Platforming action and touchscreen drawing come together in Max and the Magic Marker, your Fresh Games list leader for the first day of yet another work week. Max plays like a classic platformer, but with a twist — in order to make it through each of the levels and solve its puzzles, you’ll have to draw paths and objects for Max to move through. The game is an award-winner, so obviously it’s worth checking out. You can read about it, and the rest of the weekend’s cool offerings, below.
Max and the Magic Marker (iPhone, iPad) $1.99
In order to solve the puzzles and advance in Max and the Magic Marker, a 2D side-scrolling puzzle platformer, you’ll actually draw elements into existence using your iDevice’s touchscreen. You’ll play through with more traditional virtual controls that allow Max to move left and right and jump, but you can also pause the game to draw in objects to allow Max to avoid obstacles and solve puzzles.
Max includes 58 platforming levels to get through, and comes packed full of achievements you can earn along the way. It’s also worth mentioning that Max and the Magic Marker won a 2010 Independent Games Festival award.
Haunted Manor ~ Lord of Mirrors (iPhone, iPad) Free (with in-app purchase of $2.99)
Tap through the rooms of a haunted mansion in this item-search adventure game. As Stan, a guy who wandered into the haunted mansion on a dare, you have to find your way out by collecting items and finding shards of a broken mirror, all by closely examining rooms and discovering hidden objects within.
You’ll get a portion of Haunted Manor for free when you download it, and the full game can be unlocked with an in-app purchase of $2.99. The manor contains 90 tasks through 18 rooms to go along with its story. It also features Game Center support.
Super Stack Attack (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
If simple, casual games are your thing, it doesn’t get much more simple or more casual than Super Stack Attack. The game has just one goal and one control: drop blocks on top of each other to make a stack as high as possible. Each block is carried across the screen by a winch that moves left and right, and tapping releases it to fall on the stack below. Timing is everything: dropping a block too far left or right means the whole pile falls over.
Super Stack Attack features a challenge mode, in which you’ll have to meet stacking goals while dealing with different problems like a roving stack base, and an endless mode in which you see just how high you can get. The game has a great sort of cardboard art style and high definition graphics to go with its easy play style.
Download the free Appolicious iPhone app
