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VIRTUALISATION Hands-on Preview: Scribblenauts
VIRTUALISATION Hands-on Preview: Scribblenauts | Hands-on Preview: Scribblenauts |
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| by Mike Bantick | |
| Tuesday, 25 August 2009 | |
  
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There is certainly a lot that can be achieved with canny design and programming, and developer 5th Cell have certainly managed to get the imagination synapses connected with the upcoming Scribblenauts. Simply put, Scribblenauts tasks players with a series of puzzles, 660 to be exact (well 220 actual puzzles that need to be solved at least three times to “complete” the game). Maxwell, your on-screen buddy needs to recover the (sometimes hidden) stars to complete each puzzle, but how he does it is up to you. Simply type in (using a QWERTY touch screen) a tool or object you think could get the job done for Maxwell. This is illustrated well in the opening level of a star atop a tree. Entering ‘Axe’ will give Maxwell the ability to topple the tree and get to the star, equally setting “fire” to the tree achieves the same result. Alternatively, the conservationists amongst us may take a less environmentally impacting approach, giving Maxwell a “jet pack” or “Wings” for limited flight up onto the tree. When a noun is brought to life, simply dropping it on Maxwell enables him to wield it, sometimes multiple ways, options which are covered by a further graphical sub-menu. With the early display build of Scribblenauts there were some minor control issues with Maxwell, sometimes not quite behaving the way you intended, these issues are not game-breaking and should be fixed in the final release. What makes Scribblenauts more jaw-dropping however, beyond the ability to create “freeze rays”, “lightning bolts” and “Keyboard cats”, is the hierarchy and behaviours that 5th Cell have crammed into the game. Whilst a “Knight” will automatically take on a “Dragon” in valiant combat, generally the Dragon will make short, tasty and toasty work of the armoured gentleman. At an even baser level, cats eat mice, dogs chase cats. Experiments can be had in a sand-box section of the game, bringing corpses back to life with a car battery and wire is fun, riding on the back of a "gryphon" or seeing who will win between Dracula and Death will all fill in a great deal of time. All of this is important in puzzle solving as well. A girl with her pet cat stuck high on a roof will reward Maxwell with getting the feline back to safety, choosing and placing either a mouse (which, for the record, looks a little too much like the cat at the moment) or a dog strategically will achieve the goal. You are encouraged to use a minimum amount of tools to solve each puzzle, and can also be rewarded for limited use of weapons and violence. What sort of video game can this be then? Rewards for limiting violence! Whoever heard of that? Graphically, Scribblenauts is reminiscent of 5th Cell’s previous releases, Drawn To Life and Lock’s Quest , cartoony but crisp and enjoyable. Though I did not first hand get a look, there is also an editor built into the game, build and name your own objects and puzzle levels to be shared with friends anywhere. There is a lot of ambition here, and I for one cannot wait for the final build, if Scribblenauts can successfully pull off the potential - seen by many critics when the title received 35 awards at this year’s E3 show - this will be a landmark video game release. Scribblenauts currently has a release date of late September. |
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