Ever since the original Marble Madness, marble rolling games have been a low-key favorite of mine and that love has only grown in time thanks to games like Marble Blast Ultra, Marble It Up and Super Monkey Ball. The PC market had a lot of these over the decades, with one completely avoiding my radar until today in the form of Ballance. Some games, like Switchball and Marble Blast, were easy to obtain and play on modern-day hardware, while Ballance hasn’t been available on PC since the days of physical media.
Today, Ziggurat released Ballance across digital storefronts on PC with aSteamrelease alongside a DRM-freeGOGrelease alongside a massive launch week discount. The normal price is $5.99 – which for a digital re-release that is optimized to work perfectly with current PC hardware is already a great value for the money. Until January 12, however, you can get it at 40% off – taking the price down to $3.59. Both prices are perfect ones for impulse buying, but I found it impossible to resist a brand-new to me marble roller for under $4.
Ballance works just fine with Steam’s built-in controller input and that was a pleasant surprise given how few games from the game’s original era were fully-optimized with controller support. For a roller game like this, having analog stick control always feels more natural than arrow keys anyway. It controls like a dream with my hall effect sticks and it made going through a few of the game’s twelve overall levels a breeze overall. Now the game still does offer up a lot of challenge, but the ball itself moves around with great ease.
Review: Ballance
The idea behind Ballance’s gameplay is simple – you play as a ball and you solve puzzles. In the sky!
Different ball types are usable via transformation pads and allow the player to go from a regular ball into a metal one that’s heavier and tougher to move, but can bowl over things easier. Puzzle-solving is needed throughout the stages and they’re easy to solve and have aged nicely since the game’s ever-present ticking clock never stocks, so solving those quickly can make things more fun when you’re aiming to finish a stage in a certain timeframe.
I’m surprised at how seamlessly the game works on current-day hardware. Having it on Steam makes it easier to enjoy on portable PC or Steam Big Picture setups running Windows, while having it on GOG ensures the game will live forever in a DRM-free format.
