SirPenguin
Member
Developer: 5TH Cell Media
Publisher: Warner Brothers Entertainment
Platform: Nintendo DS
Rating: E10+
Price: $29.99
Genre: Puzzle-Platformer
Official Website
Official YouTube Channel [Videos, etc.]
Official Facebook page [Screenshots, news, etc.]
Release Dates:
NA - September 15th, 2009
Europe - October 9th, 2009
Australia - September 30th, 2009
--> Features
- Create Your Own Interactive Experience: Objects you write down in the game are only limited by your imagination
- Everyone Can Play: All-ages Ppick-up-and-play fun for everyone
- Touch-screen Controls: Easy to pick up and play on Nintendo DS. If you can tap, you can play
- Unlimited Replay Value: Use less objects to increase your score, or experiment with different objects for endless replay value. Write anything; solve everything
- Playground Mode: Play the entire game in a sandbox style right on the title screen
- Revolutionary MultiplayerCreate and Share Levels Online: Share levels you create with the Level Editor via Nintendo DS Wi-Fi Connection
- Innovative New Title from Leading Developer: 5TH Cell, the creator of the Drawn to Life franchise and Lock's Quest, has experience creating high-quality, innovative DS games
--> Answer the call of...Scribblenauts?!
Scribblenauts is a puzzle-platformer that has two game modes: puzzle mode and action mode. In puzzle mode you must solve a puzzle or challenge of some sort in order to earn a "starite", a star shaped item that is the goal of every level. In action levels the starite is out in the open, though obviously guarded with creatures, traps, and other obstacles that the player must overcome
In both modes you have nearly any noun at your disposal to help you solve the level. The game boasts an object list numbering in the tens of thousands, from the most mundane of objects to some of the most complex and powerful...such as God, shrink rays, and time machines. Every item has real world properties and reactions you'd expect them to have. Termites eat wood, pyromaniacs set things on fire, and cats are rescued by firemen.
Write anything, solve everything. It's an accurate tagline.
The idea is to solve every level using your imagination. Each solution can be as mundane or as creative as you want it to be. However, the game encourages you to be clever in your solutions through use of points (called Ollars) and merits (think of achievements) awarded at the end of each level. Creativity rewards you with more points, and as can be expected this challenges you to complete a level with the most points possible. All the while these points can be used to buy various things such as avatars and levels.
The above is the technical description of the game. That's boring. Think of this as an imagination-to-DS converter. Think of something cool. Anything. Now type it into Scribblenauts. Chances are...it's going to work. You're going to be riding a panda who is riding another panda who is riding a unicycle. You'll be feeding steakbabies to hungry lions. You'll face God vs. Cthulhu because, hey, everyone else is doing it!
--> The rules!
As you might expect the game obviously doesn't have every item you can imagine. There are some rules. You may have noticed the "E10+" rating above. That is important, as...
- No vulgar items (items sexual in nature, etc.)
- No copyrighted words
- No proper nouns (with a few exceptions)
- Must be a concrete noun
- No adjectives (usually it will ignore the adjective but still spawn the item)
Aside from that you can expect most any item you can think of in the game. It's not always perfect, but while you might not get the very specific item you're looking for, you'll probably find the generic equivalent.
You can also expect plenty of easter eggs. 5TH Cell has snuck in many internet memes (yeah, Keyboard Cat is in the game. As is Rickroll, LOLWUT, Ceiling Cat...) as well as some clever interactions, such as Bigfoot being afraid of cameras.
--> Media
Boxart
Screenshots
Videos
Looking for videos? You can find 3 trailers at the official site, and a huge amount of them around YouTube. Of note...
- God vs. The Kraken
- Skateboardin' shotgun wielding God vs. Cthulhu
- A taste of the amount of creative solutions you have at your disposal
- A bunch of internet memes
- Commercial!
- Developer's Voice
--> Legacy
If there's one thing that can be said with certainty, it's that Scribblenauts has left its mark upon gaming forever. It's only been a short while since E3 2009, and yet in that time there has been a significant amount of internet memes, references, and epic stories surrounding Scribblenauts. It'd be an impossible task to record all of these moments in one post, so instead I'll focus on the important stuff. This is the legacy of Scribblenauts.
Reviews
Game Informer - 8.75/7.75
Ultimate Nintendo Mag - 10/10
N-Gamer - 9/10
Hardcore Gamer Magazine - 4.5/5
Eurogamer - 7/10
IGN - 8.7/10
Post 217
This post began as an impression by a GAF user named Feep. It was sandwhiched between posts 216 and posts 218 (two posts which would forever be ignored) and was a rather colorful hands-on showcasing the power of Scribblenauts. It spread over the internet like wildfire, instantly hyping anyone it touched. Soon gamers began bringing slightly censored versions of the story into real life to help describe Scribblenauts. It's unknown how many sales alone are thanks to Post 217, but I'd estimate about 200 million.
Only a couple of weeks later the official artist of 5TH Cell, Edison Yan, penned up an amazing "artistic interpretation" of this epic story.
Feep said:I had played all the big titles at E3. Private showings of God of War III, Heavy Rain, Alan Wake. But at 4:00 on Thursday, I was wandering around the show floor, wondering what else I had to see. I saw a small little booth for "Scribblenauts!" in the Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment section. I mean, who goes to that booth? But I remember hearing about it on GAF, and so I decided to check it out.
Best game of E3? Without a fucking doubt. Anyone who says otherwise did not play Scribblenauts. Best game of all time? Jesus Christ, I don't know, maybe. It's a game that challenges your IMAGINATION. No other game has ever done that.
So listen to this story. 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 pickaxe didn't work. In my frustration, I wrote in "Time Machine". And one popped up. What the fuck? 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 fucking dinosaurs walking around. I clicked one, and realized I could RIDE THEM. So I hopped on a fucking DINOSAUR, traveled back to the present, and stomped the shit out of robot zombies. Did you just read that sentence? Did you really? I FUCKING TRAVELED THROUGH TIME AND JUMPED ON A DINOSAUR AND USED IT TO KILL MOTHERFUCKING ROBOT ZOMBIES. This game is unbelievable. Impossible. There's nothing you can't do.
Holy fucking shit.
Steakbaby
The ESRB is not known for their rating descriptions. If anything, most people ignore anything they say about a game except for the rating on the box itself. Perhaps the ESRB knew that and wanted to mix things up. Or perhaps they wanted to share their sick and twisted imagination and finally found an outlet for their rage. Either way, the end result is the description you'll find below which went from 0-to-meme in less than 60 seconds.
Rating summary: This is a puzzle game in which players navigate a series of traps, puzzles, and enemies to collect stars scattered throughout the colorful levels. Players have the ability to summon different objects by writing/typing in the word (e.g., bike, spaceship, lion) and watching it come to life. If multiple words are entered in a sequence, different whimsical scenarios can be triggered: a bicycle can be used to jump over a baby; a bulldozer can clear away a shark; and cabbage can be fed to dinosaurs. Players can elect to summon "cartoony" versions of bats, bombs, guns, and flamethrowers. These types of items can be used to destroy objects or even other summoned items (e.g., a club can be used to hit an animal; steak can be attached to a baby to attract lions; rockets can be lobbed at a man). These triggered animations are minimally depicted and are usually accompanied by popping, musical sound effects; bright, star-shaped flashes; or small puffs of smoke. If players wish to, they may type in the word vomit, which causes a beige-colored lump to appear on the screen.
Thankfully, the internet embraced this incredible description, forever cementing the scenario as the very first thing every person is going to try out upon getting the game. Thanks, ESRB.
Rooster Hat!
It began as a simple question: "What the hell is that on Maxwell's head?" Somewhere along the lines someone must have answered "Rooster Hat," and the name stuck. The idea of such a ridiculous piece of headgear seemed to stick with gamers, and sure enough, they loved it. When Gamestop announced it as a preorder bonus...well, the internet went insane. Preorders must have been high because as I mentioned earlier Gamestop has seemingly run out and won't be offering them anymore.
In the above picture you can see 5TH Cell's Jeremiah Slaczka demoing just how incredible the hat is. Costumes for Halloween 2009 have already been decided for gamers everywhere.
Scribbletars
Finally, GAF and the internet at large have taken it upon themselves to make a bunch of avatars of famous people, video game characters, and fictional people in the Scribblenauts style. Dubbed Scribbletars, you can find the equally epic thread right here. You can also find a gallery of said Scribbletars over at this site. The artists have spent an insane amount of time and energy cranking these things out, so make sure you're repping them to promote the game and their work.
--> ScribbleWiki
***Placeholder for now***
The wiki should be a neat place to toss cool interactions/items/solutions/etc., and like you might expect, things are going to be discovered by actual players posting about them in topics like this. By posting your impressions in this topic you've given people the right to use the contents of your post, credited or not, in the wiki.
If you have a problem with this please let the people responsible know, either in the Talk page of the article or in this topic.
***PLEASE SPOILER TAG YOUR SOLUTIONS TO LEVELS AND ANY NEAT EASTER EGGS YOU MIGHT FIND***