Scribblenauts

Genre : Puzzle
Developer: 5th Cell
Players: 1
Retail Price: $30
Availability: Nintendo DS

When it was revealed that developer 5th Cell was making a game where you could use just about any object imaginable to solve the puzzles in Scribblenauts, it seemed a task too great to accomplish, especially on the Nintendo DS. Truth be told, the game does an admirable job affording players access to their unbridled imaginations in terms of problem solving. Unfortunately, the puzzles themselves are something of a shortcoming and it’s because of this that Scribblenauts feels more like a rough draft than a final copy.

Scribblenauts much vaunted feature set, in which you type or write in any noun into the game and get that item, works incredibly well. Of course, the nouns must be common, so proper nouns and copyrighted names like Xbox or Honda Civic will not show up, nor will obscenities or other hilarious improper objects. What will work come from a library of over 22,000 words. Objects like bowling ball, airplane, spaghetti and jackahmmer are all present. I was able to pit God and Satan against one another in a fight to the death (spoiler alert: God won). The first hour or so with the game inspires a feeling of power unlike any you’ve felt in a game. You’re truly imagining solutions to the problems presented to you.

Unfortunately, your imagination will likely figure out solutions to ninety percent of the game’s problems in that opening hour, highlighting the game’s main flaw. The actual puzzles revolve around only a few hooks. The object is to gain access to a starite, which is usually either placed out of reach somehow, or requires a specific requirement be met before appearing. There are only so many times spawning a jetpack would remain novel, but it’s something this reviewer found to be instrumental to success in many areas. Everyone who plays this is likely to find their own highly versatile and subsequently overused items. Sure, you could consciously mix up the items you’re choosing, and would be required to do so if you were to finish each level completely, but a game shouldn’t need the player to create an arbitrary and foreign rule set in order to instill fun in the gameplay. That’s something that should be present through design.

The controls, while not awful, are sometimes a hindrance and work against the player. The game will sometimes ignore that you’re clicking on an item with the stylus and have your character run in that direction instead. This can sometimes result in the need to retry a level, should your character die or if something else should go wrong. It doesn’t happen all of the time, but it happens often enough to note.

5th Cell had a great idea when they created an engine where they allow the players to create their own solutions. It’s a shame they didn’t tap into the same creativity they wished to inspire in players with their own level design. Scribblenauts could have been so much more than a boatload of challenge levels which are often solved by a handful of overpowered items. Should a sequel arise it would do well to have some sort of an adventure campaign with unique challenges that require gamers to think outside the box, much like this game should have. As it stands now, Scribblenauts is nothing more than a toy box with limitless potential in a house designed by an uninspired architect.