Marker Man Adventures

"The only adventures you'll be doing here is trying to beat tedious trial and error puzzles."

### Publisher(s)

Majesco Entertainment

***Marker Man Adventures*** is a 2009 action adventure video game developed by Glyphic Entertainment and published by Majesco Entertainment for the Nintendo DS. It's about a stick-figure who loses his dog and goes on an adventure to find him.

## Why It Sucks

1. This game gives you no sense of direction on what you're supposed to do in this game, not even in the slightest, leading to a lot of trial and error.
2. The music is nothing short of generic in some areas, and the sound effects when you beat the level are just ripped straight from Looney Tunes.
3. The controls are laughable at best, as Marker Man can clip onto objects, giving players unlimited jumps as long as they are still in contact with the block.
4. For even something as much as a DS game, there is noticeable lag in some of the levels, especially if too many objects have been drawn in at once.
5. The game only gives you 3 lives (which can only be replenished by completing a bonus level, which will most likely cause you to lose more lives than gain them due to how unfair this part of the game is), and if you lose them all, you are sent very far back as there is no indication in this game as to which levels give checkpoints and which don't, and if you game-over before level 13, you have to start the entire game all over again.
6. Without warning, innocent enemies such as houses and cakes may kill you instantly for no reason as soon as you make the slightest contact on them, and considering the life system mentioned above, it really adds insult to injury. What's worse, the game never tells you which of the houses are fake, leading to cheap deaths.
7. When you draw in the shapes that you need, lets say if you want to use a certain powerup, it won't always work, making something that should be a simple process frustrating.
8. Every time you draw an object, you lose health, making this one of the stupidest mechanics in video game history, however, you can get some of it back by manually erasing any one of the objects you have drawn.
9. After you complete bonus levels, you are sent back a level. At this point, it's self explanatory how unstructured this game is.
10. If you beat the game, your progress resets, meaning that you've done all of this for nothing, especially considering the game's terrible ending (which will be mentioned later).
11. Sequel-baiting: If you beat the game, you will be met with a cliff-hanger where the stick-figure finds the dog, but is taken in by the aliens, once again separating the duo. Considering this game's ratings, a possibility for a sequel is impossible, especially now since the system has been long discontinued.

## Redeeming Qualities

1. The animation looks colourful and is full and life.
2. The whole concept of the game could've had potential if not for its abysmal execution.
3. For the most part, the game is at least playable if you don't take some of the bad gameplay mechanics into consideration.
4. There are multiple exits in some levels, giving a sense of variety at the least, and allows players to skip levels, making the gameplay less tedious.
5. There is a sense of exploration in this game, giving the player lots to do, especially helping that there is a lot of levels to play through, including bonus stages.
6. The later levels have less bogus death-traps, making the game more relaxing.
7. Some of the music is relaxing.

## Trivia

* Due to the ending of the game, there was likely a sequel for the game planned, but was never released due to bad reviews. -->