Preview: Scribbling with the near final version of Scribblenauts

The guys at Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment were kind enough to have Vooks around for an hour of the near final build of Scribblenauts

Scribblenauts is a puzzle/action DS game which offers a completely original gameplay experience that allows you to “write anything. Solve everything!” by using your imagination. You play as Maxwell, whose objective is to obtain the Starite in each level by using the touch-screen to make him run, jump, swim, and write his way to success.

We started off with the title screen, which is also the game’s “Playground Mode” where the player can let their imaginations run wild, without worrying about Maxwell dying. We were shown by our Warner Bros rep of a demonstration of how the “Playground Mode” works, by summoning a corpse. It didn’t move obviously, but then he suggested adding “wire” and a “car battery”. By connecting the wire to the battery, then to the corpse, it created a zombie. Then it started attacking me, but gladly, Maxwell didn’t die.

So now he asked us to go through the Tutorial mode, which consists of 11 different stages in World 0 that explained how to move the camera, move Maxwell, interact with objects, shoot, throw, make objects and etc.So if you’re stuck on one of the game’s mechanics, then that world is accessible to be replayed again. In short, the whole game is purely based on the touch-screen, with the D-Pad and ABXY buttons are used to control camera panning, and the L/R triggers to rotate the item by 90 degree turns. Controlling Maxwell took a little getting used to as unnecessary taps on the touch screen wouldn’t trigger shooting a weapon, but instead led Maxwell to his demise.

Once finishing the tutorial, this led me to test out the game’s word database of not only ten thousand as what the Internets have been saying, but TENS OF THOUSANDS of words. (Sorry, the Internet isn’t one of them) We have received requests to check what can be generated within the game, but it seems that some of what we tried didn’t exist; or generated an item, but wasn’t of what we wanted. It is interesting to note that the game only allows words to be typed in uppercase, so the words “SPAM” and “Spam” (as in Spam Ham) both didn’t exist; and that there were no numbers to be inputted either. So if you were wondering how “C4” and “5th Cell” were available, they had to be written in their letter form, so you had to write “CFOUR” and “FIFTH CELL”. “PORTAL GUN”, unfortunately didn’t exist, but it produced a pistol instead. “LIGHTSABER” didn’t happen, as it would be a trademarked object. Its inferior version, the “BEAM SWORD”, didn’t fulfil our expectation, but created a sword instead. “RAINBOW” came to be but without a pot of gold at either end. It was also only a background prop, not an interactive object and the “POT OF GOLD” gave us a gold bar. We pitted the battle between a “PIRATE” and a “NINJA”, and it seems that the pirate won this round. “PLAGIARIST”, “DIACETATE” didn’t work, but “PUMA”, “LIGHTBULB”, “TURNPIKE” worked, along with “FIRE” which spewed fire from a pedestal. After testing all these words, we ran out of ideas, so in hoping for more words, we typed “DICTIONARY”, but to no avail on more words spewing out. There is a limit to how many objects you create at a time, which is hinted in the “Budget Meter” on the top screen, with each object having a taking up a different value in the Budget Meter. But on average, you’re able to produce 8-9 objects at the same time.

One interesting item we tried was the “NUKE”. This was the ONLY item (that we’ve tried so far) that kills ANYTHING, even Maxwell, and even in the Playground Mode. Once dropped, it causes a MASSIVE EXPLOSION and fades to white, instantly failing the level. Coincidentally, typing “EPIC FAIL” also spawns the nuke. Another interesting word we thought would be fun to test was “PRESIDENT” and to see who would pop out of nothingness. It was a grey haired personnel with a medal on his suit. This can also triggered with the words “PRIME MINISTER” and “OFFICIAL”, so our hopes for Obama or Bush withered away. We have also tested “SCRIBBLENAUTS” which created another mascot much like Maxwell, but we figured we test “MAXWELL”, and it produced another Maxwell but with a palette swap.

We tried some of the Internet memes, some of them did spawn and gave us a laugh. So you have your “LONGCAT”s and your “TACGNOL”s, along with some “KEYBOARD CAT”s and your “ROFLCOPTER”s and “RICKROLL”s with Rick Astley. “LOLCAT” is not in the database, but one of the suggestions was “LOL WUT”. This produced a large Maxwell head and we were able to put it on Maxwell’s head. One interesting thing that our Warner rep suggested was to write “CEILING CAT”, which DID spawn, but only has a background prop.

Scribblenauts offers 10 worlds, each with 11 levels of two types of gameplay: one being the action levels, where the Starite is visible in sight and is up to the player to obtain it somehow; and the other being the puzzle levels, where the Starite only appears after completing the said objective at the beginning of those levels, whether they be giving the correct tools to the person’s occupation, or to reunite a cat to its rightful owner. In total, there are 220 levels in the game itself, which includes the ability to create levels with the Editor and download user-created levels from Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection and Local Wireless.

With each level, there is a “Par” in which you should clear the level within a certain amount of items. By using fewer items in each level, you earn more “Ollars”, the currency in Scribblenauts, which is used to purchase worlds and other extras such as audio tracks and avatars that transform Maxwell into a DJ, a zombie, a pirate and more. The player can also gain “Merits”, which is dependent on how the player pursues their given objective. It is an achievement based system where achievements are unlocked certain conditions, such as not using any weapons or setting 4 or more things on fire in one level. With each level you complete, the initial icon “!” is replaced with a silver star, and the game urges you to rethink your methods of finishing the level, whilst recommending at least 3 different solutions. Upon doing so, the silver star is upgraded to a gold star, showing that sense of completion and extending its already large replay value to MASSIVELY EPIC longevity. Although to others this may seem redundant, this method is an effective way to obtain Ollars if you are running low on them.

But as good as the game could possibly get, there were some little iffy bits that we were unsure of, but were taken into little consideration since it wasn’t final. It seems that our interpretation of “ROCK” is different to what Scribblenauts spawned. It spawned a weird object looking like two blue-yellow antennae. If anyone knows what relationship that has, please elaborate. But other than that, a few control issues over the response from Maxwell’s ability to shoot projectiles and running away from dangerous objects would take some time getting used to.

Overall, Scribblenauts is an interesting game with the unique concept of solving puzzles by using your imagination. With so many different solutions to experiment, not to mention the quest to find ALL THE WORDS, this should last many gamers though the many gaming droughts. Be sure to pick up this title when it releases on the Nintendo DS in Australia on September 16, which coincides with the US release date of September 15, which would be considered to be a simultaneous release.

Thanks again to Joel at WBIE for allowing us to go hands on with it.