By John Walker on August 31st, 2012 at 8:30 pm.
Was this already a known thing? 5th Cell’s absolutely amazing Scribblenauts series is finally seeing a version released on the mothership. No one had told me. The utterly magical platform-game-meets-actual-proper-magic is going to be on PC, as well as Wii U and 3DS, and Scribblenauts: Unlimited going to be using Steamworks to let you share the madness you create.
It’s the fourth game in the series – the first being the show stealer at E3 2009 when insane queues of journalists lined up to play the barely highlighted DS stand in the Warner booth. With all the game’s PR being done by game hacks whispering to each other, “Have you checked out Scribblenauts? You have to take a look!”, it was something that delivered on an insane promise – the typed in a word, and there was an animated cartoon of it that would appear in game. Sure, you could beat it, but you’d have to be pretty specific or cheat with a proper noun. Put in “cthulhu”, and yes, an octopus beast would appear. Tap in the most ridiculously specific dinosaur species you could think of and it would roar onto the screen and fight the sleepy god. Or maybe just drop in God.
There was a purpose to all this – to collect stars – but in the first version of the game this was mostly ignorable. (I reviewed it here.) It was the second version, with the introduction of adjectives, that saw it realise its potential – by this point the puzzles weren’t focused on platforming, but instead the direct use of the nouns. You need to scare someone? Why not try “angry clown”?
This version promises to be deeper still, with an adventure mode and a large open world to explore, while still getting character Maxwell to collect the Starites he’s clearly so dangerously addicted to. And you can customise objects you’ve created, even join them to others, in what I am still absolutely convinced can only have been achieved by programming witchcraft. And Polygon are reporting that the PC version is by far the better. Unfortunately there’s no release date, because there’s still no release date for the Wii U.
Here’s the creeeeeeeeeepy Wii U family having a play:
31/08/2012 at 20:31 ZIGS says:
Will it finally recognize the word “penis” and all it’s various alternate versions?
31/08/2012 at 20:40 db1331 says:
Mods. Just think of the mods.
31/08/2012 at 20:32 povu says:
Yes yes we need all your ‘nauts games.
31/08/2012 at 20:41 djbriandamage says:
Scribblenauts is probably the only game where I enjoyed the title screen more than the rest of the game. It’s got an unbelievably incredible premise implemented in a very dry fashion. I’ve only played the first games (Scribblenauts and Super Scribblenauts) and the sequel was better but there is far too much reliance on platforming and twitch skills when all I really cared about was clever word puzzling.
I’ll buy it, though. No question. Where else can I flee from an angry t-rex with a jetpack by jumping on a flying winged meadow hovering over the corpses of children who willingly drank poison I left on a polka-dot table? Maybe like 7 or 8 other games, tops!
03/09/2012 at 23:01 simonh says:
I’ve got Scribblenauts Remix for the iPhone, which I guess is a later version and as John said, it’s mostly puzzles rather than platforming. It’s interesting, most levels are trivially easy if you want to be boring and predictable, but it’s a lot of fun trying to come up with the most unexpected solutions. In a way it’s not so much you who are being tested, but the game itself.
31/08/2012 at 20:47 TheTedinator says:
I liked the platforming parts a lot better than the more puzzle-based ones.
31/08/2012 at 20:47 WhiteZero says:
I’m not seeing a source that confirms this?
31/08/2012 at 20:53 The_B says:
Which source in particular? The Polygon article linked in the text above mentioned they announced the Steam Workshop integration at PAX, which is happening right now.
(EDIT: Just noticed John accidentally linked his EG review of the game twice instead of the Polygon article by accident, I already had the tab with the Polygon story open in my browser, so I can see where the confusion happened.)
31/08/2012 at 20:58 WhiteZero says:
“Just noticed John accidentally linked his EG review of the game twice instead of the Polygon article by accident”
Ah, thats why.
31/08/2012 at 20:57 ArcaneSaint says:
SCRIBBLEFACE?
31/08/2012 at 23:32 The Random One says:
ANGRY YELLOW POLKA-DOTTED FLYING CURSED WAR FACE
01/09/2012 at 00:36 hamburger_cheesedoodle says:
WARNAUTS
31/08/2012 at 21:07 Uninteresting Curse File Implement says:
Scribblenauts was my fave DS game; in fact, it was the only DS game I ever really liked, so I’m interested.
Although I’m afraid that playing this while not in bed will not be the same.
01/09/2012 at 13:01 KDR_11k says:
The only DS game you ever liked? WTF is up with that considering the sheer number of awesome games the DS has? Did you have an extremely limited access to the system’s library?
31/08/2012 at 21:09 RedViv says:
Angry burning pink fluffy Cthulhu shall be summoned on the PC then.
31/08/2012 at 21:10 DickSocrates says:
Yay.
31/08/2012 at 21:24 Nevard says:
I don’t think they needed to add a storyline
31/08/2012 at 21:36 MuscleHorse says:
I remember not really enjoying the first game on my DS, but just the title screen. It lets you summon nerd favourites like Cthulu and a Kraken to fight one another, so I’m interested to see how the series has built on that wonderful foundation.
31/08/2012 at 21:40 Keymonk says:
YES! YES! Wanna try Scribblenauts so baaad.
31/08/2012 at 22:09 GigaCosmoShark says:
A GLORIOUS NEWS INDEED!!!
I’ve one of the most unspeakable Erection right now
31/08/2012 at 23:06 sinister agent says:
Can you still summon a rabbi, priest, and imam, and make them team up to fight Manbearpig? Or find out how many wasps it takes to defeat satan? This is what matters.
31/08/2012 at 23:42 TaroYamada says:
Old news, was announced at E3 for PC too.
31/08/2012 at 23:51 Lambchops says:
I was always wary of Scribblenauts (despite not being able to buy it anyway!) largely because I feared it would suffer from the same problem as Crayon Physics Deluxe, namely by being so open ended that it lent itself towards the path of least resistance, namely a small set of catch all solutions that actually ended up stifling creativity if you wanted to complete the game as quickly as possible.
01/09/2012 at 08:56 Ninja Dodo says:
If you try to complete the game as efficiently as possible you’re doing it wrong.
01/09/2012 at 11:01 Lambchops says:
To be honest I think it might be less of a problem than in Crayon Physics, I like words more than drawing stuff!
01/09/2012 at 19:36 MattM says:
Crayon physics was so twitchy. I was always having to redraw the same solution over and over until it fit just right.
01/09/2012 at 00:49 Heliocentric says:
I own both of these on the DS, its a glorious thing, consider it added to my checkout.
01/09/2012 at 02:31 RSeldon says:
Excellent! :D I had a lot of fun with the first one on DS, never got the sequel. Shall await this with bated breath.
01/09/2012 at 03:07 andrewi31 says:
Oh, no the word squeeeee. It’s spreading again! The knights that go squeeeeee, how i hate thee, ahghaa!
Sorry, sort of joking, sort of. Nintendo spirit, activate: yeah, this is the game I can draw on the squeeeeen!!
01/09/2012 at 05:32 El_Emmental says:
But, where is the multiplayer FFA-TDM mode with sniper rifles and kill streaks ? no buy !
01/09/2012 at 06:17 amishmonster says:
I concur, it was surprisingly difficult to find a dinosaur it didn’t recognize.
01/09/2012 at 07:30 Geen says:
OH HELL YES. I loved the hell out of both games, and this looks even better.
01/09/2012 at 08:15 Jackablade says:
The campaign mode of Scribblenauts is one of those games where you kind of have to make your own fun. “Wendy is hungry” is a lot more entertaining when it becomes “Can Wendy drag the boulder to which she’s leashed and reach the doughnut before she’s eaten by a dinosaur?”
01/09/2012 at 09:04 Ninja Dodo says:
I didn’t get very far into the second game but I played a lot of the first one.
There was one level where there was a really long vertical shaft with a ninja guard at the top. No single solution seemed to have enough range, so instead I tied a rope to the ninja which went about halfway, then flew a jetpack up to the rope, climbed up (whilst pulling the ninja towards the edge) and finally reached the platform just as the ninja was pulled over the edge, falling to his doom. It was amusing.
01/09/2012 at 10:08 Alexrd says:
Damn! It was all fine until I read the word “Steamworks”…
03/09/2012 at 10:45 Toberoth says:
How come?
05/09/2012 at 19:26 Alexrd says:
Let’s just say that I don’t like Valve’s DRM.
01/09/2012 at 11:07 Hatsworth says:
Was very disappointed by the first DS game. Actually couldn’t believe the hype it got after playing it, though I guess the concept is impressive in short demos…
01/09/2012 at 14:30 pakoito says:
The second one is totally best designed, specially the puzzles. You should try it out.
01/09/2012 at 15:12 Josh W says:
That sounds perfect!
Also, has anyone noticed how this is slowly forming into a text parser game, just taking the exact opposite approach to your responses?
>Use dragon with television station.
I don’t know why you want to do that, but ok, now there’s a dragon flying around breathing fire on everything. Look at him go!
>
01/09/2012 at 18:02 Soapeh says:
Gonna pencil this release into my diary. I hope the port isn’t too sketchy or I’ll have words with the devs.
01/09/2012 at 18:31 Hwacha says:
Awesome! I can’t wait to fight a giant robot kraken atop a flying, rideable, fire-breathing hippie again.
01/09/2012 at 19:58 thyho says:
I’ve played a lot of this in a emulator and it was awesome very creative game.
Long life for the pc
02/09/2012 at 12:06 Dominic White says:
Those that just burnt through either of the Scribblenauts games to date by using the most ‘optimal’ solutions to everything were hugely missing the point. The idea was that you should experiment, and that’s where the challenge mode came in. You were tasked with solving the same puzzle three times over, without re-using any words or synonyms.
That got the imagination going. Scribblenauts was full of cheaty ‘instant win’ solutions. Any puzzle involving switches in hard-to-reach places could be solved by just writing ‘Engineer’ and putting it in the target room. Engineers love switches, obviously, so they’ll use it without you ever having to be there.
It’s a game that you can ruin for yourself if you’re terribly boring. So, don’t do that.
03/09/2012 at 01:15 RegisteredUser says:
*wonders if one can “bring out the gimp” as well*
03/09/2012 at 08:03 killuminati says:
The sooner thay release that “already old piece of hardware” that’s the Wii U the better. We wil finally stop move on onto really new hardware.
Edit: notice how in the creepy video it is clearly shown as one player has the tablet like controller and the other the Wii controller, with no sensor and used like a normal pad, yet worse I’d say. Nice move Nintendo, in putting new barriers to two people sittingon the same couch!
03/09/2012 at 10:43 ThinkAndGrowWitcher says:
Yes! Because all the “new” hardware – with its super fraggled combustion rings and ethintropes x2 – will suddenly bring an end to all the terrible games that run on lower spec systems/consoles, like Bastion, Limbo, Braid, Machinarium, etc etc etc.
And Wii games like Mario Galaxy et al were such torrid and pointless turds due to the hardware limitations, weren’t they?
Bravo, you miserable old sod, you, Bravo!
22/11/2012 at 23:06 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Wasn’t there something like this for pc as well (prior to this)? And I don’t mean crayon physics deluxe.