About this game

Marble Motion is a top-down labyrinth where the board tilts, not the marble. The tilt is analogue and eased, so a held key keeps increasing the slope and the marble keeps accelerating. Stopping means tilting back, not letting go.

The holes are not scripted deaths. Each one applies a genuine pull near its lip, so a marble that clips the edge gets drawn in rather than passing cleanly. Routing wide around a hole is always cheaper than trusting a near miss.

How to play

  1. Tilt the board with the arrow keys. The marble rolls downhill.
  2. Collect every gold token on the board. The exit stays locked until you have them all.
  3. Avoid the dark holes. The closer you pass, the more they pull.
  4. Roll into the green exit circle once all tokens are collected.
  5. Clear seven boards to finish the run.

Physics mechanics

Here is what the simulation is actually doing while you play.

Gravity in the plane

The board is viewed from above, so the force acting on the marble is the in-plane component of gravity: g × sin(tilt) along each axis. A small tilt gives a small force; the relationship is smooth, not stepped.

Rolling resistance

The marble carries a damping term standing in for rolling resistance against the board. It is low enough that the marble keeps its speed across a long run but high enough that it eventually stops on a level board.

Hole attraction

Within about 16 pixels of a hole's rim, a linear-falloff attraction pulls the marble in. This models a real rim: the closer to the edge, the harder it is to escape.

Why speed compounds

Because the tilt applies a constant force for as long as you hold the key, the marble's speed grows linearly with time and the distance it covers grows with the square of it. A key held for two seconds does not move the marble twice as far as one held for one second — it moves it roughly four times as far. That is the single most common reason a run ends in a hole, and the reason short taps are the recommended technique throughout.

Objective

Collect every token, then roll into the exit — without dropping into a hole.

Scoring

  • Each token is worth 110 points.
  • Clearing a board awards 450 points plus a time bonus decaying at 30 points per second.
  • There is no penalty for a slow, careful route.

Scores, favourites and play history are stored in your own browser using localStorage. There is no account, no leaderboard and no server: clearing your browser data clears them, and they do not follow you to another device.

Tips

  1. Tap, do not hold. Short taps give short accelerations. A held key builds speed you will struggle to shed before the next hole.
  2. Counter-tilt early. To stop, tilt the opposite way well before you want to be stationary. The marble decelerates at the same rate it accelerated.
  3. Use walls as brakes. Rolling into a wall at a shallow angle bleeds speed without losing control. It is often faster than trying to stop in open space.
  4. Route wide of holes. The pull near a rim is real. Give every hole at least a marble-width of clearance.
  5. Watch the shadow. The marble's drop shadow offsets in the direction of tilt. It is the quickest read of which way the board currently leans.

Difficulty

Medium. Boards one and two have few holes and generous space. From board four the hole density roughly doubles and the token placement forces routes that pass close to them, which is where precision starts to matter.

Features

  • Analogue tilt — the board angle eases rather than snapping
  • Seven boards with rising wall and hole density
  • Holes that pull at the lip rather than swallowing on contact
  • Token collection that gates the exit
  • Tilt indicator and a shadow that shows the slope

How accurate is this?

Physics Arcade games use simplified, tuned physics built for playability. They are not scientific simulations: forces, masses and timings are chosen because they feel good at 60 frames per second, not because they match measured values. Where a game departs from real-world behaviour in a way that matters, the game page says so.

Marble Motion – FAQ

Why does the marble keep speeding up?

Because tilt is a force, not a velocity. As long as the board is tilted the marble keeps accelerating, exactly as a real ball on a slope would.

Can I stop the marble completely?

Yes — level the board and let rolling resistance bring it to rest, or counter-tilt to decelerate it faster.

Do I have to collect every token?

Yes. The exit circle stays grey and inactive until the token counter reaches zero.

Are the boards the same every time?

Yes. Each board number is generated from a fixed seed, so board five is always the same layout.