Scribblenauts
Aug. 15th, 2012 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroMaxwell needs to collect Starites, for the same reason that Devil Bunny needs a ham. Fortunately, he has a magic notebook that can summon anything in the world to help him. Seriously, anything. Lasers, Freeze Rays, Sandwiches, Park Rangers, Zeus, the Kraken, Helicopters...anything.
Maxwell is, without a doubt, the stupidest video game character ever. He'll happily run off cliffs, charge into attacking creatures, and kick away structures that are supporting him. Fortunately, he's in a world where kings riding sheep will happily commit suicide (sui-regicide?) by running into a campfire repeatedly, and where firefighters don't know which way to point a hose. So he's in good company.
There appear to be two kinds of levels in Scribblenauts: 30-second levels, where the solution is obvious or becomes obvious with only a little testing; and 20-minute levels, where either you can't find anything that works or your solution keeps getting foiled by the stupidity of the characters. (Actually, the two kinds of levels are Puzzle, where you try to meet certain conditions to make a Starite appear; and Action, where you just need to get the Starite.)
By the later levels, I found the game getting a bit repetitive. Because of the limitations of the system, your ability to be creative with solutions kinda runs out after a while, and you fall back on workhorse items that get the job done. My most common words: WINGS, SCUBA, PEGASUS (for transportation), LASER (for shooting things), FREEZE RAY (for disabling things without killing), RAIN CLOUD (for putting out fires), HAMMER (for smashing things), SHOVEL (for digging), DRAGON, KRAKEN (for killing things at a distance), MAGNET (for moving metal objects at a distance), ROPE (for dragging things), LADDER BRIDGE (for crossing large gaps), WALL (for blocking paths), and BOX (for putting on switches).
I didn’t check GameFaqs and TVTropes until I finished, but they suggested a few things I never figured out, like using BALLOONs to hit buttons on ceilings, summoning MECHANICs to flip switches, getting things out of the way with SHRINK RAYs, and using DEATH and BLACK HOLEs to kill things.
My eventual criteria for a “complete” play-through was unlocking and attempting every level. I didn’t beat them all—some frustrate me even now—as a few remain too obtuse and a number are more frustrating than fun. The worst levels are either “read the developers’ mind to solve the puzzle” or “maneuver Maxwell with pixel-perfect accuracy despite his Artificial Stupidity”.
I had the game freeze a couple of times, which was really odd. I’ve never had that happen with a DS game before. What I think my overall issue comes down to is that the developers obviously put their time into building as huge a library as possible, when they should have spent more of it on playtesting to make sure the play control and all of the puzzles were fun and the game was entirely stable.
Overall: There’s proof-of-concept here, but it gets old fast. They needed more development time, and it shows. I may try out the sequels eventually, but I’m glad I got this used for cheap, and I’ll look to do the same for them.
Maxwell is, without a doubt, the stupidest video game character ever. He'll happily run off cliffs, charge into attacking creatures, and kick away structures that are supporting him. Fortunately, he's in a world where kings riding sheep will happily commit suicide (sui-regicide?) by running into a campfire repeatedly, and where firefighters don't know which way to point a hose. So he's in good company.
There appear to be two kinds of levels in Scribblenauts: 30-second levels, where the solution is obvious or becomes obvious with only a little testing; and 20-minute levels, where either you can't find anything that works or your solution keeps getting foiled by the stupidity of the characters. (Actually, the two kinds of levels are Puzzle, where you try to meet certain conditions to make a Starite appear; and Action, where you just need to get the Starite.)
By the later levels, I found the game getting a bit repetitive. Because of the limitations of the system, your ability to be creative with solutions kinda runs out after a while, and you fall back on workhorse items that get the job done. My most common words: WINGS, SCUBA, PEGASUS (for transportation), LASER (for shooting things), FREEZE RAY (for disabling things without killing), RAIN CLOUD (for putting out fires), HAMMER (for smashing things), SHOVEL (for digging), DRAGON, KRAKEN (for killing things at a distance), MAGNET (for moving metal objects at a distance), ROPE (for dragging things), LADDER BRIDGE (for crossing large gaps), WALL (for blocking paths), and BOX (for putting on switches).
I didn’t check GameFaqs and TVTropes until I finished, but they suggested a few things I never figured out, like using BALLOONs to hit buttons on ceilings, summoning MECHANICs to flip switches, getting things out of the way with SHRINK RAYs, and using DEATH and BLACK HOLEs to kill things.
My eventual criteria for a “complete” play-through was unlocking and attempting every level. I didn’t beat them all—some frustrate me even now—as a few remain too obtuse and a number are more frustrating than fun. The worst levels are either “read the developers’ mind to solve the puzzle” or “maneuver Maxwell with pixel-perfect accuracy despite his Artificial Stupidity”.
I had the game freeze a couple of times, which was really odd. I’ve never had that happen with a DS game before. What I think my overall issue comes down to is that the developers obviously put their time into building as huge a library as possible, when they should have spent more of it on playtesting to make sure the play control and all of the puzzles were fun and the game was entirely stable.
Overall: There’s proof-of-concept here, but it gets old fast. They needed more development time, and it shows. I may try out the sequels eventually, but I’m glad I got this used for cheap, and I’ll look to do the same for them.
