Big Head Games has announced a Jelle’s Marble Runs (JMR) video game in collaboration with the award-winning Youtube channel of the same name.
Jelle’s Marble Runs is a YouTube channel based in the Netherlands, founded by brothers, Jelle and Dion Bakker. Since then, they’ve won countless awards and appeared in media around the world. Without a doubt, the channel is the pioneer of marble run videos.
In 2006, JMR posted its first Youtube video. The video featured thousands of marbles in one of his ‘marble machines’. In 2009, Guinness World Record for the world’s longest marble run was awarded to JMR. Impressively, that record stood until 2011. In 2016 came the MarbleLympics (later becoming the Marble League). This series of Olympic-style events featured 16 marble teams who would compete for medals and points. Consequently, the YouTube channel kept gaining new fans every day.
Last Week Tonight and Formula One
In 2020, amidst a world devoid of sports, JMR became a place for fans starved of competition. Coincidentally, the JMR team was looking for a sponsor. Fortunately, British comedian and host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, John Oliver, was already a fan, so he sponsored every event that season and even promoted it on his show.
In that same year, JMR also launched Marbula One, a series of circuit-based marble races taking place in different venues. This marble version of Formula One, featuring live commentary and crowd chants, became a fan favourite.
The video game transition announcement on August 4th was also accompanied by a Kickstarter campaign. This would allow JMR fans to directly contribute to the game’s development through crowdfunding. On August 6th, a successful Indiegogo campaign secured the game’s full funding.
Marble League will be playable upon release in October 2021. Furthermore, brand new ‘‘video game only’’ levels in Marble Rally, and Marbula 1 will be available in early 2022. You can check out the game teaser here.