A veteran game designer once told me that 90 per cent of players will follow the easiest path available to them, even if it isn't the one that's most entertaining. "People are lazy," he said, "even when laziness means they'll have less fun."
That turned out to be the case in last year's Scribblenauts, a highly original game that allowed players to call virtually anything they could think of into digital existence simply by tapping out letters on their Nintendo DS screens. The goal of the game was to let players come up with their own imaginative ways to collect glowing objects called "starites." They might fabricate a ladder to climb a tree and retrieve the five-pointed treasure from its upper boughs, or they could create a chainsaw to chop it down.
Problem was, rather than use their imaginations to try as many of the 10,000 or so nouns the game supported that they could think of (you could manufacture everything from skyscrapers to yetis), people figured out a few things that worked-such as guns and jetpacks-and stuck with them throughout much of the game.
Developer 5th Cell has gone to great lengths to exorcize this sort of laziness in Super Scribblenauts, the franchise's second outing. Nearly all of the sequel's more than 120 levels-or, more accurately, puzzles-requires players to brainstorm in interesting new ways.
For example, one level tasks us to create "an extinction level event" to wipe out a group of roaming dinosaurs, but with the restriction that asteroids and weapons cannot be used. I created a volcano that spouted pyroclastic debris. Another puzzle had me bribing members of a long queue with things that might convince them to ditch the line. I gave a brown-clad UPS-esque guy a package, a punk-looking teen a guitar, and a tam-wearing girl a paintbrush.
Activities become more challenging as the game progresses. One multi-step puzzle had me helping an Indiana Jones-like archaeologist. I began by making a map, which revealed a ziggurat. Then I conjured up a shovel to begin excavating the sand beneath it. I discovered a set of bones that needed assembling, so I created some glue to paste them together, which revealed the starite and ended the level.
Point being, Super Scribblenauts forces players to think a little outside the box; there are no tried and true strategies to fall back on. I've played about 70 of the game's 120 levels so far and can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I've used the same noun.
And it's not just about nouns this time out. As one might divine based on the game's title, 5th Cell has included the ability for players to modify the nouns they select with some basic adjectives. To unlock a door you might need a key, but not just any old key; a green one. To create an object that shares characteristics of both forest animals and mobile buildings you may need to create a furry tent. It adds a completely new dimension to the write-into-existence concept.
However, the addition of select adjectives and tighter constraints means that creativity can become a little stifled. Not all correct answers will work. I occasionally found I had to approach a challenge with an aim not to come up with some silly solution, but rather to figure out specifically what the developer intended me to do. Case in point: A furry tent will solve the puzzle mentioned above, but creating a sentient gazebo or a walking tepee will not.
But this is minor. The challenges here are altogether an improvement over those in the original game, and much more likely to keep players engaged and continuing to play.
And if you want complete creative freedom you can always just return back to game's home screen, a tabula rasa on which you can do whatever you want...like, say, create a time machine to go back to Ancient Egypt where you can conjure up a battle royal between a mummy, an evil Hercules, a rabid pigeon, and an effeminate man armed with an RPG launcher, then wipe out the last one standing with a biblical-sized flood.
Super Scribblenauts
Platform: Nintendo DS
Publisher: Warner Bros.
Developer: 5th Cell
ESRB: E10+
Score: 8/10