‘Scribblenauts Unlimited’ brings out your imagination

By Patrick Pastrana

A tiny, invisible reindeer; a blue man with wings; a flaming, glowing, floating, gigantic chair–these are three examples of things you can create in “Scribblenauts Unlimited.”

Video game developer, 5th Cell, pulled out all the stops on the latest game of the Scribblenauts series, adding the ability to edit the objects you summon. If you haven’t played or heard of the series, this is definitely a good place to begin.

“Scribblenauts” is one of the most unique puzzle games ever created. Your character, Maxwell, was given a magic notebook that allows you to write down and summon just about any noun you can think of. The first game was based on short puzzles and levels. What makes this game different from others of its kind is that it has a story element, giving backstory to Maxwell and his family.

The sequel, “Super Scribblenauts,” made the game even more interesting by the use of adjectives. That doubled or tripled the amount of usable words from the first game. One limitation of the Scribblenauts series is that you can’t summon inappropriate, copyrighted nouns or objects to help solve the puzzles, which is actually understandable.

As for the third installment, “Scribblenauts Unlimited” appears to have an infinite number of possibilities. The game now has an object editor where you can change the look, behavior and physics of the objects at hand. Unfortunately, the object editor is only for the Wii U and PC version, but not for the 3DS version. Regardless, of how ridiculous it may be, it’s pretty funny to edit a man to have three heads, devil wings, goat legs and so on.

Brian Altano of IGN.com wrote, “Coupled with the nearly infinite combination of pretty much every non-nude, non-alcoholic and non-licensed noun you can summon and ‘Unlimited’ nearly lives up to its name.”

Although, if you think about it with an object editor, creating a flying metal and green Pikachu is very possible. So, “unlimited” must be the perfect word.

Puzzles and levels can range from very small tasks to using specific objects simultaneously. Let’s say the puzzle is a man needing to get across the river. The obvious answer is a boat, right? Getting creative is what “Scribblenauts” is about. A fun option would be to give him a flying elephant or even a sparkly yacht. Jeffrey L. Wilson of PCMag.com describes objects he has summoned while he was playing it, “I’ve summoned tidal waves to extinguish small fires. Tidal waves. Rarely did any of my over the top actions prove detrimental….”

“Scribblenauts Unlimited” is a pretty fantastic game, overall. Some say that the puzzles aren’t challenging enough or repetitive. I say overlook that and see how much chaos ensues when certain objects interact with each other. So please, give this game a try and test the limits of your creativity.