Marble Run FAQ

Marble Run is a physics building game based on the classic marble run toy. Each level has a drop chute, a goal cup, and a tray of track pieces — ramps, curves, planks, springs, boosters, and blocks. You place and rotate the pieces on a grid, release the marble, and watch it roll under gravity. Get it into the cup to clear the level, and pass through the stars on the way for a perfect score.

Yes. playmarblerun.app is completely free and runs entirely in your browser. There is nothing to buy, download, or install, no account, and no paywall. All 14 levels and the sandbox are available to everyone.

Pick a piece from the tray, tap a square to place it, and tap it again to rotate it. When your track is ready, press Run. The marble drops from the yellow chute and follows your pieces. If it misses, press Stop, adjust a piece, and run it again. Reaching the green cup clears the level and unlocks the next one.

It works on the same idea: modular track pieces that guide a marble from the top of a frame to the bottom. A browser version adds things a toy cannot — springs that always fire the same way, lifts that carry the marble up, a puzzle goal, and an undo button.

Ramps are 45° slopes. Curves are guide tracks that turn a fall into a fast sideways roll. Planks are floors, walls, or ceilings. Springs launch the marble off their face. Boosters are either floor speed pads or, turned upright, lifts that carry the marble up. Blocks are solid stops. Red spikes end the run, and grey pieces are fixed parts of the level.

The marble is simulated with real gravity, momentum, bounces, and drag on a fixed timestep, so it accelerates down slopes, carries speed off edges, and loses energy on hard impacts. A few pieces are deliberately game-like: curves steer the marble along the track, springs fire at a set speed, and lifts cancel gravity. The same track always produces the same run.

A run ends when the marble falls off the open bottom edge, touches spikes, stops moving completely, or has not reached the cup in 25 seconds. The message under the board tells you which one happened, and your pieces are kept so you can fix the track.

Select the booster and rotate it until the arrow points up — it becomes an open lift. Stack lifts in a column and roll the marble into the bottom one. The lift holds it in the centre of the shaft and pushes it up. A ceiling ramp at the top sends it sideways onto the next part of your track.

Tap or click a piece you placed to rotate it. To remove it, right-click it, long-press it on a touch screen, use the eraser tool, or press U to undo. Fixed grey pieces cannot be changed.

Most levels have three stars, and a few have two. A star counts when the marble passes through its square on the way to the goal. You only need to reach the cup to unlock the next level; collecting every star is the extra challenge. Your best result for each level is saved.

The sandbox is a larger 10×14 board with unlimited pieces and no stars. The marble starts in the top-left and the cup is in the bottom-right. The game records your longest successful run time, so the challenge is to build the longest marble run you can that still finishes.

There are 14 handcrafted puzzle levels that introduce one idea at a time — ramps, curves, bridges, blocks, springs, booster pads, lifts, and ceiling bounces — before combining them. Every level has been checked by a solver to make sure it can be cleared with all of its stars.

Read the hint under the board, run the marble once with no pieces to see where it falls, and follow the stars — they mark the intended route. The tray only contains the pieces the solution needs, so the piece types you are given are a clue too.

Yes, on this device. Unlocked levels, best stars, your unfinished track on every level, and your sandbox build are stored in your browser’s local storage. Nothing is sent to a server and there is no account, so a different browser or cleared site data starts fresh.

Yes. The game is built for touch: tap to place and rotate, drag to paint a row of pieces, and long-press to remove one. The board, the piece tray, and the Run button fit on a portrait phone screen without scrolling.

Any current browser with JavaScript: Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari on desktop, plus their mobile versions. If the board does not respond, update the browser, allow scripts for this site, and reload.

Open the level menu (the grid button, or press L) and use Reset progress, then tap again to confirm. That clears unlocked levels, stars, saved tracks, and your sandbox record on this browser. It cannot be undone.