Scribblenauts Preview
By Gaetano Prestia
A shark is swimming calmly down below in a pond. On the other side of the small pond is your objective. A blowtorch, dinosaur, whale, jetpack and fridge later, you’re standing across on the other side, celebrating your success. That’s Scribblenauts in a nutshell.
The motto “write anything, solve everything” does in fact have plenty of meaning with Scribblenauts, a title that packs plenty of punch in such a small package. Taking control of the undeniably adorable Maxwell, Scribblenauts is a charming platformer with a twist. Instead of solving puzzles the conventional way, you can choose to use any of the tens of thousands of items in the game to achieve your objective. It’s no surprise that this game won a whole stack of awards at E3, as it is without a doubt one of the most unique experiences in a while. The sheer number of items available is quite astonishing, with even the most obscure objects you can think of being included. There’s nothing quite like using a fart bomb to try and fend off a ravaging dog.
The concept itself is quite remarkable. The main aspect of the gameplay is to summon an item into the game to help solve a puzzle or problem, or to progress through an area. Using the touch-pad, you write words into the games lexicon, which uses a standard English dictionary. The game will either list the exact item you’re after or items that come close to the spelling of the word you’ve written out. What makes the whole concept so fantastic is that you will often stray into the most outrageous of items to solve even the simplest of puzzles. You might be looking for one thing in particular, but another item with a similar spelling will also come up, persuading you to use that instead of the original item you had in mind. What this inevitably leads to is tear-inducing laughter and enjoyment, as you attempt to distract a dog with God himself, while you use a jetpack to reach your objective in the tree, when a ladder would have sufficed just fine.
Yet that’s where Scribblenauts shines. You could easily use a ladder to get something out of the three, but that would be silly, especially considering you’re being rewarded based on style (as well as the number of items you actually use – the less the better). There is a pretty basic script when it comes to the campaign, but it’s very easy (and a hell of a lot of fun) to stray into your own little world of a time machine, teleporter, drill, lion and blowtorch. You could go one way with one thing, or you could go another way with something that is completely and utterly outrageous.
You use the d-pad to control objects, while tapping the touch-screen will direct Maxwell around the environment. Tapping an object will make Maxwell interact with it, and often there are several options with different items and animals, such as "interact", "engage" and "attack".
Scribblenauts begins in a free-roam area, where you’re free to wreck havoc with Maxwell and get used to the controls. Even though you can’t die in this mode and there’s no actual objective, it seems like a great introduction to the game and place to let your hair down without having to worry about points, dying or time limits. Once you do choose to venture off into the game’s true modes, there is a great puzzle mode that starts off simple but gets quite mind numbingly hard as you progress. Initially you’ll have the simplest of goals that dictate the use of the most basic of items, but soon you’ll be required to use a bit of your imagination and use the most ridiculous and unnecessary items just to reach a small butterfly.
With the completion of each puzzle you earn points, with your creative style heavily influencing how large your reward is. You could essentially just use a net to catch a bird, but you could also shoot it down with a catapult, blow it up with a blowtorch, or throw a lion at it. The options are near endless.
You can replay each level and earn extra points by completing it with a different set of items, and points can then be used as currency in the in-game store to buy new character avatars and environment backdrops.
There’s a campaign mode, which is split up into a number of small worlds, each of which have their own unique theme and look. You’ll also be able to create your own levels and share them both online and offline to challenge your friends and judge their own creative mind.
When it comes to Scribblenauts, one thing's for certain – it’s different. From what we played, we saw an incredibly unique, enjoyable and hysterical experience that looks as though it has enough legs to stay in your DS for a while. With the puzzle and main campaign mode, plus level creation and sharing, as well as the incentive to earn extra points and unlock more stuff, it looks to have plenty of value. Furthermore, the outright wackiness that can be created on the screen using the most outrageous of items is what makes this game so memorable. We just can’t wait to play it in full.
25/08/2009
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