Marbles Squared (ZX Spectrum Next)

Clear the board. Get the high score. The first Spectrum Next game with an online leaderboard.

Highlights:

• Nearly 40,000 unique starting boards
• Joystick, keyboard or mouse input
• Online shared leaderboard updated in real time
• Custom game theme or design your own tiles
• Unlimited undo

Game play

The aim is to clear the board of "marbles" - the blocks, and reach the highest score possible.

Scoring is based on the number of cleared blocks per turn, the more blocks cleared, the higher the multiple.

Completely clearing the board gets you a fresh board and additional bonus points.

Each game has a unique "seed", and once a seed is used you will see the exact same arrangement of boards on every level you complete.

Use the high score tables to find a game seed and challenge an existing high score.

Important keyboard keys to use:

• [R] rage quit and restart
• [N] new game and new seed
• [U] undo your dreadful mistakes

Remember to check the world leader board in game or on line at marbles2.com for a real challenge!

A brief history

Marbles Squared began as a Palm Pilot game back in the early 2000s and amassed some 250,000 downloads.

The title mixes at random between Marbles Squared, Marbles² and Marbles2 - but the "Squared" was simply because Remy couldn't draw circles, and "Marbles" because he had unwittingly cloned SameGame on the Psion.

Customise the game

If you want to create your own block designs you can! Add a file called theme.spr to the same directory marbles.bas runs from, and this will be automatically detected.

The theme.spr file expects to have four 16x16 sprites in a row and uses the default layer 2 palette (which you won't be able to change).

I used my own web based sprite design tool to generate the sprites for the original game so you should be able to too.

If you do make your own theme.spr file please do share it in the comments below - we'd all love to see your designs.

Sharing your score

If your Spectrum is equipped with a wifi connection then in normal operation, the game will self-submit your high scores to the leader board.

If, however, you don't have wifi onboard or perhaps the send failed (i.e. you're sure you got a high score) - the marbles.dat file in the game directory contains your score. Send this file remy@remysharp.com and I will manually validate and submit your score for the world to see.

Special thank yous

• Font by Damien Guard: Computing 60s and Area51
• Input driver: input.drv by Paulo Silva