Asssorted GamesCom impressions

As GamesCom wore on I made sure to keep track of various people talking about their time with the game over forums and Twitter. I've made a compilation of sorts of various people who had something to say about the game. It's "real" and uncut impressions, and those tend to be the most accurate ones.

@krystman

#GamesCom Scribblenauts is made of condensed, high-octane awesome mixed with an overdose of win. I had god shoot a zombie with a shotgun.

#GamesCom Scribblenauts: Also had a Dinosaur vs Dragon fight while keyboard cat was playing in the background. Was killed by the Dragon tho.

First disappointment in Scribblenauts. You can't wear too many items together. Can't wear glasses and a hat at the same time.


@Xater

And scribblenauts is awesome as everyone thinks.

Controls may need some refinement. I sometimes had trouble having my scribblenaut interact with the items. But they may also be because I had to figure everything out by myself ina very short time.

One thing I tried was a Cop vs. Zomie fight. The cop lost , got turned into a zombie and then the zombies killed me. I also learned that God will ride on donkeys.


@Maxemillian

Yes, Scribblenauts is as awesome as I imagined. Note: sailors are sissies against Krakkens.


@derO23

Gamescom Scribblenauts Awesomeness: 'God in a tank vs Cthulhu' works in German build.


vyse_1986

First of all, I was always wondering if there is a "sandbox" level that just lets you summon things and see how they interact. The title screen is that very thing. I challenged the dictionary by summoning El Chupacabra and gave him a goat to eat. He looked very weird, though, and it seems like not every object in this game has its own dedicated sprite.

What you won't want to hear is that the interface is very clumsy. Everything is done with the stylus, so it's very overused, which leads to accidentally doing things you didn't mean to do. I later talked to other people who had the same problems. Of course, I have to add that there are 11 tutorial levels to ease you into the interface, and we didn't have time to get used to it.

I also played a few levels, and the game not only gives you bonus points for using new objects on every level, but also for using obscure objects. There was one level unlocked where you had to dress up a mannequin; using a simple hat - sweater - jeans combo gives you little points, but giving it a dress, a sombrero and a pair of gloves already resulted in a moderate amount of Style Points, as they are called. The game also seems to keep track of every word you ever entered, which might add insane amounts of replay value if done right.

So, my opinion of this game is as follows: I need to play it for way longer before I can really have one. It might get a lot better once you get used to the interface and get to the more challenging levels. However, I can say with absolute certainty that this is not a holy grail of gaming, so please don't expect one. This game will be loved by many people who appreciate the unique concept, including me, but it isn't nearly as polished as Persona 4 or even Super Mario 64. You can expect tons of trolls and haters who will pirate this game, play it for 10 minutes and come to this board to call it boring and easy... but personally, I'm really looking forward to seeing what this game has to offer and how it will eventually turn out.


migulic

We only tried a few levels (1-1, 1-3, 1-4 and 1-5 IIRC), focusing on testing the vocabulary and gameplay. One thing really surprised us - the puzzles were really difficult, even this early in the game! Maybe we were just thinking too far, but we couldn't beat two of those levels (1-4 and 1-5) at all... And there were three of us. I'll post more detailed impressions later, but there is one notable thing. Even though you can use literally everything in the game, you never feel overpowered. The levels (at least the first few) are designed so that you cannot use the 'easy' solutions (eg. take a plane to get somewhere high, dig a hole under a wall, teleport somewhere); each object has its own limitations, just like in real life, and you really have to think to solve the puzzles.

But then of course, we maybe just thought too much...

What was cool as well, was the creativity all throughout the game. If you type in 'answer', a Starite will appear - but it's the wrong one. A 'teleporter' teleports you somewhere into outer space, time machines work too (but everyone knows that due to Post 217), rickroll, NeoGAF and keyboard cat work.