Scribblenauts is the game of my dreams. I mean that literally… it’s the type of game that an 8-year-old version of myself would have dreamt about, without believing that such a game could be possible, and yet here it is on my Nintendo DS.
The concept is simple, yet profound; you are an odd-looking boy with a rooster hat named Maxwell, and there are a series of minor tasks for you to complete. The reward for solving these tasks is a starite. However, instead of taking the usual video game route where you have very few items to work with and must rely on your skill, in this game, you can summon into existence ANY OBJECT YOU CAN THINK OF to help you on your way. (There are restrictions to the “anything you can think of” rule, like not including vulgar terms, shapes, Latin names, or copyrighted things, but those restrictions do make a lot of sense, and don’t ruin the overall game.)
For example; on the far side of a lake, there is a flower that you have to pick, but between you and the flower is an angry bee that won’t let you go past it. How do you get rid of it? That is entirely up to you. Flyswatter? Sure, it works. Bug spray? That works too. Boomerang? Yep. Sword? Absolutely. Venus’ flytrap? Um… actually, I’m not sure about that one, let me check…
*a few seconds later*
OK, Venus flytrap doesn’t actually try to eat the bee. However, dropping the plant on the bee’s head seems to kill it. This illustrates one of the downsides about Scribblenauts. Just because you can summon nearly anything doesn’t mean that it will always act the way you may expect. An ostrich will not bury its head in sand. Playing the flute will not make rats follow you. A ceiling fan will not automatically attach to most ceilings.
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I intend to do a review of Scribblenauts later this week, but before that, I’m going to give some lists of notable items you can create in Scribblenauts. Of course, not all of these items are notable for being useful, but they’re all worth mentioning.
Unexpectedly Useful Items:
- RAMP: In Scribblenauts, there are these annoying buttons that are on the side of a wall. The level can only be passed if the button is continually held down. Ramp solves that problem… just roll a ball down the ramp, it will press the button and stay there.
- AIR VENT: Blow things in any direction you want. Useful for avoiding certain enemies or blowing a starite towards you. Similar objects: LARGE AIR VENT, FAN
- BLACK HOLE: At first I expected that a black hole would destroy absolutely everything, making it useless, but instead, a black hole only works in a localized area, which can be very good for clearing out enemies. As an extra bonus, if you create a LHC – which stands for “large Hadron Collider”, the world’s largest particle accelerator – and interact with it, it creates a black hole. Synonyms: NOTHING, ANYTHING
- HAIR DRYER: This is really quite useful, but not for the obvious reason of being able to blow air (it’s actually not particularly good at that at all). No, hair dryer’s are great because they kill sea creatures. You know how you’re not supposed to drop a hair dryer in the bathtub because it will electrocute you? It works in Scribblenauts… you can get rid of sharks, pirahna, and barracudas quite easily this way. TOASTER also works for this, and as a bonus, if you use a toaster, you can kill sharks and get a loaf of bread at the same time! Other similar objects: BLENDER, WAFFLEMAKER
- WINGS: I went into this game fully expecting that I would make a lot of use out of the JETPACK. It is indeed useful, but I hadn’t considered that there are situations (such as falling into water) when a jetpack will break down. Giving your character wings to fly takes away that problem. Of course, if you don’t need to fly into a small space, it’s a lot cooler to ride a PTERODACTYL, SPACE SHUTTLE, or PEGASUS.
- ICEBERG: If you need a flat surface to reliably float on in an open expanse of water, I’ve found none better than putting in an iceberg.
- CHERRY PICKER: Got a place that’s too high to jump to, but you don’t feel like flying? This may be just the thing for you. It’s a little difficult to use sometimes, though, so you may want to try other things that will lift you, like ESCALATOR or ELEVATOR.
- FISHING ROD: Are you close to the starite, but can’t quite reach? Do you need to get a small object from far away? Fishing rod may just be your best friend. It’s quite useful for much more than just fish.
- CARROT: If an enemy is standing on the edge of a precipice, the easiest way to get him out of your way isn’t to shoot him… it’s luring him with food. I chose “carrot” to represent this, but really, most foods will work just fine.
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I’ve mentioned how I’d love to make a Wii game someday, but to do that, there are a lot of things that I still have to learn, and one of them is good level design. If you’ve ever played a game where every location feels the same, or if you’ve played a game where finishing the level requires some kind of near-impossible jumps and maneuvers, you’ve been a victim of bad level design.
I decided that one of the best places to look for good level design is in popular games and memorable games, and very few games are more popular or memorable than Super Mario Bros, and Level 1-1 is so well known that it became a stage in Super Smash Brothers Brawl, so let’s see what makes this level tick!
(I’m going to be writing this with the assumption that you are not particularly good at video games. It helps to see games from a new user’s point of view.)
Here we are, the start of the level. It starts out very boring, and I’m pretty sure that’s on purpose. All you see is Mario, the sky, and the ground. You try walking to the left, but that doesn’t go so well. You try walking to the right. Oh, what’s that? A question mark box? What could be inside? It’s very subtle, but putting that question mark box on screen gives you a gentle push as to which way you should go, inviting you to explore a bit more.
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By now, most everyone who knows video games knows Mario, and those that own a Wii are probably already aware of Super Mario Galaxy, a game that burst onto the scene in late 2007. As of this writing, it has already sold over 8 million copies, and my reviewing the game is not likely to cause much of a bump in sales. However, that doesn’t stop me from wanting to review it anyway, because it is one of the few video games ever made that I could call perfect.
Two years ago, when I heard that Mario Galaxy was coming, I decided that it might be wise for me to get used to playing Mario games in 3D, as I’d never played classics like Mario 64. So, I picked up a copy of the Gamecube game Super Mario Sunshine – which, of course, plays on the Wii – and started playing. I soon discovered that I was not particularly good at the game… I had a difficult time mastering the controls, and there were too many precision jumps for me to master. Less than a tenth of the way through the game, I put the game away, hoping that Super Mario Galaxy would not be as difficult for me.
Fortunately, it is not. The controls are perfect, and the spin ability while jumping means that, if I’m about to land somewhere that I wasn’t intending to, I have a second chance before landing to correct my jump and land properly, which was much easier to master than Mario Sunshine’s F.L.U.D.D. system.
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James writes “You should design a few Pokemon, I always found it interesting seeing what other people think of when it comes to them, because people come up with such unique ideas on them.”
I assume you mean designing new Pokemon, not drawing existing ones, right? Interesting idea. The Pokemon themselves have a unique art style within anime – especially the original group of 150-ish Pokemon – but I can’t say I’ve tried drawing in that style too much. Well, here goes:
I present to you Beaverbite, Geckameleon, and… some kind of small bird Pokemon with fire wings of some sort. I like the first two, but the third one looked a lot better in my head than what came out on paper, so he doesn’t get a name. (That’ll teach him for being drawn badly.)
As an extra treat for today, you know how I mentioned before that I don’t draw Pokemon often? Well, the only time I can ever recall drawing a Pokemon before today was the following drawing, done in early 2000.
Andrey wrote me, asking “If you could create your own wii game like the creator of the boom blox & boom blox bash party did with EA. What would it be? How would it look like? Will it be a 50 mini-game party game type? Or maybe you can draw your own characters and make an adventure or party game like Rayman Raving Rabbids or a puzzle game like Boom Blox.”
If I could make my own Wii game… funny you should ask. This is probably my first time publicly saying this, but I very much would like to make my own single-player Wii game. In fact, I’ve been sketching out ideas for my game idea over the last four years.
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Another fan named Alex sent an e-mail saying “My name is Alex and I would like to see you draw Waluigi because he’s my favorite Mario character.”
Why not? I’m having a great deal of fun with these Mario ones:
Somehow, I don’t think that Waluigi would feel particularly bad to have been the one SENDING the blue turtle shell…
Side note about Waluigi: the first time I ever saw a video of Charles Martinet, he was doing the voice of Waluigi saying “I’m Waluigi! Everybody’s a cheater but me!”. Charles Martinet, in case you were unaware, is the English voice of many Mario characters, including Mario, Luigi, and Wario. Anyway, when I saw the video, I was surprised seeing what the voice of the character actually looked like, and I’m fairly certain that memory influenced this picture.
Over the last week and a half, I received not one but two e-mails requesting a scared Luigi. One e-mail suggested that Luigi should be running scared from a ghost, so here we go.
I get the feeling that Casper the Friendly Ghost isn’t what the e-mailers had in mind. :)
Clockwise from top left: Goomba, Lakitu and Spiny, Bullet Bill, Bowser, Angry Sun, Piranha Plant.
Let me just say, Bowser is surprisingly complicated. I wouldn’t look forward to animating him.
Imagine, if you will, video footage from a building demolition. A huge skyscraper has been loaded with carefully placed explosives, so that the building will properly implode when a red button is pressed. Now, imagine that the explosives in the huge skyscraper were actually not placed very carefully at all, and when the building explodes, many buildings around it will also be toppled to the ground.
Now, imagine that you and your friends are the ones that get to press the big red button, without any fear of being charged with a criminal offense for destroying public property. That’s Boom Blox. If you have ever delighted in watching a wobbly building made of dominoes get destroyed and wished that it didn’t take so long setting up the dominoes in the first place, this game is for you. Boom Blox comes only on the Nintendo Wii, which is good, because I don’t know what other console could support a game like it.
At first, when I had heard of the concept for Boom Blox, I thought it would be fun for a few minutes, but without much potential for long-term play. I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of different options for gameplay that the creators of Boom Blox – one of whom is none other than Steven Spielberg – came up with. There are modes where you hit things for points, others where you hit things to make them explode, and others where you delicately pull pieces out of towers, attempting to leave the rest of the tower standing. There’s a wide variety of weapons, from bouncy balls to six-shooters to, I kid you not, a fire hose that shoots bowling balls. As for variety in targets, there are Chemical Blox, which only explode when two come in contact with each other; Vanishing Blox, which immediately disappear when hit, and Gem Blox, which are frequent objects of desire for different modes of play.
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