I remember the first time I saw Scribblenauts for the Nintendo DS. I had heard it was interesting on a few podcasts, so when I found out it was going to be at PAX, I made a point to check it out. Apparently it had a “write whatever object you want and it will appear” mechanic that was blowing everyone’s minds. At the con, there was always a huge swarm around the WB Games booth, and I only got to play around with it for a few minutes.

Sadly, reviews of the retail release indicated that things didn’t come together in the way gamers were anticipating. Or maybe they were just anticipating something that the developers weren’t attempting to create. That is a debate for another day.

Both the original and its sequel Super Scribblenauts got lost in the avalanche of games that we call a modern release cycle, and I never got around to trying out the final retail builds of either. When Wesley informed me that there was now a version for the iPhone that I could grab for a mere $4.99, I figured it was finally time to dip my feet into the Scribblenauts pond.

Like its predecessor, Scribblenauts Remix is about a boy named Maxwell and his apparent addiction to collecting “Starites” by means of solving puzzles or helping those around him. For some inexplicable reason, he has a magic notepad that will create whatever he writes down, unless it’s dirty or copyrighted. None of this is explained, and the game is better off for it. You are thrown right into the action rather than having a ten minute unskippable cutscene explaining the mystical origins of Starites and why Maxwell needs to collect them.

In Remix, the majority of the levels are taken from the first two games, and some exclusive iOS levels have also been added to the mix. If you’ve played the other two, the recycled content might not appeal to you. As a new player, I had no idea which levels were pulled from which source, so it wasn’t an issue.

They went the smart route when picking levels, as all the ones that were chosen seemed to involve a minimum of physical movement from Maxwell to solve. Moving him around is widely considered to be the franchises weakest aspect. Instead, all the levels are small, self contained puzzles that don’t require too much movement on Maxwell’s part. This is to the point where even having an onscreen avatar seemed completely unnecessary. This is compounded by the fact that you can move your view of the level to wherever you want without having to move Maxwell.

The puzzles themselves are not difficult. That can easily come off as a knock against this game, but I have a feeling that they are going after a younger crowd, so I cut it some slack for this. That said, I still had fun coming up with solutions. On one level I was to provide a farmer with three varieties of animals. Instead of just giving him the basics, I gave him a “demonic cow”, an “angelic pig” and a “ghost chicken”. Sure enough, the farmyard companions that appeared had the additional traits built in, and the Starite was mine.

What Scribblenauts Remix really has going for it is the creativity aspect. It’s obvious they knew that going in, as the main screen allows you to create random nonsense to your hearts content. I had as much fun with that as I did playing through the game proper. I’ve even gone back to it after completing all the puzzles in the game just to play around.

The $5 price point might seem high for an iPhone game, but that is really just a matter of perceived value of content on the platform. I definitely had more than my $5 worth of fun, but anything above 99cents is a sticking point with some people.

It may not be the game that blows you away on the iOS platform, but Scribblenauts Remix is one of those playground titles you can go back to just for the fun of creating a machine gun toting Cthulhu fighting a giant hairy wizard.

Tags: 5th Cell, iPhone, iPhone Games, Scribblenauts, Scribblenauts Remix, Super Scribblenauts, WB Games

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 27th, 2011 at 5:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.