Unbounded Potential for Sandbox GamesUnbounded Potential for Sandbox Games
I got this game soon after it released. Playing with younger family members, testing our new words and finding solutions were mostly enjoyable experiences.
Now, I return to provide critical analysis to help you decide whether this is one that you’d like to add to your collection.
I aim to provide analysis that is not influenced by the popularity of the game.
Released in 2013,
Scribblenauts provides a quick-to-play creative experience that will have you playing for hours. Opens to create your own challenges allow you to fully explore the creative potential of the game.
You play as the protagonist, Maxwell, as you lead him through a series of challenges he must win.
So without further ado, let’s jump in!
Graphics: 8 / 10
The graphics don’t have much detail and use separated solid colors, making graphics look unrealistic. Individual objects look like they are drawn by hand in accordance with the drawing theme of the game.
The key strength of the graphics are their breadth. You can type the name of nearly all objects and get the physical representation of the object in the game. The simplicity makes the thousands of graphics needed for different objects a feasible task to draw and compile.
The two dimensional graphics allow for side-side and up-down movement. This restriction allows for simple linear challenges. Complex designs require creativity and appear in very few challenges.
Animations, while basic, remain impressive. If you create a weapon, you can use it. You can drive vehicles and fight enemies you create.
The sheer number of graphics makes up for their lack of detail. 8 / 10.
Sound / Music: 9 / 10
A strength of the game, the music fits perfectly. While sections repeat, they do not get annoying. Slight kid voices in the background are the only part that would have been better excluded. However, it does bring a more childish nature to the game.
The sound effects play louder than the music, and appear with the animation and when finishing a level by collecting the starite. Impressively, many of the generated objects come with sound effects, such as weapon fire and the falling of some objects.
The quality of sound for songs were better than the sound effects. However, since they both weren’t annoying or disruptively bad, the problem has negligible impact on game-play.
WIth little to complain about Music / Sound, this category rates a 9 / 10.
Addictiveness: 7 / 10
With thought and creativity needed for solving short challenges, the game is highly addictive. Granted, most of the challenges require little thought to arrive a solution, but it’s definitely fun to search for alternate ways of winning. Various objects can be used in conjunction, which adds to the complexity of the plans that you can make to collect the starite.
The ability to create your own level adds to this category, since you can easily spend an hour messing with objects to create a genuinely challenging course.
On the other hand, the addictiveness of the game quickly diminishes after the first week. It remains a fun game, but it’s easy to lose the drive to play. When I first got
Scribblenauts, I played it with family almost every day. Comparing to now, I didn’t played it for months until this week.
For older players, the initial excitement for the game comes from the complexity of plans than can be used. However, the childish theme of the game eventually gets tiring.
While it’s easy to play for hours when you first start, the decline of addictiveness over time reduces the score to an impressive 7 / 10.
Story: N / A
While
Scribblenauts works well without a story, the challenges do feel pointless at times. Optimally, the designers would have included a large story as an additional option. However, this problem was remedied in newer
scribblenauts games, which do have basic storylines.
Depth: 7 / 10
With numerous challenges and creation mode, the game has depth. With countless ways to solve problems, the levels have clear replay value.
Differentiation between starite and action levels allow for alternate objectives. Simple levels often have the most depth, since there are more opportunities for creativity. The most difficult levels are the ones where the solutions are highly limited by their detailed courses; They’re the ones with the least depth, too.
Because there are several options for game-play and alternate solutions can be found for the majority of the levels, the depth rates 7 / 10.
Difficulty: 6 / 10
While many levels require a level of ingenuity, the difficulty relies on the restrictions you place on yourself. One famous “cheat” is the jetpack, which you can use to easily beat an otherwise challenging level.
While I did get stuck on a few challenges, I found the majority of them to be really simple. To keep things fun, I searched for unique solutions.
Misclicks are an annoying way to die and happen often. You’ll also face levels where no creative approach seems to work. Instead you’re hopelessly trying to find the single generic solution.
While some difficulty arises from the genuine challenge of the game, it also comes from design flaws.
7 / 10.
Overall: 7.6 / 10
Graphics : 8 * 25% = 2
Sound / Music : 9 * 20% = 1.8
Addictiveness : 7 * 25% = 1.75
Story : N/A * 0% = 0
Depth : 7 * 25% = 1.75
Difficulty : 6 * 5% = 0.30
Sum = Overall Score = 7.6 / 10
This mathematical comparison of important categories leads to an impressive overall score of 7.6 / 10.
While
Scribblenauts had no pronounced weaknesses, it did not live up to even half of its potential. Many of the challenges could have been designed more broadly and better control of the main character, Maxwell, would have been nice. While I recommend this game, I do so on some restrictions.
I recommend getting this game if you:
1. are young, want to give it as a gift for someone young, or play it with someone young.
2. value creative approaches to levels
3. have the patience to brute force your way through some levels
In these cases, this game would be right for you. As this became an incredibly famous game, I’m sure some of you have your own experiences, please share! Any comments are appreciated, too!
Thank you for reading!
Graphics
9 Sound
9 Addictive
7 Depth
7 Difficulty
6
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