cosmologicon 2014-04-28 23:18
First of all, let me invite you to PyWeek, which is a python-only game jam happening in a few weeks. You'll probably get a lot more people trying your game if you participate there, and help debugging if you need it.
Now, I spent some time debugging your code. The changes I made are at http://pastebin.com/Z72TjWW1 and the final version is at http://pastebin.com/Z8dc6ZMv. The issue that's causing your crash is that you're using the input function rather than raw_input. Also on my system you need to declare an encoding for this ASCII art, but that might not be true on every system. Beyond that, you have several functions where you try to set global variables but you don't declare them as global, so the game state never gets properly updated. Finally, there was one simple text formatting bug.
The game I wound up with is playable, but I think there are still some issues, such as the instructions seem to confuse up and down for the lift, and left and right for the platform. However, it seems pretty clear to me that it's impossible to win, since it takes one more step to get to the device and back than it takes the lift to go all the way up. Maybe I'm missing something, or there's some other bug I didn't find.
I guess it's pretty impressive that you managed to code up all the logic for a game that wouldn't run. If you want some programming tips, get used to arrays (called lists in python) and for loops. Your text definitely gets a high humor score from me. I'm glad you submitted something, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you make in the future!