wandering a bit randomly in the Park generally led me to something.
This makes me wonder how “linear” the level-design actually is? I always felt like I had several options, and there are even some paths I definitely never took. Are there different orders in which the game can be completed? Although I felt like I had to come back to Cistern way more than any other levels. But the global game felt very open while never getting me “stuck”. You did a very good job!
Small nit-pick though: it is possible at some points to get soft-lock! :p It happened to me twice, once by entering a room with the Ice with no ramp for exiting, and once by dropping in the Cistern with Glass. But given the scope of the game, it’s nearly impossible to avoid those kind of scenarios. Perhaps a “reset to previous checkpoint” action could help?
Thank you so much for playing! Happy to confirm that yes by design there are a few routes through the game! Most players will get Wood -> Ice -> Gyro -> get lost for awhile (oops) -> Glass, but you can actually immediately get Gyro once you get Wood, and then there's an alternative way into Caldera to get Ice and then Glass.
There are definitely a few softlocks some I missed and I'm always thankful for folks pointing them out - I'm happy so far all softlocks have been fixable by quitting to title and loading back in...earlier there were a few where if you hit a checkpoint your entire save file was permanently doomed. Definitely a hazard with this style of game that requires more playtesting than I had time for (the entirety of Vault was created with about 3 hours to go before the jam closed)
A checkpoint reset button would have helped! But I was a little worried you could break things by teleporting back (last checkpoint is underwater -> freeze surface -> teleport back down to checkpoint)...lots to think about.
I hope to take this general concept and kinda re-evaluate the world design and overall progression in the future since I really love the concept - I'm glad even this version with some level design quibbles was still fundamentally an interesting time!
peak game tho i sometimes died with gyro on ice by falling too hard ig? idk really it just happened sometimes especially after a swap on ice
Great work!!! Yeah I've seen that a few times too very sorry - were you playing on the web build or desktop?
Will definitely work on the bug once the judging period is over!
yeah i played on the web build. Also this bug isnt even that big of a deal its still a great game i enjoyed a lot
i was genuenly stuck here but thankfully getting out and back in the game returned me to last checkpoint
Omg great catch that makes total sense. Ty for the feedback! Glad that that was a temp checkpoint and didn't softlock your save!
if it was a checkpoint with a barrel becoming steel would not be a softlock
Unbelievably huge shoutout to Discord user @Marloncha for their incredible 21:53.536 speedrun of the game!
https://youtu.be/7GXfw6rcz7M