Four people. One iPad on the table. Everybody plays at once.
A game disappeared, so I rebuilt it.
In 2010 there was an iPad game called Marble Mixer. Up to four people sat around one screen and flicked marbles at the same time — not taking turns, not passing the device around. Everyone’s fingers on the glass at once. It was the first thing I reached for whenever people came over.
It was pulled from the App Store years ago and never came back. Nothing replaced it either. The whole idea of four people crowding around a single tablet quietly went out of fashion, and what’s left is mostly games where you wait your turn.
So I built it again from scratch. New engine, new art, new characters, new everything — only the feeling is borrowed. Slide, release, watch the physics do something you didn’t plan. That part I wanted exactly right.
I’m a solo developer in Korea. I make games on weekday evenings after my day job and after my kid goes to bed. She was three, and now she’s seven. She and her younger brother play this without being told how. That was the bar.
One gesture. That’s the entire control scheme.
Touch your marble
It stays exactly where it is while you aim. Nothing moves until you want it to.
Slide toward your target
Farther means harder. No flick speed to get right, no timing window to hit.
Let go. Off it goes.
And the rules never change between modes — only the board does.
Five modes, five boards.
Every corner is a person, a robot (Easy, Normal or Hard), or left empty — any mix, every round.
01 Munch Meadow
A hungry monster rides a spinning meadow, opening and closing its mouth on a rhythm. Feed it to score. The disc keeps turning under your shot, so a straight aim never stays straight — and a marble that stopped rolling a minute ago can still get swallowed if the spin carries it past an open mouth.
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02 Astro Rumble
A platform floating in space with no rail around the edge. A pulsar at the centre fires blasts that push everything outward, and whatever crosses the rim is gone. Your score is how many of your marbles are still up there, counted live — so it isn’t about shooting hard. It’s about getting marbles out and keeping them there while three other people sweep at them.
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03 Bullseye Brawl
A dartboard worth 1, 2, 3, 5 and 10 toward the middle. A physics dice roll sets the order, then everyone takes turns. A marble earns its ring for as long as it stays in it, and scores recount live — so the bullseye is never safe. Somebody can knock you out of it and into a cheaper ring on their next shot. Closest to centre breaks a tie.
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04 Safe Landing
Six pads worth 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 10, dropped in new places every single round. The 10 is barely wider than a marble, and you only score if your marble actually touches the paint — a sliver of grass between them is worth nothing. Because the layout is never the same twice, the question stops being “can I hit the middle” and becomes “what’s worth going for from where I’m sitting.”
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05 Quicksand Corral
A fenced sand pit, so nothing falls off the edge. The danger comes from inside instead: every few seconds a quicksand funnel opens at the rim and drifts across the pit, swallowing whatever it catches. Most marbles still in play when the clock stops.
Made to be played in the same room
- 1–4 players, local, real-time — no online, no matchmaking
- Any corner can be a person, a robot, or empty
- iPad only, designed for a screen four people can reach across
- Playable without reading a word
- English, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, French, Indonesian
- No ads, no accounts, no data collection, works fully offline
- $3.99, pay once, family sharing
Marble Playground is an original game by Animated Breath. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to GameHouse or Marble Mixer.