Gamescom 2009: Scribblenauts Aim For The Sky

If there’s one giant issue I have with the upcoming title Scribblenauts, from developer 5th Cell, it’s that I won’t be able to play it as someone stole my DSi from the hotel room whilst I was at Gamescom.

Scribblenauts is a puzzle-platformer in which you have find the solutions to your dilemmas by way of writing down names of objects which could help you.   There are over two hundred and twenty levels, as well as twenty thousand objects you can use   After being told that in order to complete the game you have to solve every puzzle three times, and each time using a different solution; in order to do so you have to acquire an object called a Starite which could be anywhere, like in a tree or behind a wall.  In order to attempt to solve these puzzles you have to write in the name of the object you want to use, and with so many choices available I guess there’s a great deal of trial and error with this process.

Okay then, let’s use the tree scenario as an example. Say there’s a Starite in a tree and your task, basically, is to find a way to get it out of there; so what do you use?  Well common sense would dictate that you can use a ladder, a lumberjack, a jetpack, a swordfish or anything else you can think of to get past that dastardly tree.  But of course I, Simon Williams, took the slightly more direct – and violent – approach, and used a tank.  Not to sound like I’m environmentally unfriendly because I’m not, but I didn’t exactly use the tank to shoot the tree rather I stood on the tank and managed to reach the Starite.  All in all it was a success but I dare say I could have done it with …. a balloon maybe.  There are also puzzles where you have to give items to people which are associated with them and an example of this is if there’s a policeman, you give them a gun, a badge, or a baton!  For a chef, give them something food related and so on for the respective profession.

I was also shown a level where your task is to get a cat off a rooftop, so immediately you would consider once again using a ladder, jetpack or tank again.  Wrong.  Scribblenauts is a game which encourages the player to think outside of the box, so with this in mind you could instead decide to put down some milk.  Or perhaps once again you can play sneaky and put a dog on the roof and scare the cat senseless into leaping off.  Basically anything you can think of should work, and if a word you’re looking for isn’t in the game then you’ll be given a list of words that are similar to what you wrote.

Now an object can also interact with another one, so if you have a yeti you can make it fight with a werewolf – and then you can shoot the werewolf using a silver bullet.  You can even call in some divine intervention and have God defeat all the meanies for you so you could actually say with all honesty that the solutions to each puzzle are almost endless.

5th Cell will also be including an editor where you’re provided with the empty levels from the game in which you can build your own puzzles to your heart’s contempt.  You can store up to twelve levels on your card and share them with your friends across wifi, so if you want to have a Starite on top of a mountain that is protected by a yeti it’s easily set it up in the very simple level editor.

Scribblenauts has a certain innocence which I feel has been lacking in most releases on the DS platform.  With some titles it’s all about using the touchscreen almost as a gimmick, with Scribblenauts it’s so essential to the core of the game that you disregard that generalization and just enjoy it for what it is, fun. Scribbles’ has humor in it, a lot of humor in fact, and when you’re trying to solve a puzzle it’s almost impossible for frustration to kick in thanks to all the weird stuff you can think of.  Currently as it stands, I really just can’t wait to get a new Nintendo DS in order to play this unique, funny and original game when it arrives.  When’s that?

Well it’s September 15th for the US, and October 9th here in Europe.