Max & the Magic Marker
Review
Crayon time!
by Ben Lelievre
reviewed on PC
Control? Not so much...
Good controls are imperative to any good platform game. The PC version of Max & The Magic Marker struggles in that department. There are two “things” you can control. One is Max, who is controlled with the arrow keys, and the other is the marker that is controlled with the mouse. You do the latter as if you were Max, drawing your way out of trouble. Come to think about it, Max & The Magic Marker is much like an interactive colouring book with a knack for child cognition. Unfortunately the defective tools given to the player makes the task of playing the game quite fastidious.
The arrows that control Max for example, have a significant delay to them. While running, the controls respond well, as does jumping. But when you have to run and jump somewhere, things get more complicated. You will find yourself pressing the up arrow like a madman to see Max fall into a pit over and over again. During these intense actions where you will have to run and jump, Max will often continue to run long after you released the arrows. The result is that you will fall to your death, even if you achieved the move you were supposed to pull off. You can imagine the surprise the construction workers had in my street when they saw a wooden chair falling out of the sky after the twentieth time I failed a move because of the control. The table, at that time, was still in place.
The marker has similar issues. For instance, each time you are trying to build a staircase to a higher platform, your marker will stop an inch away from the ledge, forcing you to spend all of your ink to finish it, or to build it crooked. As soon as you are done drawing gravity kicks in, causing a crooked stairs to fall off the ledge. Not a big issue, but still annoying when you are trying to build a flow to your gameplay. The puzzles themselves are very smart and not trial-and-error type, but the broken tools the gamer has to work with makes it difficult to see what lies past them. In fact, the puzzles of Max & The Magic Marker are most definitively the upside of the game. They are neither too hard nor too easy and ask for the right amount of reflexion in order to keep it smooth and fun.
Puzzling
Max & The Magic Marker is a legitimate effort of a platformer with many shortcomings that drain the experience of the tremendous amount of fun that - could - be had. Ultimately though, it is not the design, but the execution that handicaps this game. Max & The Magic Marker asks from its players a level of accuracy that it can't deliver itself. Playing the game is similar to be asked to paint the Mona Lisa with your fingers or to make a house with popsicle sticks. It is not impossible, but it's damn hard and you feel cheated by the materials. I'm exaggerating a bit here, as the game is not that bad. I had fun as long as I didn't feel cheated by my work tools. Max & The Magic Marker is a good swing, but it's a flyball more than a home run. It's not very expensive though. You might want to check it out if you liked Braid, but couldn't stomach its brain twisting ways.
6.5
fun score
Pros
Refreshing and innovative gameplay. Fun puzzles.
Cons
The controls will put your furniture on the endangered species list.
