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

A must buy for me

[thetoadwarrior]

I'm surprised how little attention this received during E3. I'll definitely be ordering this if only to use it to prove you can solve all problems with poo.

Hmm

[ShakaUVM]

The gameplay footage was really quite interesting, but I'd give good odds that within a week of release people will have identified thousands of common words that don't work with it, or have found one word (jetpack?) that lets you solve all levels.

If I'm wrong, though, it could be amazing.

Re:Hmm

[JustinOpinion]

or have found one word (jetpack?) that lets you solve all levels.

The review seems to suggest that solving the levels isn't necessarily the hard part. It's solving them in few moves and with interesting strategies. For instance the review says: "awarded me badges -- achievements for clever word usage".

They have probably pre-assigned "novelty" numbers to a variety of words, based both on general frequency of usage, and also the "capability" of the word. I'm guessing that "jetpack" and "robot" and "laser rifle" will have low point values because they are so useful, whereas "treadmill" and "oasis" and "diorama" will have higher values because their usage is less obvious. The game might even keep track of words you use, and give you fewer points for re-used words, as compared to pulling out something totally new. If this is the case, then a given level will actually get more challenging as you keep replaying it, because you'll have eliminated all of the obvious strategies early on.

The thing is this is a puzzle game. The fun comes not from just getting to the end of the game, but in trying to solve puzzles in new and interesting ways.

Of course that may just be my imagination running wild. I'll have to actually play the game to see if they've calibrated all of this in a fun way.

Re:Hmm

[wisty]

Do you think there will be an add-on that gives bonus points for using words that were deliberately excluded from the family version?

Too much freedom

[jack2000]

Wait 'till some 14 yr. old writes in a naughty word. If the game doesn't have the items, rest assured there are people that will make some for it.

Re:Too much freedom

[TinBromide]

Here i was hoping it'd drop bars of soap or censor bars for those items.

Impressive?

[lyinhart]

I'm not sure why there's so much buzz about this game. It's quite similar to other recent "indie" games like "World of Goo" and especially "Crayon Physics" - action puzzlers that involve using lateral thinking to build structures and get to an exit. And Scribblenauts doesn't look nearly as impressive as either two of those games. Besides, all these titles have the same basic premise as good 'ol "Lemmings."

Re:Impressive?

[John Betonschaar]

You don't get it, the game isn't impressive because it's a puzzle game, but because it's a whole new idea that seems impossible to implement, but apparently works pretty well.

Re:Impressive?

[thetoadwarrior]

World of goo is very fun and might have the same very basic premise, I wouldn't say this is anything like that. World of goo is about taking one known set of tools and using them over and over to get around physics. Scribblenauts is about trying to take anything to solve a problem.

But even if you could say Scribblenauts is exactly like World of goo, I say it's nice to have a few similar games for people, who like those games, to purchase and a clone of World of Goo is definitely better than yet another WWII shooter or yet another street racing game.

Re:Impressive?

[xeoron]

True.... There is also a wonderfully wacky aspect to it as well, which one reviewer of the game at E3 talked about, here, which is this:

I was in the early levels; I didn't quite have an idea of how ridiculously in-depth the database was. I was summoning things like ladders, glasses of water, rayguns, what have you. But I reached a level with zombie robots, and the zombie robots kept killing me. Rayguns didn't work, a torch didn't work, a pick-axe didn't work. In my frustration, I wrote in "Time Machine". And one popped up. What the f!%k? A smile dawned on my face. I hopped in, and the option was given to me to either travel to the past or the future. I chose past. When I hopped out, there were f!%king dinosaurs walking around. I clicked one, and realized I could RIDE THEM. So I hopped on a f!%ing DINOSAUR, traveled back to the present, and stomped the shit out of robot zombies. Did you just read that sentence? Did you really? I F!%KING TRAVELED THROUGH TIME AND JUMPED ON A DINOSAUR AND USED IT TO KILL MOTHERF!%KING ROBOT ZOMBIES. This game is unbelievable. Impossible. There's nothing you can't do.

Re:Impressive?

[KDR_11k]

AFAIK the real challenge of the game is not to get to the end but to find as many different ways as you can for solving a puzzle.

Re:Impressive?

[Anonymous Coward]

I read an interview about this game I think almost a year ago, and was pretty impressed with the scope. They went through Dictionaries and Encyclopedias to create an enormous object database. There are a lot of nouns in the English language.

To list them all and give them a single attribute is quite a lot. To make them recognisable, animated, and to allow your character to interact with them is huge. To then define the way in which they also interact with one another is incredible. The parameters needed to be defined for this is almost astronomical.

Create an item. Can it be used by a human? An animal? In what ways? Can it be broken, climbed on, burnt, eaten, cut, fired, shattered, melted, driven, flown, guided? Some items may be able to modify it, some may not. Some in ways different than others. In what ways will this then change its appearance, function, interaction, etc.

On a side note... It would be nice to see such a database shared among developers. It seems like a lot of time is wasted in games recreating the same types of objects and interactions.

It is very much a sandbox game. Like many have said, though, the focus is not only getting the item, but how fast you can do it, how few items you can do it with, in how many different ways you can do it, etc.

I was impressed with the idea when first learning of it, but wasn't sure how well it could turn out. Fun, but very basic and limited, I thought. I'm amazed how well it has come out. I haven't bought a game in years, and rarely pay full price for a game, or buy them new... but this one seems to be getting more and more interesting. I'm really looking forward to see how this turns out.

Wtf nintendorks?

[ZERO1ZERO]

Before I started, I watched a douchey businessman type in "whisky" [sic] which, of course, is a misspelling of what he wanted. Instead, he got the "whisky carriage", which is absolutely incredible. Of course, the idiot business dude thought the game was wrong when it presented him with a charming gauche carriage but it was HE who was wrong so what an idiot, am I right or am I right.

Sorry what is this guys problem? Is he saying that whisky isn't a word? What an asshole. Sorry I meant, arsehole.

Re:Could this be THE GAME?

[KDR_11k]

Supposedly attributes like "with lasers" aren't allowed, the example they gave was a burning zombie elephant, you can't get that. You can, however, summon an elephant, a zombie and a torch and try to combine those. If you want a shark with a laser you have to summon both parts and try attaching the laser to the shark without getting eaten.

I want to play I want to play

[Jerrei]

"Allah"

Re:Obama

[Bai jie]

That'd be a cheat since he'd solve all problems. Right?

You mean "trademark", and yes, it is TM'd.

[tepples]

You can't copyright a name. But I found over 20 live trademark registrations at USPTO.gov for "CHUCK NORRIS", "CHUCK NORRIS FACTS", "CHUCK NORRIS IS THE FACT", and "CHUCK NORRIS APPROVED". Unfortunately, USPTO.gov's TESS search engine does not give out persistent links to search result pages, but individual results from TARR are persistent. These include CHUCK NORRIS APPROVED nutritional supplements, martial arts clothing, and action figures; CHUCK NORRIS T-shirts, and CHUCK NORRIS FACTS mousepads.

Self-imposed challenges

[tepples]

I hope this game is as cool as it sounds, but I have one major concern - balance.

Lack of balance has never stopped other sandbox games like Animal Crossing, which really is that easy. If they make Scribblenauts too easy, players will create self-imposed challenges: "Try to beat level X of Scribblenauts with only words meeting criteria Y and Z."

It's one thing to balance 20 races in a game

In some fans' minds, NASCAR has failed to balance even two of its highest profile races: Daytona and Talladega have become bumper cars. Or did you mean something else?

Re:Amazing, but these are even more amazing.

[The_mad_linguist]

It's not actually that difficult a problem once you have the database. And they built the database partially with crowdsourcing on their online site - 20q.net.

Reminds me of concepts from SF

[bughunter]

Scribblenauts reminds me of things like the Fantasy Game from Ender's Game, and the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer; a Propædeutic Enchiridion in which is told the tale of Princess Nell and her various friends, kin, associates, &c. from Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson.