Interview: 5TH Cell on Scribblenauts

We chat to Joseph M Tringali from 5TH Cell about the upcoming Scribblenauts, so spawn yourself a chair and sit down, sit back and take a look.

Vooks: For those who don’t know what Scribblenauts is about, can you give us a quick rundown of it and how the concept originated?

Joseph M Tringali: The concept originated from two ideas, one which had writing / words as a mechanic, but didn’t have much of a game behind it, and the other idea was from a dream that our Creative Director Jeremiah Slaczka had about trying to navigate through a series of rooms. He combined the ideas, and Scribblenauts was born!

The game is simple, you use the Nintendo DS stylus to write or type any word you can think of. That word appears as an object in the game, and behaves as it would in the real (or fantastical world). You control the main character, Maxwell, and use the objects to complete various scenarios; either reaching the Starite that is already on screen, or fulfilling an objective to get the Starite to appear.

Vooks: The game has received a lot of positive buzz following its showing at E3. Has the increased attention to the game influenced the final stages of development?

JMT: We were in the final weeks of development around the time of E3, so we definitely had some limitations on the scope of changes that we could make. E3 was the first time we had unrestricted public access to the title, and there was consistent feedback on some of the controls, and particular objects that we found valuable, and made some last minute changes. June was a crazy month for us, but we love our fans, so we did what we could.

Vooks: Players might tend to use more powerful items in order to beat challenges. Will the more every-day items like cutlery or office equipment be more versatile than initially expected?

JMT: I don’t know about you, but Pterodactyl is about as every-day as they come. How do you commute to work, if not by flying dinosaur?

Common items have a purpose in many puzzles, but if you compare to real life, if something is mundane in the real world, it’s probably going to be mundane in Scribblenauts. Unless you’re MacGyver, a butter knife and rubber band isn’t going to do much good when you have Excalibur available.

Vooks: What has it been like to watch players come up with incredibly ingenious solutions to the game’s challenges? Have there been any amazingly creative solutions you wouldn’t have first thought of?

JMT: It’s a great feeling to watch someone enjoy something you had a part in creating. At E3 we watched someone throw a javelin through a rope, severing it, to get a dangling Starite. I thought that was really neat.

Vooks: The art direction for the game is simple, but uniquely ’5th Cell-esque’ in style. What strategy did the art direction team use in creating in-game assets, to ensure a consistent look throughout the game?

JMT: It took several months to work on the art style, which is consistent with our past games, and appealing to the DS audience. Jeremiah, and our Art Director Edison Yan spent a significant amount of time concepting characters, look and feel, color choices, etc. In general we only stop the concept phase when we’re completely happy in the direction, and have enough reference material to start producing in-game assets.

Vooks: Scribblenauts is certainly a very ambitious title in what it sets out to do. Despite the positive buzz, however, there are still a few skeptics out there who doubt the game’s ‘write anything, create anything’ mantra will be possible in practice. What can you say to convince those gamers skeptical about the game delivering on the promised range of possibilities?

JMT: Certainly the first step for skeptics should be to purchase a copy of the game, perhaps even 2. It would be more efficient to check words on more then one DS at a time! Also buying the Strategy Guide could give them a leg up! Kidding… Anyway, we know there will be some expectations that we cannot meet, but that was never the point. When we say “anything” we really feel a user, playing the game, will feel it has everything. We’ve had concerted efforts by press and some testers to stump the game, and although at the end of the word lists they sometimes found an obscure missing word, the overall vibe was “wow, you really do have everything”.

Vooks: Where did you draw the line at what would be included in the game? Obviously swear words and trademarks are out, but where does it just get ridiculous?

JMT: I think we paused once while going through a list of chemical formulas, but then just continued on. Chlorinated Diphenyl Oxide anyone? We put everything in, miniscule or not, and while I’m sure there are a few obscure words we missed, we never passed on a word that fit the nothing vulgar / copyrighted / trademarked / proper noun criteria.

Vooks: How much of a nightmare was it to play-test a game with a seemingly unlimited number of possible items and interactions creatable by the player?

JMT: Testing was a challenge, but because the game revolves around systems, we tested the systems more so then the individual objects. If the system functioned, then theoretically the objects contained within the systems should work fine. This wasn’t always the case, but we ran into fewer problems then we initially expected. Most of the issues had to do with several special case objects that didn’t quite fit into a specific high level system.

Vooks: We loved Lock’s Quest and Drawn to Life. Can we expect any Easter eggs or subtle references that will be familiar to fans of previous 5th Cell games?

JMT: Both titles are near and dear to us! Unfortunately, due to the different publishers there isn’t any cross franchise material or references to our previous games in Scribblenauts. That said, there are plenty of Easter Eggs that relate to 5TH Cell in the title. The credits are pretty funny!

Vooks: Finally, can we expect any Australia colloquial expressions to be in the game? If not, we have a few ideas if it’s not too late!

JMT: There is definitely some Australian terminology in the game. One of our company founders is from Australia, so he made sure to include some of the more common terms. You can certainly shoot a Wallaroo and grill whatever is left of it on the barbie. Or ride a brumby with Maxwell in cozzies.

Thanks to Joseph for his time, and to 5TH Cell!