This game isn’t even three years old, but it already makes me feel nostalgic.
Nostalgic for 2009.
Remember 2009?
That was about when Nintendo was at that glorious nexus where innovation and commercial success
were colliding head-on.
You had two platforms, a home console and a handheld, that were both dramatically different
from any of their competing platforms.
They had features that almost demanded new approaches to game design, but just as importantly,
they were also breaking sales records.
That meant they could both inspire developers and give publishers incentive to back those
creative ideas.
It was an explosion of awesome, and thanks to those conditions, we got games like Scribblenauts.
In an era of cool ideas, this was one of the coolest.
Released to the Nintendo DS in glorious, wonderful 2009, Scribblenauts came from developer 5th
Cell...a studio that was mostly under the radar until 2007, which is when they released
the fantastic DS game Drawn To Life.
Two years later, the same creative thinking that led to that game spawned Scribblenauts,
a breakthrough release for both 5th Cell and the Nintendo DS.
Scribblenauts is kind of a hard game to explain.
I guess in a general sense, this is an action puzzler that emphasizes user creativity...and
verbosity.
The game is built on the idea of adding to the game world with virtually anything you
can think of, provided you can spell it.
Scribblenauts gives you a basic problem, and like a magician, it conjures whatever item
you want to solve it.
Basically, it works like this.
You generally have a simple objective, like grab the item that’s just out of reach.
How you achieve that is completely up you and whatever your imagination comes up with.
You can just write “ladder,” which will give you a ladder to climb...but maybe you
want to write “helicopter” and grab it in style.
That’s the whole point of Scribblenauts.
Come up with anything that works.
It sounds so simple, but it’s incredibly addictive.
In fact, Scribblenauts is more like an electronic toy box.
You can do almost anything you want, provided you’re not writing a proper noun or something
suggestive.
It’s insane to see the game not only recognize your words, but to see the objects doing the
things they should be doing.
That core concept steals the show, and it’s really unlike anything else.
But the game does have a few problems, especially in terms of control.
You actually move with the stylus, with the character Maxwell following your swipes and
touches.
This is at times awkward and sometimes worse, and the unfortunate thing is that it can also
get in the way of the game’s core mechanic.
You can create a bunch of items and plan to use them like some elaborate contraption out
of a Mouse Trap game, but if you’re not careful, the clumsy controls can bring the
whole thing down.
And that sucks on a whole ‘nother level of suck.
Still, for all its faults, you just can’t hold a good idea down...let alone a great
one.
Scribblenauts probably could’ve used a little more polish, but this game is just too impressive
and too fun for that to ruin the experience.
I mean, it’s like a Thesaurus turned into a toy box turned into a video game.
And that’s awesome.