Stephen Totilo types up a preview for the Wii game Max & The Magic Marker. Read on to find out why they describe it as a "carefully designed experience".

Already released for computers and coming to WiiWare this Monday, Max & The Magic Marker gives a good impression. Especially if you play it on a screen that's 137-inches diagonal.

For those of you who don't have 137-inch screens, just trust me about this, ok? The people from Press Play, the Danish development studio behind the game, had access to one last Friday and let me play their game on it.

Max & The Magic Marker is a side-scrolling platform game starring a hero who can run and jump and hope that you will aid his journey by drawing things into his world. Two Press Play developers talked me through a couple of levels in Max's fifteen-level game. Using a Wii nunhuck, I made Max run and jump and collect blobs or orange marker ink. With the remote I was able to use that orange marker to draw structures into the world. The drawings follow rudimentary laws of physics, falling, tilting and leaning as they drop into place, creating ramps, shelter, seesaw counter-weights or enemy-killing bricks. Ink is finite but can be sucked back into the marker when needed. The ink reserve resets at every checkpoint, meaning you can't horde.

Dark Arcanine via kotaku.com »