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Super Scribblenauts L-E-T-'-S-P-L-A-Y. Did you mean: Laboratory Animal?



Super Scribblenauts is a DS action-puzzle game released in 2010 by 5th Cell, the makers of the Drawn to Life series. It's a sequel to an earlier game named Scribblenauts, and I'll explain why I'm doing this one instead of the first game in a bit.

The premise of the Scribblenaut series is relatively simple, yet at the same time, incredibly complex. Your goal is to complete levels and collect Starites. Each level is a short little sidescrolling platformer starring Maxwell, and either has the goal of getting to the Starite, solving puzzles to make the Starite appear, or sometimes both. These puzzles range from "Give the farmer some barn animals" to "Complete this sequence". To solve these puzzles, you are given a simple yet powerful tool: a notebook. This notebook has the power to summon any object that you write into it, and you use the objects summoned to solve the puzzles. It's basically a reverse Death Note, only with less* killing. You can write virtually anything, from LADDER to ACCOUNTANT to the LARGE HADRON COLLIDER to ROCKET LAUNCHER. There are limits to what you can summon, however. You cannot summon a place (sssort of), a proper name (there are a few exceptions to this one, too) or anything copyrighted, pornographic, vulgar or suggestive. Other than that, the sky's the limit, and although you may find objects that weren't added, you might be surprised at what is in the game.

*less being relative, depending on how sadistic the player is feeling

An adjective system was added in Super Scribblenauts, hence the name that makes it sound like it should be on an old Nintendo console. You can tack adjectives onto things you summon, like YELLOW, GIANT, FRIENDLY, ANGRY, and everything in between. These adjectives modify the object being summoned to help you solve puzzles. While the adjective system is not too terribly useful in-game except for when you're forced to use it (though you might surprised at how useful it can be if you think outside the box a little), it is certainly a neat addition that's fun to play around with.

So why am I playing Super Scribblenauts instead of the regular Scribblenauts? Well, to be honest, the first game kinda sucks. Was it innovative? Most certainly. Was it fun? Usually. Did it have problems? Oh hell yes it did. The original game had two kinds of levels, Puzzle and Action. The Action levels got really repetitive and most could be solved with heavy application of ROPE and JETPACK. In Super Scribblenauts, most of the levels became Puzzle levels, while two secret worlds housed some levels that resembled the Action levels from the original game. The first game also had a bunch of quirks and glitches. To those who have the first game, hold a FISHING POLE and attach a BALLOON to it. Throw the fishing pole. Congratulations, I just crashed your game. It also had an absolutely nasty problem that fucked up WEREWOLVES if you weren't careful. But most importantly, the controls sucked so hard. Like, seriously. You controlled Maxwell via the touch screen instead of the D-Pad, which usually meant you would fling yourself somewhere and die or fuck the whole thing up. The sequel added D-Pad controls which are so much better and actually makes the game not a complete and total chore to play. So yeah, I might go back and do the first game (might) but I wouldn't count on it. This one really is better. The reviews for this game weren't too great because it didn't change a whole lot from the first game, and I agree. But I also say that if you pretend the first game didn't exist, Super Scribblenauts is fantastic and amazing.

So how will this LP go down? Basically, I'll be playing through each and every level at least once. Between updates, you guys can suggest objects and adjective combinations for me to try for either a level we've already done, or for playing around with on the title screen, which serves as a sandbox. Then I'll go back and test out these combinations to see if they work and/or see what crazy things happen as a result. Some levels have an Advanced Mode which requires you to play through the level 3 times, using no repeat objects, so I'll be playing through each world at least twice to complete all the levels under Advanced Mode, hopefully using your suggestions.

So let's get this show on the R-O-A-D.

U-P-D-A-T-E-S (Did you mean: Uranus?)
T-U-T-O-R-I-A-L
World 1, Take 1