Finally had time to put my hands on Scribblenauts last night (I admit, the DS has collected a bit of dust after my Layton rush-through session). If you haven’t heard about it already, Scribblenauts is 5th Cell’s innovative puzzle game for the DS, where you help Maxwell (but I will call him Scribby) collect the Starite (And I will just call it Star), to pass each level. Scribby gets your help by items you create for him, which you do by basically typing any word existing in the English Dictionary provided it isn’t a trademark (and some other stuff). You don’t even have to know how to spell perfectly because the game would give you a list of words to choose from if you misspelled, or typed in an ambiguous word. I smiled with glee during my brief session because it brings back memories of my King’s Quest 1 days which I typed in every action I could think of, even though most of them bombed on me (including the foul language). Here’s the anecdote of my impression:
This was the last stage of world 1 (after the tutorial), on my 3rd run: The Goal was to pick up the 3 flowers and leave it in the basket for the girl. One was next to a giant bee, one was in the water next to an angry fish, and one was on the cliff just slightly out of reach. To get to the first flower, I made a sword for Scribby so he could swing at the bee and kill it. Then I created a shark out of thin air (yes now I am having my god complex finally fulfilled), I dumped Sharky into the waters and he ate fishy up. The 3rd object I made was a helicopter, I made a plane on my last run but it ended up being a pain to control. Scribby hopped in and hovered towards the cliff to pick up the first flower and made a round trip back to the basket. To get to the final piece, I had to get Sharky out of the murky waters and left him hanging on dry land (he could survive that indefinitely in the magical land of gaming). Scribby jumped in and I made some floating boxes for him to get out.
Probably wasn’t the most innovate way to solve the puzzle, but you get the idea of how the game is played? Did I tell you, I tried creating a Bear, a Manticore, and a dragon, and they would all chew Scribby and any other characters up?
The game has the concept nailed down. Unfortunately Scribby’s control is somewhat clunky and objects often time don’t behave the way they should and a lot of things often get in the way, making you restart a level (but they are usually quite short). However, no geeky gaming dudes or dudettes would pass up this chance to possibly own the most innovative game on DS this year.
Confession: Zilla hs only finished world 1 so far, therefore it is a Zen Impression of the game, not a Zen Review.
Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?
Sure