One of the first arcade games released following the split of Atari Incorporated, Marble Madness helped prove the newly minted Atari Games Corporation was more than capable of continuing the Atari tradition of unique and successful video games. As designed by Mark Cerny, only 17 years old when he started with Atari, Marble Madness challenges one or two players to guide a marble across platforms, over traps, and around enemies before time runs out. Reaching the goal line of one race adds a little more time to the clock before sending the marbles off to the next race, six in all. Highly detailed graphics and the arcade's first true stereo music soundtrack helped hold new players' attention as they rolled their way down the ramps and pipes.
The development of Marble Madness was as historic as the game itself. The arcade game was the first to use Atari's System I, a modular design of hardware that allowed compatible arcade cabinets to house one of several possible games, an attractive alternative to the usual single-game dedicated cabinets sold at the time. Marble Madness was also the first arcade game developed in the C programming language, which, compared to the machine languages used by earlier games, is much easier to read, fix and expand on. And then, when it was time to offer the game to home players, Marble Madness became the first arcade game licensed by Electronic Arts, who in turn made it the first arcade game playable on several computers that didn't normally see a lot of arcade action, including the Apple IIGS and the Commodore Amiga.
A sequel was planned and even completed for release in 1991, but poor market testing led to the game's shelving. The original has enjoyed a much longer life, prized in arcade game collections and appearing by itself or in compilations for just about every game system up through the XBox and PlayStation 2.