Scribblenauts Impresses Critics

Despite all the announcements for popular, big-budget game franchises at this year's E3, one of the most talked-about titles is a puzzle game for the Nintendo DS called Scribblenauts. In a hands-on preview, Joystiq described it thus: "The premise of the game is simple — you play as Maxwell, who must solve various puzzles to obtain Starites spread across 220 different levels. To execute the aforementioned solving, you write words to create objects in the world that your cartoonish hero can interact with. It's a simple concept that's bolstered by one astounding accomplishment from developer 5th Cell: Anything you can think of is in this game. (Yes, that. Yes, that too.)" They even presented it with a test of 10 words they wouldn't expect it to know or be able to represent, including lutefisk, stanchion, air, and internet, and the game passed with flying colors. The game will also allow players to edit and share levels. A trailer is available on the Scribblenauts website, and actual gameplay footage is posted at Nintendorks.

Comments

Amazing, but these are even more amazing.

[wowbagger]

This game is truly an amazing concept, and I don't minimize the difficulty of having such a large set of objects that interact with the game world in a meaningful fashion - indeed, I'd like to see something like this in a PS3 game.

However, I think these 20-Q games are also amazing: they are a small ball, running off IIRC an AAA battery or two, that plays a pretty good game of 20 questions. I've thought of some pretty weird things and it has gotten it right amazingly often (OK, I'll be fair: if I'm thinking "Airwolf" and it guesses "helicopter" I'll give it a pass). All that on a device that you can pick up in stores for $10.