Max and the Magic Marker iPhone Review (Review)
Thursday, 31st March 2011, 17:19

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After the pretty but disappointing Liqua Pop, I was keen to see what EA Games would be offering to the casual iPhone gamer next, and I didn't have to wait too long. Max & the Magic Marker has burst onto the scene with cute stylish cartoon graphics and a combination of platformer controls and drawing physics.

Created by the independent Denmark based studio Press Play, the game originally started out life on the PC and Mac, reaching Apple's product via WiiWare and Windows Mobile. Many such translations have arrived on the iPhone with varying degrees of success, PopCap being one of the more accomplished at porting their games to the platform.

Gameplay

Any successful game on the iPhone has to have easy to understand game mechanics, preferably things you can describe in one sentence. Max & the Magic Marker certainly ticks this box, since all you do is go from the start of a level to the end, collecting three things along the way. Sounds simple, and at first glance it is.

You can move Max using left and right touch buttons, alas no option for accelerometer control here, perhaps they tried and it just didn't work. You can also press a button to make Max jump, and another to make him push things or drop down from any ledge he is hanging off. All very obvious so far, but as always there is a twist.

Max has a magic marker, which you can use the touch screen to draw lines with. The moment you take the pen off the page your lines become solid objects in Max's world, falling down on bad guys, producing staircases and ramps for Max to walk up, even hook like contraptions for getting items below ledges. Like a lot of games in this genre, falling from a great height is harmless, but landing in water, bumping into a purple splodgy jelly monster, or being rained on, all result in instant death.

Oh, did I mention his marker was out of ink? Yes, you have a limited amount of drawing fluid for any level, dotted around the place in the form of orange balls. Running over them fills up your marker, drawing things depletes it, although you can always destroy things you have drawn to re-use the ink. Also another button lets you freeze the action and draw emergency lines, but be warned that this doesn't stop the level timer.

Other things you'll end up doing with your ink are dropping blocks of ink onto enemies, making surfboards to run across water and wheels, even large weights for launching things on a see saw. Some drawing concepts like stairs and ramps are pretty obvious, others sometimes require a bit of thinking outside the box, if you want to finish a level you'll need to be inventive.

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