5th-Cell
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Scribblenauts to stump brains, warm hearts September 15
5th Cell's wunderkind Scribblenauts has finally been given a US release date: September 15. After having the time of our life with the game back at E3, we're anxious to get through the next two months to play it. If only we had some kind of time-traveling device and, perhaps, a robotic dinosaur that could defend us on our jaunt into the future. Oh well ... %Gallery-68528%
Scribblenauts: one level, many solutions
This is exactly the kind of thing we wanted to see with Scribblenauts: the same puzzle attempted multiple times, each using different means. A series of videos on Nintendo Raw shows one of the game's puzzles, in which the player is dangled from a rope next to a caged Starite, also suspended, using different items.After the break, we've embedded our favorite take on the puzzle, which earns that distinction for its use of a moustache as a problem-solving item -- wearing it causes the hat to which the rope is suspended to come off. Check Nintendo Raw to see several more attempts, some more successful than others.
WB pencils in September 25 UK release date for Scribblenauts
Scribblenauts is currently slated for a "September" release in North America, though it's semi-officially listed for September 15. If you write with an English accent, you'll be happy to know that you'll be summoning lorries, bobbies, and chavs to retrieve Starites as soon as September 25.WB confirmed the UK release date in a statement to Destructoid. This may actually be the release date across Europe, as Amazon.de lists the German version (which requires significantly more localization than the also-in-English UK version) for the same date. We're delighted that, as far as we can tell, there won't be any agonizing six-month waits for anyone while other regions have an awesome time. Except maybe for Japan. We haven't heard about any publishers picking it up there, and other 5TH Cell games have been released there months after they were in North America.%Gallery-39784%
Scribblenauts could come to other platforms
It's a scientific fact that 100 percent of people on Earth love Scribblenauts -- trust us, an actual scientist said that -- unfortunately, not everyone owns a Nintendo DS. Sure, almost everyone owns a DS, but that still leaves a small sliver of humanity who will be unable to experience 5th Cell's wordy puzzler whenever it hits store shelves this September. Fortunately for this minuscule contingency, there's a chance Scribblenauts could be released on other platforms. In a recent interview with VG247, the game's technical director, Marius Fahlbusch, explained, "We never limited ourselves to the DS as platform in our heads and we'll see what the future holds." Personally, we think it would be a hit on any platform, whether that platform be Xbox 360, PS3 or coloring book.
Interview: Scribblenauts creative director Jeremiah Slaczka
During E3, word of mouth changed 5TH Cell's Scribblenauts from a promising DS oddity to one of the most highly anticipated upcoming games on any system. Following this sudden and drastic rise in interest level, we spoke once again to creative director Jeremiah Slaczka, whom we last interviewed when the procedural adventure game was first revealed. Just how well has the world reacted to Scribblenauts' public debut? And who at 5TH Cell is a zombie? Read on!
The Scribblenauts ESRB listing is hilarious
Above, you can see the actual ESRB listing for the upcoming DS write-em-up, Scribblenauts. We've taken the liberty of blurring out the most boring bits. Left behind is just a tiny sampling of the truly wondrous things that Scribblenauts is capable of. Trust us, developer 5th Cell did its homework. We know, we checked. Seriously, any game that allows you to attach a steak to a baby in order to attract lions ... that's at least a rental, right? Scribblenauts drops this September. [Via NeoGAF]
Fans recreate favorite characters in Scribblenauts style
Scribblenauts has inspired something wonderful over at NeoGAF: fan-created images of popular game characters and other pop-culture figures in the game's adorable, understated style. It's as if you could summon, say, Phoenix Wright in the game.We've picked out some favorites from what has become two threads of Scribblenauts fanart. It's pretty hard for us not to just post every single piece of fanart from both threads! Trust us, there's plenty in both threads for you to discover, and since the artists have started taking requests from other GAFfers, there will continue to be more for a while.Above: Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey, Tomba, and Kirby, by SpacePirate Ridley; Lost's John Locke by MrCheez; surfing Raichu, Travis Touchdown, Optimus Prime, and Manny Calavera by Divvy. Look at all the greatness that has already been brought into the world by Scribblenauts, by people who haven't even played it!%Gallery-39784%
5th Cell had five people research words for six months for Scribblenauts
In Scribblenauts, you can manifest basically anything. Whether it's a skateboarding god fighting Cthulhu, or hilarious internet memes involving cats, it seems like this game has endless potential. We're anxiously anticipating the game's arrival, with a gigantic notebook full of ideas that we can't wait to try out. As confident as we are that we'll be able to best the game, it's tough when developer 5th Cell admits to G4 that it had five people reading just about everything for six months. Encyclopedias, dictionaries, and Wikipedias are just a few of the sources these folks scoured for juicy words to add to the game's enormous lexicon. Check out the video past the break, where 5th Cell's Jeremiah Slaczka and Matt Cox detail how much work went into building this game's robust vocabulary. %Gallery-39784%
Celebrate a legendary Scribblenauts moment with this wallpaper
The two aspects of Scribblenauts that get the most attention are its absolutely irresistible concept, and the robust lexicon that backs it up. But one underappreciated aspect of the game is the art. Not only is there artwork for those myriad items in the database, 5th Cell's Edison Yan has developed an eye-catching style for the game that highlights, rather than hiding, the jointed nature of the sprites. On top of that, he's given the main character a rather quirky, memorable look.Yan created this image in celebration of the vaunted "Post 217" of a NeoGAF Scribblenauts thread, in which poster "Feep" regales the forum with a tale of bringing a dinosaur through a time machine to fight robot zombies. As a result of this searingly awesome chain of events, "Post 217" has become a sort of shorthand for the infinite possibilities in Scribblenauts. As a gift to the NeoGAF community, Creative Director Jeremiah Slaczka had Yan whip this up. It's now available on IGN in wallpaper form, and we predict that it'll be on your desktop in about ten seconds.%Gallery-39784%
Skateboarding god versus Cthulhu in Scribblenauts
We don't know which god the "god" in Scribblenauts represents -- in our eyes, he's vaguely Zeus-esque. But we do know, thanks to this demo given to IGN by 5TH Cell's Jeremiah Slaczka, what would happen if this god got into a fight with Cthulhu. While on a skateboard. And holding a shotgun.We also learn what happens when a villain sees a full moon: he transforms into a werewolf. Obviously. It's worth noting that none of these things helped get the Starite out of a tree, which was the actual objective of the level. That's going to be the biggest challenge in Scribblenauts: actually playing instead of just screwing around.%Gallery-39784%
Hands-on: Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter (DS)
5TH Cell received a lot of attention at E3 for its DS platform adventure Scribblenauts, but that wasn't the only DS game 5TH Cell brought to the show. THQ had a demo station set up running the DS sequel to the company's first DS hit, Drawn to Life. Planet Moon's (different) Wii version of Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter was also on display, but we were unable to spend any time with it.%Gallery-65513%
Scribblenauts passes our ten-word challenge with flying colors
We were extremely impressed with our time with Scribblenauts on the E3 show floor, but in a weird way, we felt this primal desire to conquer it. After an evening of brainstorming, we developed ten words we were certain would stump the game's seemingly infinite vocabulary -- the surprising results of our little experiment are posted after the jump!
Hands-on: Scribblenauts
There's a growing sect of Joystiq writers who are walking away from E3 2009 with the same title constituting their Game of the Show. Surprisingly, it's not a big-budget blockbuster, or a groundbreaking advancement in storytelling, or a bold new method of how we interact with our video games. It's Scribblenauts, an unassuming DS puzzler with a massive lexicon, charming gameplay and, as far as we can tell, a large infusion of impossible technowizardry. The premise of the game is simple -- you play as Maxwell, who must solve various puzzles to obtain Starites spread across 220 different levels. To execute the aforementioned solving, you write words to create objects in the world that your cartoonish hero can interact with. It's a simple concept that's bolstered by one astounding accomplishment from developer 5th Cell: Anything you can think of is in this game. (Yes, that. Yes, that too.)
Play Scribblenauts off, keyboard cat
While trying to stump 5TH Cell's Scribblenauts, it was suggested to us that we should try typing some Internet memes into the game's interface and see if they'd materialize. Our first experiment: Longcat. As it turns out, Longcat is in the game ... and he's looooooong. Equally long, but not pictured, is Longcat's nemesis Tacgnol. Seriously. Get ready to declare your game of the show after the break. You'll forget all about Splinter Creed or whatever once you see the player character, sitting in a mech, next to a mecha, watching 5TH Cell's creative director breakdance to the musical stylings of ... Keyboard Cat.
First footage of Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter on Wii and DS
One thing is abundantly clear from watching the trailers for both versions of Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter (after the break): They are not the same game. It's even more clear from reading IGN's interviews, because, you know, they're with different people. The DS version is being made by original developer 5TH Cell, while the Wii game is being handled by Planet Moon Studios.Both games now feature "action drawing" that allows the player to draw directly in the game world rather than in an editor. Planet Moon describes expanded drawing options in this mode, like certain types of ink imbued with gravity or bounce -- like an anvil that you could draw, which would then fall straight down. 5TH Cell's drawing enhancements (at least the ones mentioned in the interview) include the ability to customize character designs even more, with up to four arms and four legs, and resizable limbs. The games have different stories, as well -- the DS game (whose story is told in a "redone overworld" with, like the rest of the game, animation by Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight animator Paul Robertson and art contributions from Braid's David Hellman) follows the events of the Wii game (whose story is told in a new side-scrolling hub world).
Scribblenauts gets more awesome with level creation, sharing
We already know that developer 5th Cell's ambitious DS project Scribblenauts will keep us distracted with its purported ability to let us conjure up anything simply by writing its name on the screen. What we didn't know is that the game will also let us confound others by letting us edit and share levels. Seriously, is there anything this cute little game can't do? In Scribblenauts, players will be able to create and share custom obstacle course-style levels with other players, as well as dictate how objects in these levels behave. We might create a whale who loves honey, or a rainbow that attracts flies. Or, as Kotaku's Totilo puts it, things could get weird when Scribblenauts pencils in all of our free time this fall. [Via GoNintendo]
Scribblenauts coming this fall, thanks to Warner Bros. [update]
[Update: New trailer! Go watch it!]5th Cell's completely insane "write anything" platformer Scribblenauts just got one step closer to release: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced that it had acquired the publishing rights to the game and will release it in North America this fall. Hopefully WB can spare some of the money it's gathered in its nine decades of business to advertise a DS game!In case you'd somehow forgotten about one of the coolest DS game ideas ever, Scribblenauts asks players to discover and reach hidden "Starites" in levels using items generated by written words. Check out the new screens WBIE sent with the announcements! Apparently you can make a band.%Gallery-39784%
Joystiq interview: Scribblenauts' Jeremiah Slaczka
Following Drawn to Life and Lock's Quest, both ambitious DS games with an emphasis on the player's ability to create the in-game world, developer 5TH Cell announced its next, even more ambitious -- downright crazy, honestly -- DS game concept: Scribblenauts. Combining a text adventure and a graphical puzzle game, Scribblenauts allows players to create any object to help them solve environmental puzzles and acquire out-of-reach or hidden "Starite" items -- simply by writing the name of the object. We spoke to 5TH Cell's Creative Director, Jeremiah Slaczka, about the impossible-sounding game, doing our best not to just list hundreds of objects and ask whether they are all in the game (of course, we did a little of that). In addition to discussion about the game's structure and narrative (or lack thereof), Slaczka sent us three exclusive screens! %Gallery-39784%
Actually finishing Scribblenauts might be a problem
So, um, here's the problem with a game like Scribblenauts, in which you can make any item appear on screen, simply by writing its name: rather than solving puzzles and making actual progress, people like us are just going to get distracted, and spend all of our time assembling hilarious scenes of non sequitur chaos that amuse our feeble brains. The latest screens at IGN display the potential for this perfectly. There's a shot featuring protagonist Maxwell playing volleyball with a penguin, who is both a fan of iced tea and the proud owner of an igloo with satellite TV. Another sees Maxwell facing up to zombies, blocking his way to an escape helicopter. Then there's the bizarre cook-off you see to the right. The distractions are ... kind of endless.%Gallery-39784%
Scribblenauts passes the Totilo test
Scribblenauts is absurdly ambitious. Almost unbelievably so, in fact. It may look like a fairly standard puzzle-platformer, but it has a major twist: the player can conjure up any item they wish, simply by writing the object's name on the touchscreen. Again, for emphasis: any item.But ... isn't that sort of, well, impossible? MTV's Stephen Totilo had his suspicions, so rang game designer Jeremiah Slaczka with a list of obscure items to test the veracity of 5th Cell's claims. Would we be able to summon cake mix, Totilo queried. Yep. How about an hourglass? You bet. Pushpins? A briefcase? Lint? Yes, yes, and yes.Slackza does warn us not to expect "some eastern mountain Bolivian dish," (sorry, fans of Charque de llama), and has already ruled out licensed products or vulgar terms. Aside from those understandable exclusions, however, Scribblenauts really does seem to match the hype; it passed the Totilo test, at least!%Gallery-39784%
