Scribblenauts passes the Totilo test

by Chris Greenhough { Dec 19th 2008 at 6:00PM }

Scribblenauts is absurdly ambitious. Almost unbelievably so, in fact. It may look like a fairly standard puzzle-platformer, but it has a major twist: the player can conjure up any item they wish, simply by writing the object's name on the touchscreen. Again, for emphasis: any item.

But ... isn't that sort of, well, impossible? MTV's Stephen Totilo had his suspicions, so rang game designer Jeremiah Slaczka with a list of obscure items to test the veracity of 5th Cell's claims. Would we be able to summon cake mix, Totilo queried. Yep. How about an hourglass? You bet. Pushpins? A briefcase? Lint? Yes, yes, and yes.

Slackza does warn us not to expect "some eastern mountain Bolivian dish," (sorry, fans of Charque de llama), and has already ruled out licensed products or vulgar terms. Aside from those understandable exclusions, however, Scribblenauts really does seem to match the hype; it passed the Totilo test, at least!

Gallery: Scribblenauts

Tags: 5th-cell, action, platform, puzzle, scribblenauts

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

elsng @ Dec 19th 2008 6:31PM

The only thing I'd worry about is the game's length.

Superstar90 @ Dec 19th 2008 7:15PM

It's as long as your vocabulary minus vulgarities and pokemon :P

But I'm concerned about length a bit too, I want lots of levels, not just lots of replayability.

dser @ Dec 19th 2008 7:48PM

So each of those 'any' items has its own effect? I'd like to see that, sounds like a good idea for a game though.

Abscissa @ Dec 20th 2008 6:35PM

I doubt it. I'm convinced that most of the items will be interchangeable. If anything actually makes a difference it will just be size, shape, weight, maybe density. Including that many objects would be faaar too much work if each one has it's own totally distinct behavior beyond just a small set of stats.

darksage @ Dec 19th 2008 7:50PM

Well, theres going to be hundreds of levels in the game at the start, both casual and hardcore. Potentially, there could be a level editor with WiFi support for sharing, keep your fingers crossed.

Jacksons @ Dec 20th 2008 3:42AM

I hope the game's as good as the concept.

Bowser Rogozhin @ Dec 20th 2008 6:59AM

I think this game is going to suck. I'm not hating, I'm just saying.

Abscissa @ Dec 20th 2008 6:49PM

Same here. I have a great deal of respect for 5th Cell's originality, but every one of their games seems to have at least *something* that ruins the whole thing for me.

Drawn To Life's drawing mechanic had zero impact on gameplay, plus the gameplay in general wasn't very good, and there was way too much emphasis on a completely uninteresting story and dialog.

Lock's Quest would have been great, but the isometric camera made it nearly impossible to see where things were in relation to each other well enough to make certain that you didn't have any gaps, and trying to select the object/space you intended to select was unforgivably awkward as well. The game would have been GREAT as a normal 3/4 overhead though.

I'm expecting some similar concept-breaking problem with this one. For one, the text-recognition will probably be crap. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if all the objects end up being interchangeable and it ends up not mattering what object you choose.