Buying Marbles
When starting a new game, you are given seven marbles of each color. As you progress to more difficult puzzles, you may find it necessary to buy additional marbles. To purchase a marble, click on the Purchase Marble button (designated by a “+” symbol) located next to the marble reservoir of the color you want. You will be “charged” points for each marble you purchase:
Colored Marbles cost 500 points each. That is, all colors except steel and black.
Steel Marbles only cost 100 points each. Even among marbles there are those who seem to fill no purpose but to act as cannon fodder. If you find you must “sacrifice” a marble to trip a switch, change a diverter, be destroyed or be caught in an infinite loop, consider purchasing a Steel Marble. It is a far better thing to lose a steel marble rather than risk destroying a colored marble, which carries a price of 500 points, or the even more expensive black marble. Steel marbles will, of course, be destroyed upon entering an exit bin. Note that paint does not stick to steel marbles; they will pass right through the painter and remain steel-colored.
Black Marbles cost 1500 points each. They are the most valuable, the most expensive, and the most addictive. One of the most important stages of alchemy is the black stage, the color from which all colors spring. So it is in the realm of my puzzle machines, that the black marble may be chosen to act as a transforming marble, which takes on, chameleon-like, the color of the marble needed to solve the puzzle. But alchemy is not the noblest of pursuits, and I urge you to consider strategy before magic. The use of the black marble is more of a quasi-strategy and should only be used as a last resort. If for some reason you can’t seem to figure out a puzzle and are losing too many marbles, purchase a few “chameleons” and drop those in. But stooping will cost you dearly.
There is one GLARING exception to the chameleon effect: BLACK MARBLES CANNOT FILL THE STEEL MARBLE SLOT IN AN EXIT BIN. (The one case where even alchemy cannot help you.) Also, Black Marbles can be painted, and if painted will lose their chameleon ability.