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jp's Marker Man Adventures (DS)

[July 25, 2021 06:47:03 PM]

I've played this a few times. The first was a disaster of a mess - I'm exaggerating - but the second was slightly better but a lot more interesting.

The game is basically a platformer where you need to draw things in the level to help "Marker Man" along. So, draw a line and it becomes a "ramp" he can walk on. You can also draw circles around enemies to trap them into balls you can roll and draw different shapes around the main character to trigger/activate special abilities.

I didn't know much of this the first time I played, but I then read the manual which explained and clarified a whole bunch of things. So, that's really why the second session went better.

A few of the interesting things is that the game has a micro-economy in your pen's ink, which also doubles as health and there are restrictions on when you can actually draw special ability shapes - the restriction being (afaik) having collected enough pens in a level. So, for the economy - every time you draw you lose some life points (ink) - this prevents you from spamming the level obviously. But, the game also lets you delete the things you draw (great for correcting mistakes) and get some ink back - but not all of it.

The special power shapes also cost ink (so long as you meet the pre-req) and, at least for the jumping ability, can REALLY change things up. Rather than drawing ramps everywhere I triggered it once and basically jumped by way to the end.

The overall experience doesn't quite work for me though because the platforming aspects are a bit wonky/imprecise - sure, jumping with the jump ability felt really good, but it took a while to get there. The basic moving around AND drawing AND deleting your bad doodles was a bit too much for me on a DS-XL and playing lefty...