Scribblenauts Unlimited

Protagonist Maxwell has a magic journal that allows him to conjure up any object he wishes. One day, a wizard asks Maxwell for some food. As a childish prank, he conjures up a rotten apple. Enraged, the wizard curses Maxwell's sister, Lily, slowly turning her to stone. Maxwell then begins a quest to do good in order to obtain magic Starites that could revert the spell.

The introduction sets the scene and sends you on your journey, but there's no plot development from there. Once you obtain 60 Starites, the ending scene and credits play out, but that's all you get in terms of story.

The object of the game is straightforward, you travel through the areas, typing words to create a suitable object to help the citizens. In some ways, it's like a simplified point-and-click adventure. However, instead of travelling back and forth between characters, searching for objects and finding ways to obtain them, you simply think of the item, type it in, and instantly obtain it. Scribblenauts promotes creativity, because there's multiple solutions to a given problem, so you have the freedom of choosing something simple and serious, or come up with a crazy idea. The more creative you are, the funnier and more entertaining the game will be. The game-play is geared towards the young, but as long as you utilise your imagination, it can be great fun for all ages.

In each level, there are 10 people to help and one or more 'main' puzzles. You can use your special
vision to highlight these people/objects to help you locate them. Completing one of the main puzzles gives you 1 Starite, whereas helping one person gives you a shard.

When you select a puzzle, a line of text will be displayed at the bottom, describing the problem. It's up to you to think of an object and type it in. If you make a spelling mistake, a list will pop up so you can select the word from the suggestions. You can also click a button after you have typed in a word to display a list of synonyms. This is obviously useful if you find yourself lacking that creative spark; thinking of the same item again and again.

The amount of words recognised by the game is extremely impressive. There are some words which will end up creating the same objects, while others have distinctive sprites. For example, I was impressed that Computer and Super Computer created completely different types of computers. The sheer amount of words the game recognises may mean you don't even see a lot of what is programmed in the game, but this is directly correlated to your imagination, or use of the synonyms button. Another impressive feature is the fact that adjectives modify the aesthetics or behaviour of the object. For example, adding 'shiny' will give the object a sparkle, 'smelly' will produce stink lines and other nearby characters will react badly to it, 'funny' will cause people to laugh, 'demonic' will give it demon wings and cause nearby characters to flee.

You can chain a large amount of adjectives together, so if you want a fat, yellow, striped, shiny, fast flying, ridable beaver; then it's up to you. I found myself creating a new outfit for Maxwell when I travelled into a new area, and gave him something to ride. Again, you can stick to proper vehicles, or create something that wouldn't normally be ridable, like a potato.

There's an object editor too where you can tweak the appearance of objects and their behaviour. You can add 'triggers' so they react to certain objects or when elements are applied to them like when they are on fire or electrocuted. You can state how much health they have, if they act as a container, if they can spawn objects etc. The game supports Steam Workshop so it's easy to import content into the game.

If you play the game in long periods, the novelty of the game will wear off. It is great fun to discover new items and describing words, but it's all you do throughout the game. The level themes are varied, so you will go through jungles, deserts, schools, cities, pirate ship, castles, space and so on, but there's little interaction with the environments themselves. There's not really any platforming, mainly because you can just conjure up some wings and fly around anyway. So once you've helped everyone in an area, you just select the next area and repeat the process. There's plenty of levels, but you can plough through them with little thought. Although I was amazed during the first few hours, I started getting bored after 6 hours or so.

Scribblenauts sure is an interesting game. When you think about it, there's not much game-play involved, but the magic comes from the creativity and the game certainly allows for that; it's basically a sandbox for your imagination. A game hasn't got me intrigued and made me smile as much as Scribblenauts, so it's hard not to recommend. It's probably even better for the younger audience since it can help them develop their spelling and vocabulary.