Marker Man Misadventures 8
Pirate/beach world yadda yadda only a four measure, ten second loop yadda wow what a game am I right yadda yadda let's play some levels.
Let me tell you something. I died to that stupid puffer wall because I thought it was possible to get through without using a speed power up, but it is not. I die, and before losing my life I force stop the game like usual. Only when I attempted to restart the level, I'm brought to the continue screen. It counted as a death and it was my last life. This wouldn't be a big deal because I'm on the start of a new world, but I am unable to use that save file anymore . I cannot say "yes" or "no" to continuing the game on that file without the game freezing.
Fortunately, I did eventually find a way to rescue that file. There is an option to delete a file, and that seemed to stop the freezing behavior. The only thing is that I'm back at level 1, but at least I can use that file again. It turns out, and I learned this much much later, that this world is just bugged with game overing! Do not EVER attempt to force shut off the game when losing your life in this world, because you will be sorry. However, all is not lost, as another glitch arises as a result of this, and it will be explained later.
In an unrelated note, I learned that the maximum number of markers that can be held is 99. Cool. Also, there are four possible exits! So it is possible to have that configuration.
Puffer Wall
This is a reskin of the spiky wall. The position of them in Level 71 makes them particularly nasty and has caused lots of trouble for me.
Uhhh moving platforms.
Fun fact: you can only pause the game if you're either on the ground or if you're in the air and going upwards! This is interesting, because you can only not save when falling down. This is likely to prevent people from escaping from death so easily. How nice.
Let's talk about the spike hallway. There is very little room for error. Touching the spikes for even a moment will likely leave you dead, and because of the positioning of the coins and the exits you have no choice but to face it. I noticed (from trial an error, unfortunately) that marker man's hitbox is slightly lower than his head. So, move marker man up slightly higher than you think for passing the spikes. Other factors that make this even more stressful is the fact that marker man slowly sinks over time, and that the coin has collision, meaning marker man's vertical movement could change upon collecting the coin. This is dumb.
Octopus
It seems to be a stylistic choice to make one eye bigger than the other. Anyways, it deals 7 damage (7th world) and the attack frequency is similar to shoe boy's. It's funny that I reference shoe boy for things when the bunny is technically the first enemy that has this behavior. Shoe boy just appears so much more often.
What a mess of a level. I don't even have the energy to dissect what's wrong with this. Just, good luck if you're trying to get the coin inside death hallway up there. There's no easy way to do it: staying in the area between the spikes is suicide. You jump from one to the other, making sure platforms are already there.
Well, I guess we're going to start spawning in the water now. There are only two ways out of the water, meaning you should heavily rely on the swim power up or you will be very frustrated.
Piranha
You would think these things would be much more deadly than the octopus, but honestly I think it's just a reskin. I have a really tough time trying to figure out the difference between the two. What a disappointment.
Well, the good news is that you won't get lost here. The bad news is that it will try as hard as possible to kill you. Preferably by spikes. Have fun!
Fan
It is a stationary, rotating blade that pushes marker man away when touching it. It's hardly a hazard in the water.
This level is actually a pain to even get to in the first place. You have to take the four coin exit on the first level, then the two coin exist in the next level. And then the only exit takes you back to level 73. Cool, thanks.
I want to ask why would you force the player to make a choice between multiple routes when a specific order is required and while the player is basically timed, but I already know the reason why. The developers are trolls. Just look at the top path and see where that takes you. One marker. Brilliant.
I'll give a piece of advice for you young, aspiring marker man enthusiasts. If you run out of markers which make the level difficult or impossible to continue, then attempt to collect a marker in the area, even if it's just one, and quit the game. Remember that your marker count persists upon exiting even if the level was reset.
I am genuinely curious as to what the level designers think about sometimes. There's a series of fading blocks near the top of the level, and there is absolutely no reason for them to exist. If wasting space in a game is an art, they are masters at it by now. Also, there's an invisible block in the skinny section. How did this get missed?
They know you don't want to go into the water, but this is the water world. Of course you have to go in the water. At least you know where the exit is, though!
Unrelated, but I got someone else to play this game, and they brought up a good point about it. They said it's a game about drawing your way through each level, but because your drawing ability is tied to your health you're technically discouraged from drawing, which sort of ruins the main reason to play the game. Given the rate the health decreases when drawing and given the number of markers you find, it isn't that big of a discouragement, but still…
Of course right after I say you need to go into the water for every level, this one doesn't have any water!
The fans in this level are larger than the ones in level 75. These are probably the same sprite anyway, just scaled up, so I'm tempted to just not call it a new entity. It's a large fan, okay? Give it whatever name you want. You know exactly what it does. What's great is that the fans are placed so you will never have to interact or deal with them.
The second part of this level is a nightmare. Plain and simple. You might actually have an easier time using the super speed power up and landing on those tiny platforms if it means not needing to build on extremely unstable terrain. And of course, underneath is spikes. It's probably the most difficult segment of this world. Avoid this level if possible.
See: Level 77 (Anti-Idle II)
These water levels are losing their charm quickly. Anyways, the part of the level labelled "lolphysics" has this weird block above the water where you cannot climb up. Not only that, but there is no friction on that block, meaning moving right will slide you right back into the water. You also cannot jump! How does THIS get missed?! It's basically required to step on that block to finish the level, and it has some of the most broken physics I've seen in this game. Between this and level 78's invisible block I have a feeling these levels were just rushed to completion. Another really annoying part is the spike hallway and having to deal with the octopus just perfectly placed in the center of all of it. You don't really have a choice but to swim around it. Very dangerous.
It's pretty obvious to me that the developers stopped caring at this point, so I'm going to stop caring as well.
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I hid a different letter in there.
Why
Fun fact. Game over, restart on level 71, then force shut down the game. You'll end up back at the level you were on when you died. I believe this only works for this world for the reasons mentioned at the very beginning of this post.
So first of all, that's not water. Trust me. I thought it was retextured. It's lava. Touch it and you'll see the most brutal death animation this game has (it's not that serious, but the title still stands). He basically just disintegrates. Do not bother using the fading blocks. You will die. For some reason the lava has a colliding box just underneath the surface. What you should do is make rectangle shapes that rest on the lava and use those as platforms instead, touching the fading blocks as they get in your way to remove them. Use the speed power in the second part (CAREFULLY) to get past the spiky wall hallway. Remember you can try this level as many times as you want using the trick above.
If that doesn't help you, then I have an even easier method. Use the super sprint power up, but before you run, place a rectangle on the edge of the following spiky wall. That way you can run to the right and let the shape stop you so you do not run into death.
The last segment teaches you that you can build on the lava, if you somehow did not do that by now. After that, you made it! I cannot explain enough how dangerous and difficult this level is. If you do not have at least 4 markers by the time you reach this area, I seriously recommend just starting the world over. It is brutal and relentless. This game is getting hard.
Wow. I'm slightly afraid of this next world, which is actually a good thing because that's going to be the first positive emotion I felt playing this game in a while. World map!
Here's hoping to some excitement.