Gorse Roll

Gorse Roll is a ray-traced marble game with a construction kit. Roll a marble over courses of stone, ice, mirrors and belts that float high above a rainforest in the morning mist, sea ice, a sea of cloud and a field of lava, through five worlds from a morning heath to gardens above the clouds, and a sixth that has to be earned. Every course can be changed, and new ones built, in the editor.

== One marble, and nothing to hold on to ==

You roll the marble like a trackball, with the mouse, a gamepad or the keys. There is no jump button, and nothing to steer with once you leave the floor: a marble flies where it was going, so every ramp, springboard and bouncer is decided before you reach it. Too slow and you fall short. Too fast and you fly over.

== Light you can look through ==

Every pixel is ray traced on your PC's own cores, so no ray-tracing graphics card is needed. The glass marble is a real lens: it bends the checkerboard under it, throws a small rainbow on the floor and shows up in the mirrors beneath it.

== Sunlight is a tool ==

Rest the glass marble on a sun plate and it focuses the sunlight like a burning glass. The ice wall of that colour melts, and the way is open.

== Floors that fight back ==

Discs and crosses turn and fling you outwards, the harder the faster they spin. Rockers tip from side to side. Sliders carry you across the gap if you get on at the right moment. Bouncers throw you back off their top just once, and your speed and your angle decide where you land. Add gates that stay open for seconds, lifts you have to race, crumbling tiles and climbs that only speed can get up.

== Three marbles ==

Glass focuses sunlight, but a long fall smashes it. Steel is heavy: chasers can't move it and long drops don't break it. Cork is light: it floats on vents, swims across deep water where glass and steel go under, and springs throw it far. Marble rings on the road change one into another halfway through a course.

== Six worlds ==

Gorse Heath, Frost Terraces, Copper Works, Ember Rift and High Gardens: five worlds of six courses, each with its own light, its own country far below, its own tune and its own new idea, from gates that stay open for seconds to floors you ride as they turn.

Every course hides a sun crystal. Find all six in a world to open its bonus course. Find the crystals of all five bonus courses and The Eclipse opens: a sixth world of very hard courses that uses all of it at once.

== Build your own ==

In the editor the picture is the course itself, traced as you change it. Raise platforms, paint materials, set up turners, lifts and gates, hang lanterns and watch the light fall, then test the course from any cell with one key. Courses are plain text files: send one to a friend and it plays, or share a whole pack.

== Ways to play ==

- Journey: the worlds in order, with gold, silver and bronze times for every course. Every gem takes half a second off your time.

- Time Trial: any course you have finished, against the ghost of your best run, and on Steam against the best times in the world.

- Arcade: a whole world in one go against a falling clock. Each course adds its time, and every gem gives three seconds.

- My Courses: your own courses and course packs, ready to play or edit.

== Features ==

- 42 courses in six worlds

- Three marbles that roll, fly and break differently

- A full course editor with undo, copy and paste

- Mouse, keyboard or Xbox-style gamepad with rumble

- A window, or full screen at your screen's own resolution

- Seven tunes, one for the title and one for each world