I know that this game was released on a number of platforms and also was an arcade game. The only exposure I had to it was on the Sega Genesis and even though most of the lists would disagree with this notion opting instead for platformers, RPG's and shooters, I thought it was one of the best titles on the system.
The gameplay was pretty simple: You had to guide a marble through stages getting past obstacles and enemies (of sorts) from the start to the finish. The game was originally played with a trackball in the arcade but for someone like me who never even played the game in the arcade, this missing aspect of the experience was a non-issue.
There was just something really fun about the simplicity of it all and if it weren't for the time limit, it would likely be considered exceptionally easy. Once the countdown was a factor it became quite difficult because you couldn't just eek your way down a tight ramp and needed to introduce just the right amount of speed to make it in time and also not fall off the side.
For me and my neighborhood pals getting the top time on a track was a really fun experience. After a while we become so adept at the track that the neighborhood super-nerd was able to do the first track with a blindfold on - which to this day is something I find extremely amazing. Needless to say that same dude is an extremely successful engineer.
I suppose the only drawback of this game is the fact that there were only 6 stages and none of them were terribly long. This kind of begged the question of whether or not it was even necessary that it be released on the Genesis since previous systems were more than capable of playing this title. This is probably the reason why future titles were never made - which is a shame.
it is still one of the more popular speed-run games in existence and the "perfect game" at under 3 minutes to complete the whole game is far more impressive than it appears.
you can legally check out the ROM of this game for free here
