The Atari ST version of Marble Madness was converted by Will Harvey (who also programmed the C64 and Apple II versions – among others), and Jim Nitchals, and was published by Electronic Arts in 1987. It is very similar to the 8-bit ports Harvey produced, rather than the more authentic Amiga version (that he didn’t).

From the main menu you can choose joystick or mouse controls; one or two player games; the number of joysticks, and the mouse speed. Thankfully the controls are responsive enough and the marble’s movement is reasonably good, so the game plays fairly well. I preferred playing with joystick controls rather than with a mouse because I could control the marble better.

This version does include the simultaneous two-player mode, and ‘fabled’ secret level (the Water-Maze) that is found in all of Will Harvey‘s Marble Madness ports. It is accessible by jumping the gap and waiting in a particular place on the left, just before the goal, on the first level. It’s a disappointing course, though, and can only be completed by two players working together.

Overall, the ST version is probably the best of Will Harvey‘s Marble Madness ports. It still has a few issues, though. Like the marble falling through the floor, or over the edge of certain areas, inexplicably. This seems to happen in the same places as in the C64 and Apple II ports, so I can only assume that they all use the same codebase for course collision detection and that it’s not quite right. The dimensions of the play window vary from level to level, which I also think is sloppy.

More: Marble Madness on Wikipedia