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Scribblenauts
Nintendo DS / DSi
The Writing Is On the Wall.
1/5 stars
“Scribblenauts” is an exceedingly ambitious little project created by 5th Cell, the guys who brought us the customizable title, “Drawn to Life.” Their first attempt at a game strove to be the DS equivalent of the PS2's “Graffiti Kingdom,” but failed spectacularly. Despite 5th Cell's track record, the gaming media has hyped “Scribblenauts” to the moon and back, as the gaming media is prone to do. I usually try to remain aloof from such hype, but I must admit that, in this case, I took the bait. I was promised an amazing puzzler/platformer that would allow me to solve each level in myriad ways limited only by my own brobdingnagian vocabulary. But what exactly does “Scribblenauts” deliver?
Presentation
The presentation is the high point of “Scribblenauts.” Unfortunately, that isn't exactly something to be proud of. The graphics are a bright, colorful 2D affair, and bear a striking resemblance to those found in “Drawn to Life,” complete with characters that appear to be cardboard puppets with joints fastened by brads instead of living, breathing life forms. Their range of animation is thus quite limited. The main character, Maxwell, looks incredibly awkward when climbing ladders or doing much of anything aside from standing still. The fact that “Scribblenauts” has such a large number of items that can be scribbled into existence is cheapened by the fact that many of the items look alike or are synonyms for each other.
The sound is a mixed bag. I found the music to be quite grating, especially the odd grunts and shouts found in certain tracks that sound like helium-snorting leprechauns. The sound effects are a bit better. There are different sounds for people and creatures, depending on their emotional states, as well as a variety of interesting explosions and mechanical noises for less organic creations.
The technical presentation has a few problems as well. “Scribblenauts” crashed on me several times while playing, and there are numerous game breaking bugs. I also noticed two lines of corruption on screen while playing several levels. These problems give “Scribblenauts” the look and feel of an unfinished game.
Story
The problem with the story in “Scribblenauts” is that there isn't one. The player is given a character in an incredibly stupid hat. The only way to learn his name is to read the instruction manual (who does that nowadays?) or use the in-game object-identifying magnifying glass and click on him. This character is, of course, named Maxwell, and he's out on a mission to collect things called Starites in order to.... well, nobody knows why Maxwell is collecting Starites. “Scribblenauts” contains no story exposition whatsoever. There is no introduction and there is no ending sequence aside from credits. Thus, there is no source of motivation whatsoever for the player to help Maxwell collect Starites, aside from the desire to collect Starites in and of itself.
Platformers typically don't need the epic, sprawling stories of adventure games or RPGs, but they do need something. Even Mario games, with their simple “rescue the princess and beat up the big turtle” story lines provide some motivation for moving on. “Scribblenauts” has no actual characters besides Maxwell. Every human or creature that can be scribbled into existence is nothing more than a tool with no personality of its own. Adding the lack of character personality to Maxwell's own lack of personality, it appears that 5th Cell has created an incredibly boring cast of cardboard cutouts.
Actually, if the trappings of a character-driven platformer were removed, “Scribblenauts” would have been fine without a story. If there was no Maxwell and if there were no Starites to collect, the player could just look at the game as a god-sim. Guiding random people from Point A to Point B or creating objects to make random people happy from the perspective of a god would have neatly circumvented the need for a story or level-ending MacGuffins to collect.
Gameplay
Where “Scribblenauts” utterly fails is with the gameplay. The game is divided into 11 themed worlds, each with 11 “puzzle” levels and 11 “action” levels. Action levels require moving Maxwell through various hazards to reach a visible Starite, whereas puzzle levels require fulfilling a condition to make a Starite appear. Unfortunately, toward the middle of the game, the puzzle levels begin to take on an increasingly actiony aspect. During each level, there is a thermometer on the top screen which shows how many more items the player can create. When the thermometer fills up, no more items can be scribbled into existence. Each level also has a “par” number. Creating more items than the par in the process of finishing a level results in a drastic drop in the number of “ollars” earned at the end of the level. Staying under par, of course, earns more ollars. Ollars are used to buy access to new worlds, extra costumes for Maxwell, and tracks in the music player. There is little reason to worry about not earning enough ollars by going over par, as I was able to unlock everything very quickly and had a 300,000+ ollar surplus by the end of the game.
The biggest and most irreconcilable failure in “Scribblenauts'” gameplay is that the game uses the touchscreen for almost everything. The only thing that is not controlled by the touchscreen is the camera, which is controlled with the D-pad or the ABXY buttons. With the camera in “Scribblenauts,” 5th Cell has created something I didn't believe was possible: a camera in a 2D game that is as bad, if not worse, than the typical cameras in 3D games. The camera moves somewhat slowly and automatically snaps back to Maxwell after a few seconds, even if the player is in the midst of delicately manipulating an object that is far away from him. It's a bit like trying to build a house of cards while someone practices pulling a tablecloth out from under it.
To move Maxwell, the player pokes a spot on the screen and Maxwell tries his best to get there. And by “tries his best,” I mean Maxwell spazzes-out more often than not and ignores all danger as he charges blindly toward the indicated spot, even if he can't reach it.... Unless, of course, the chosen spot is far enough from Maxwell that the camera needs to be moved in order to see it. In such cases, Maxwell ignores all movement commands until the camera comes closer to him.
Since item manipulation and character movement are both controlled by poking the touchscreen, they typically interfere with each other in disastrous ways. I can't count the number of times I tried to manipulate an object only to have the game register my stylus poke as somewhere other than on the object in question, which led Maxwell to come barreling toward the spot I poked and get killed in the process. The interface would have been much better if item manipulation was the sole domain of the touchscreen and character movement and camera movement were governed by the D-pad and buttons. Simply holding a shoulder button to use the D-pad to move the camera and releasing the shoulder button to snap back to Maxwell and control his movement with the D-pad and buttons would have provided a sufficient interface to control everything in the game without resorting to horrible, automated touchscreen movement. Touchscreen movement is NEVER a good idea.
Items are scribbled into existence by tapping a notebook icon, which brings up the word entry interface. The default interface has a handwriting recognition box that allows the player to literally write, letter-by-letter, the object they want to create. Unfortunately, like everything else in “Scribblenauts,” the handwriting recognition system is completely broken. After trying half-a-dozen times to get the game to recognize that I was writing an E, I gave up and switched to the typing interface mode, in which the player pokes the keys on a QWERTY keyboard with the stylus. Using the typing interface really takes the “scribble” out of “Scribblenauts,” but at least it works correctly.
Finally, the much-touted ability to solve the game's puzzles with ANYTHING is a bunch of hot air. Puzzles are incredibly limited in what actually works to solve them. If a player decided that they were going to solve every puzzle in the game with a zombie and a chicken, that player would be extremely disappointed. Though both of those creatures can be scribbled into existence, neither of them is useful for more than a handful of levels. For the most part, a ridable flying creature, some rope, an oscillating fan, and some landmines will serve the most purpose. The truly insulting thing about the limited number of useful items in the game is the excruciatingly boring Challenge Mode. Once a player completes a level, that level is marked with a silver star. To get a gold star, the player must beat the level again, three times in a row, using different objects each time. For action levels in which the greatest challenge isn't creating a usable object but preventing Maxwell from committing suicide due to the wretched controls, playing them an extra three times is the antithesis of fun. I tried to complete challenge mode, but gave up out of boredom in the middle of world 6. It wasn't an exercise in creative thinking, it was an exercise in patience and finding synonyms for the few objects that actually work.
Sadly, the only fun I had with “Scribblenauts” was on the free-play title screen. On the title screen, there is no objective. It's just a sandbox environment where the player can create whatever objects they want and watch how these objects interact. It's the type of timewaster I'd expect from a $1 DSiWare title or an iPhone app. It's definitely not worth the price of a DS game.
Overall
Overall, I do not recommend “Scribblenauts” to anyone. It is a mind-numbing, tedious game in which the challenge comes from the infuriatingly awful control scheme and groudbreakingly bad camera instead of cleverly-crafted puzzles. “Scribblenauts” tries to be a puzzle game and a platformer but fails at both. Gamers seeking an experience in either genre can do much better elsewhere.
Presentation: 2.5/5
Story: 0.5/5
Gameplay: 0.5/5
Overall (not an average): 1/5
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