Drawing games have become increasingly popular and as a result we’ve seen an ever growing amount of titles hoping to take claim to the casual market using the trusty pen. Max and His Magic Marker is in its simplest form a basic Platformer, only it’s managed to bring itself out of the abyss of generic titles by asking gamer to create their own paths to navigate the 15 sometimes frustrating, other times ingenious levels.

The story follows our titular character Max, Max just received a plain orange magic marker through the mail and like any child he quickly got too drawing scary monsters – without releasing the magic part of the pens name means more than its uncanny ability to write on anything – and now Max’s monster has come alive to terrorize his other drawings – sending our Pen wilding hero on a quest to capture the monster.

The story reads like a kids game, and indeed the game starts of as feeling like a kids game – bright colours, repetitive tunes and a big giant pen on screen – but once the game gets started you soon discover a lot of skill and some knowledge of basic physics is required to truly get to grips with Max & The Magic Marker.

In each level Max will need to collect orange ink that the marker requires to be able to draw objects, the more ink you have the easier some parts become – however to avoid making the game extremely easy along your way in each level you’ll pass checkpoints which not only become where you will respawn if you die, but also points of which Max’s monster will drain your pen of ink – leaving you with just enough ink for each section.

The first few levels require very basic drawings, a couple of bridges, some blocks and maybe a few stairs – however as you progress further into the game you are met with more challenging requirements such as needing to build a seesaw to shot max up into the sky, or cable cart to carry him safely across a verge.

Within each level you’ll also be asked to deal with small blob like monsters – you normally have two choices on how to deal with them. First you can draw a big scribble and drop it from up high, resulting in a squashed little blob or alternatively you can draw a path to lead them away from where you intend to be. These monsters seemed to slow the game down and provided little challenge so it’s a shame either more wasn’t required to deal with them, or they were not included at all.

The charm of Max & The Magic Marker comes entirely from ones imagination – finding ways to get past obstacles which the developers may not have even thought of themselves. You’re aided in your ability to draw by pausing time, which is ideal when your falling to your doom and have enough ink to stop yourself. It’s just a shame that the game couldn’t start off with a level of challenge that grew considerably rather than a slow start  and slow skill progression required.

The graphic style of Max & The Magic Marker seemingly comes straight from the mind of a 10 year old – bright colours, simple level structure and quite simply fun looking. The graphics feel very much akin to the likes of World of Goo, where straight lines are interjected with enough verity of objects to avoid become overly dull and as a result become charming and inviting.

The background music is repetitive and I suspect this is bound to irate some people – however unlike reviewers normal gamers won’t be playing Max for hours upon hours straight up, but rather in small bytes – it’s only when you take this into consideration the music becomes very upbeat and joyful. Sound effects seemingly blend into the music, creating a very uniform play experience.

Max & The Magic Marker is a Wii game, it’s visible from the design, however enough effort has been put into the port that it doesn’t feel restricted by the mouse – if anything it gains a level of accuracy from our trusted input device.

At the end of the day Max & The Magic Marker is a fantastic game, but don’t expect hours of play time from it – however if you’re looking for a casual game to pass a few hours a week then you don’t have to look any further – it’s just a shame the price tag sits at £12.95 while the Wii version is nearly half that price.

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Reviewed By: Daniel