Scribblenauts Reactions

[Molyneux]

Scribblenauts hits the shelves today, in the US; I know there's a while before it's released in other parts of the world, but no reason we can't get a review thread started now!

I'll be picking up my copy after work today. First thing I'm going to try to create is a motorcycle, I think. Or maybe a werewolf.

[Bounty]

Remember that thread about how video games don't take advantage of their medium?

Scribblenauts shows the way.

It's awesome. Probably the single most liberating game ever made. I'm not sure how long it'll stay fresh, but really, even replaying the simplest puzzle in completely cracked-out ways is just sheer brilliance. The library engine thing has a few quirks - an ox is a farm animal, but a piglet isn't? - but so far it has given me everything I typed apart from a BFG. Including stilts, a hot air balloon, and a spaceship.

Random example:
Spoiler

In one level you have to clean up a park and get rid of a bee. Being lazy, I typed GARBAGE MAN and had him clean up, then I typed RAY GUN and blasted the bee to smithereens. It's that flexible.

[Ford Prefect]

Bounty, you're not trying hard enough. There is apparently some seriously unusual shit in there. Try Rick Roll.

[Bounty]

I'm still getting to grips with the fact that you can solve a "find a flower but watch out for the bee!" quest with a giraffe, a flamethrower and a giant stomping mecha.

EDIT: four words:

FALLOUT SHELTER

ATOM BOMB

[General Zod]

Bounty, you're not trying hard enough. There is apparently some seriously unusual shit in there. Try Rick Roll.

You can also use Keyboard Cat, Ceiling Cat and Longcat. I'm totally picking this up when I get off work tonight.

[Bounty]

I just love the way this game lets you take a bad idea and escalate it into absurdity. So there's this metal box in the way...
Spoiler

You survived a welder, a terrorist, an RPG, a mine and a flamethrower, huh? *Types BLACK HOLE* Yeah, fuck you metal box!

[Molyneux]

Lunch break now...damn you all, you just almost made me burst out laughing at my desk...and now I'm counting the hours 'til I can pick this up. A bit over six and a half to go...

[Bounty]

I just made God beat up a shark.

[Starglider]

Woah, looks like after a decade or so of mostly empty hype about 'emergent gameplay', someone actually went and made a game that delivers on the concept. Bravo.

[Bounty]

Woah, looks like after a decade or so of mostly empty hype about 'emergent gameplay', someone actually went and made a game that delivers on the concept. Bravo.

You can see the seams and the stitches at times, but overall what impresses me most is the sheer scope of the dictionary. Underneath the game is really quite basic but the sheer amount of sprites and properties is so vast I doubt you'll see even a majority of the possible combinations.

If nothing else this game is a real labour of love; I don't even want to think about the sort of beta-testing a game like this would need. That the levels are still challenging when you can write down pretty much ever game breaker imaginable
Spoiler

Dog being difficult? Sick a buffalo-riding, mace-wielding Albert Einstein on him!

is a true testament to the developers' perseverance.

[open_sketchbook]

Shark + Laser Pistol = Sharks with frikken laser beams attached to their frikken heads.

As I've been playing my DS more and more due to being stuck waiting long hours for class in college. I am so glad I picked this up to supplement my diet of Ace Attorney and Professor Layton.

Also, "Athests" run away from God. Lets face it, it'd be a bit of a shock...

Oh, everyone knows there is a Cthulu... but did you know they also have Shoggoths?

[Bounty]

Also, "Athests" run away from God. Lets face it, it'd be a bit of a shock...

Give the atheist a minigun and he'll go at God like Rambo on fire.

And there's at least two ways to actually kill him.
Spoiler

Carpetbombing followed by a stealth bomber attack seems to do the trick. He'll cry when you set a nuke next to him.

[Gerald Tarrant]

I love it, I've found the advanced mode to be especially fun, re-solve the puzzles 3 times without using an item you've used before. Spoiler

Most of my new solutions end up involving fire somehow. Need to get something down off a building? burn the building

[TheLostVikings]

And there's at least two ways to actually kill him.
Spoiler

Carpetbombing followed by a stealth bomber attack seems to do the trick. He'll cry when you set a nuke next to him.

Spoiler

Write "Death" and the grim reaper will appear, he can kill god just by touching him.

Glue is also the best thing ever, you can glue all kinds of stuff together for hilarious results.
Spoiler

In the one where you have to move a whale into the water you can glue a couple of balloons on it then use a fan to slowly blow it away. Failwhale eat you heart out

Woah, looks like after a decade or so of mostly empty hype about 'emergent gameplay', someone actually went and made a game that delivers on the concept. Bravo.

When the game was first demoed to the public some guy discovered that elephants would pick up bazookas and proceed to shoot the fuck out of anything in the vicinity, sadly the developers though as it as a bug and afaik it was removed from the final game. With tens of thousands of objects in the game you can probably find all kinds of cool interactions that the developers never anticipated.

If nothing else this game is a real labour of love; I don't even want to think about the sort of beta-testing a game like this would need. That the levels are still challenging when you can write down pretty much ever game breaker imaginable <snip> is a true testament to the developers' perseverance.

I read a thread on another forum just after the game demo was first shown, and one of the posters was a developer: He was challenging all the other posters with coming up with new stuff they hadn't yet put into the game. The best part was that pretty much every single thing the other posters could come up with was already in the game.

That same tread was also the one that gave birth to the obscure "Post 217" Meme, post 217 is even an actual item the game itself. Seriously they pulled out all stops with this game.
Spoiler

I had played all the big titles at E3. Private showings of God of War III, Heavy Rain, Alan Wake. But at 4:00 on Thursday, I was wandering around the show floor, wondering what else I had to see. I saw a small little booth for "Scribblenauts!" in the Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment section. I mean, who goes to that booth? But I remember hearing about it on GAF, and so I decided to check it out.

Best game of E3? Without a fucking doubt. Anyone who says otherwise did not play Scribblenauts. Best game of all time? Jesus Christ, I don't know, maybe. It's a game that challenges your IMAGINATION. No other game has ever done that.

So listen to this story. I was in the early levels; I didn't quite have an idea of how ridiculously in-depth the database was. I was summoning things like ladders, glasses of water, rayguns, what have you. But I reached a level with zombie robots, and the zombie robots kept killing me. Rayguns didn't work, a torch didn't work, a pickaxe didn't work. In my frustration, I wrote in "Time Machine". And one popped up. What the fuck? A smile dawned on my face. I hopped in, and the option was given to me to either travel to the past or the future. I chose past. When I hopped out, there were fucking dinosaurs walking around. I clicked one, and realized I could RIDE THEM. So I hopped on a fucking DINOSAUR, traveled back to the present, and stomped the shit out of robot zombies. Did you just read that sentence? Did you really? I FUCKING TRAVELED THROUGH TIME AND JUMPED ON A DINOSAUR AND USED IT TO KILL MOTHERFUCKING ROBOT ZOMBIES. This game is unbelievable. Impossible. There's nothing you can't do.

Holy fucking shit

[General Zod]

You could have bypassed the time travel. On one level I had a couple of bears blocking my path to the starite. So in order to take care of them? I summoned a velociraptor. He ate them both.

[Bounty]

I really need to stop summoning an army of unstoppable chainsaw angels to solve everything.

The two main problems I wish they'd have fixed before release are the camera and the controls. The snap back is incredibly annoying, and some sort of option to put movement on the D-pad would have been nice. I've been avoiding combat by creating marines because hitting something yourself is a pain in the ass. Neither is a dealbreaker but I'm surprised they didn't pick up on at least the camera issue.

Incidentally, need to get past a crocodile? The hunter looks suspiciously like Crocodile Dundee

[General Zod]

I do agree with the controls. Moving to somewhere that you don't want to be when you're trying to tap an item is irksome, which is really my biggest issue.

[Lusankya]

I find that most problems can be solved with a pterodactyl, a lasso and a fedora.

[Bounty]

I find that most problems can be solved with a pterodactyl, a lasso and a fedora.

The solution to the last level I finished involved a science textbook, glue, a pyromaniac, fish sticks, scuba gear, a battleship and the Loch Ness Monster.

Incidentally, statisticians are great for distracting zombies.

[General Zod]

I find that most problems can be solved with a pterodactyl, a lasso and a fedora.

The solution to the last level I finished involved a science textbook, glue, a pyromaniac, fish sticks, scuba gear, a battleship and the Loch Ness Monster.

Incidentally, statisticians are great for distracting zombies.

You should try distracting the zombies with a clone.

[DPDarkPrimus]

I must lodge a complaint with the game designers.

The farmer does not consider ostriches, emus, or minks to be "farm" animals, but he will accept llamas.

[Bounty]

I've found a level that is completely broken thanks to the controls.

Basically you're in a long cave. One end opens in a vertical shaft with lava at the bottom and a Starlite in a block of ice on a rope hanging from the ceiling. If you hit a tripwire halfway along the cave, the Starlite falls and burns.

Which means that any time you accidentally tap the screen beyond the tripwire Maxwell starts a sprint and gets the Starlite dropped in lava; or just sprints straight into the lava himself. And let me tell you, when you're busy glueing bald eagles onto a block of ice, missing them is easy. Those bastards are fidgety as hell.

ETA: it doesn't recognise "crusader". Boo.

[AniThyng]

Why pray tell does "malay" spawn a bigfoot-like upright walking monkey? Is this some very very obscure non-racist meaning of the word I am unaware of, or do the developers have some sort of axe to grind with Malaysia? It boggles the mind.

[AniThyng]

Oh, I get it. It must be some sort of reference to the bigfoot hunt a while back. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4759018.stm . It still strikes me as needlessly potentially offensive though. I know it took me a while before this occured to me.

[Bounty]

Yeah, it's a Bigfoot synonym - if you type in "bigfoot" himself you get the same creature.