We check out... Scribblenauts

We've said it before and the warning remains: don't sleep on Warner Brothers as a future power in videogames. The last year or so the entertainment giant has increasingly explored its options. It was at the heart of a well documented bid for Eidos before Square Enix made an offer the beleaguered developer couldn't refuse. It's currently bidding for key chunks of bankrupt Midway, and in the meantime it's putting out a slate that's not trivial in terms of sales potential at all.

What Warners (full title: Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment) showed at E3 was mainly family fun stuff, at least for 2009. And while 2010 could be a bigger year for hardcore gamers, we get the feeling they will be making some cash this year as well. Lego Rock Band and the very Zelda-esque Aragorn's Quest - a Lord of the Rings license aimed at younger gamers both looked like the kind of titles that rake in cash and inexplicably end up topping sales charts. But what really caught our eye was a game on the humble DS: Scribblenauts.


C-H-A-I-N-S-A-W - DO IT.

It seemed everyone at the show who saw this game had an amusing story about it. The premise is super simple. There's 220 customiseable, shareable levels, divided into puzzle and action types. You play Maxwell, a chap who has to collect "Starites", star(duh) shaped objects usually hidden in the scenery or out of the way. The balance of the levels have you in one spot having to get around obstacles or terrain or (insert barriers) to get to an exit.



How do you do this? By typing in a noun. There is a bank of tens of thousands of words in the game, so try as we might, we couldn't find one that didn't get recognised. So in one level, your exit point is on the other side of a terrain feature floating on top of water. I type in "nuke" and sure enough, a bomb drops down. Beside me. About to go off. After I explode myself (and a healthy chunk of the barrier), I'm told I should have used the DS stylus to "pick up" the bomb and steer it around - preferably away from me.


Retrying the level, I opt for the more easy "jetpack" - sure enough I can then boost and float my way over (again using the stylus) to success. I could have also typed in "scuba" and swum underneath and out the other side", "shovel" and dug through, Lemmings-style - you get the idea.

Many of the levels there is no identifiable exit/objective until you start trying stuff for the hell of it. These are some of the most fun - you just end up typing in random words to see what the game spits back out at you. The game developers have thrown in a boatload of memes in there as well. Someone types in "ninja" and the next thing you know a ninja and pirate are sword fighting on screen. I type in "gravestone" (instead of say, "tombstone") but undeterred, the game drops a tombstone beside me. Of course - it doesn't help solve the puzzle, but hey. Key to the fun is the ability to combine objects together as well.


It's the new crack, make no mistake

God knows how the developers came up with a mechanism that recognises what words can lead to success in an individual category but what is obvious is there's plenty of options for each level - you won't be picking about for the exact right noun a-la adventure games of the 80s.

The visuals are made with an eye for fun too. I'm far from the world's biggest DS fan. My Mario Kart DS lies rotting in a storage box along with my now superseded "old looking" version of the DS. But hand on heart even as a hardcore gamer this has that "grab you by the throat" addictiveness that will see me playing the hell out of it. Keep an eye out for this one - if you see it on demo at your local game store, just try to walk away after five minutes.