5th Cell's Scribblenauts (DS) - The next big thing?

[midorigreenwood]

5th Cell, better known for their innovative DS games "Drawn to Life" and "Lock's Quest" recently did a big show and tell of their next game with IGN

high quality trailer

http://au.ds.ign.com/dor/objects/14...uts_new2_120508.html;jsessionid=b4lmfg0e0shhc

low quality trailer on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrnsOx9Akcc


Interview with IGN

http://au.ds.ign.com/articles/936/936157p1.html


The more I think about it, 5th cell is on to a potential goldmine here....... they have covered all their bases.

They're targeting the female demographic: Women are culturally considered to be more verbally adept than their male counterparts. (scientifically its bullshit but its part of the zeitgeist so it can be useful when considering marketing)

They're targeting hardcore gamers: why are some gamer's so obssesive about gamerscore? grinding to raise their levels in an RPG? trying to get 100% in a collectathon platformer? I can see this type of game appealing to these types of gamers.

Also why is GTA so popular? its not just because of the story.....its the freedom to explore and do whatever you want. The sandbox mentality.

They're targeting Parents and Children: If marketed properly, this could be the next brain training or Wiifit. A game encouraging children to actually write down more words? To look up words in a dictionary? to increase their vocabulary?

Parents buy alot of games for children and it will not be a hard sell if you market it as edutainment to help kids learn.

Furthermore there could easily be support for a keypad/mouse/keyboard so it could be ported to any number of platforms...... iphone is a big opportunity here.

In terms of new products, the big things this generation have been Nintendogs, Brain Training and Wiifit. IMO, if marketed properly, Scribblenauts could join this list.

 

[Nicked]

Eh, I think it sounds better than it will be in reality.

Purely guessing, but the claims of 'write and use anything' will amount to at most couple dozen functions which all objects share, and clearly even with their very poor representations of the look and movement of objects and their claim to the otherwise, there is going to be a vast number of possible objects one could imagine that aren't present (unless there is some form of editor, after all they did make Drawn To Life, but this would render their claim absolutely pointless). Phsyics might spice things up, but I doubt there will be any appreciable application in the game.

I see it getting old very quickly, even with children.

PS; Welcome to the forum, even if it was a very viral marketeer-eqsue first post.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The trailer was very uninspiring. Looks dead dull as a game and intellectually sterile. "Write Anything" is almost certainly a load of old crock. There'll be a pretty limited vocabulary and preset number of interactions. Personally I don't see the appeal to any particular demographic against the competition, unless the content is far more sophisticated and challenging than that trailer. If there are complex puzzles with very open-ended solutions, the use of a written inventory would be worthwhile versus a huge array of icons. Otherwise, where exactly is the fun in writing words and seeing a few simple animations in response?

 

[midorigreenwood]

The trailer from what I can see was just a proof of concept to lay out the basic gameplay elements of the title.

The developers flesh out the ideas more in the 4 page interview. I'm sure the puzzle concepts will solidify as the months pass.

I don't know..... its the first game (along with Littlebigplanet) that has gotten me really excited that I'm seeing something new in gaming. Lock's Quest is one of my favourite games of all time (I own all the consoles except PS3), so I have some faith in the developers.

Its also not merely writing one word and using one object...... apparently they are aiming to allow flexbility in chaining objects together....

You can even chain objects together, such as chaining a piece of meat on to a pole and riding a raptor around the screen. However, it is possible to be incapacitated; writing things such as 'tsunami' or 'supernova' would undoubtedly get you killed.

What gets me really excited is if they hide easter eggs in the gameplay

perhaps the jetpack will shoot you to mars or the teleporter will transport you to a bizarro world where Rick Astley is worshipped as a God.

perhaps writing "kojima" will set off a looped cutscene that will take 12 hours to complete >.>

PS; Welcome to the forum, even if it was a very viral marketeer-eqsue first post.

heh, I wish :3, I tried joining bout 6 months ago but for some reason didn't get any confirmation email...... I just assumed that beyond3d was like neogaf....ie: 6 month waiting list wtf....been lurking ever since....

then out of a whim I tried joining again the other day and got the confirmation mail about 10 seconds later....yay

 

[obonicus]

The trailer was very uninspiring. Looks dead dull as a game and intellectually sterile. "Write Anything" is almost certainly a load of old crock. There'll be a pretty limited vocabulary and preset number of interactions. Personally I don't see the appeal to any particular demographic against the competition, unless the content is far more sophisticated and challenging than that trailer. If there are complex puzzles with very open-ended solutions, the use of a written inventory would be worthwhile versus a huge array of icons. Otherwise, where exactly is the fun in writing words and seeing a few simple animations in response?

According to... well, someone who works at 5th Cell, maybe the creator, from NeoGAF:

Ok so this is what it is!

No adjectives. Just Objects. (minus copyright and vulgarity)

Bear? Yes. Giant Flaming Bear? No.

If you want to set a bear on fire, by writing torch and setting him on fire (assuming he doesn't eat you first), then yes.

From the same thread, the following image.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I don't know..... its the first game (along with Littlebigplanet) that has gotten me really excited that I'm seeing something new in gaming.

I'm not sure i get what's so new? I probably ought to read the article Still, it seems in essence a variation on the text adventure, or the LucasArts pictographic inventory, only you write Monkey instead of clicking on a monkey picture. The only scope I'm seeing for something new and exciting is if the objects and there interactions really are that numerous to make it interating, varied and a challenge. Plus, I presume there'll be an annoying lexicon to learn, which objects are in there?Like learning the vocab on the old text adventures. Yes, Beaver is an option, but would you know to try Beaver without having read it in your game dictionary? What about squirrel, or woodworm, or triceratops? The advantage of a visual inventory is you can see all your options. They'll have to do something clever to have the written solutions work intuitively enough to not be frustrating, I think. The idea 'think of a solution, write the components, and wee it happen' doesn't strike me as plausible.

 

[midorigreenwood]

I'm not sure i get what's so new? I probably ought to read the article Still, it seems in essence a variation on the text adventure, or the LucasArts pictographic inventory, only you write Monkey instead of clicking on a monkey picture. The only scope I'm seeing for something new and exciting is if the objects and there interactions really are that numerous to make it interating, varied and a challenge. Plus, I presume there'll be an annoying lexicon to learn, which objects are in there?Like learning the vocab on the old text adventures.

I guess its like that cultural zeitgeist "There are only 7 original story ideas and everything else are just variations on those seven ideas"

Yes, the Wiimote is just the powerglove,

Yes Wii-tennis is just tennis....... with a powerglove.....

but the visceral feeling of actually moving your hands in a forehand motion and hitting an animated representation of a tennis ball......makes the videogame of tennis seem all new again.

That is what I'm hoping with Scribblenauts....... yes, Text based commands have existed in videogames since Zork in the 1970's...

but the idea that you'll be given the freedom to write something and see it appear in the videogame..... makes it all seem new again.

Its like an innate childhood fantasy everyone has

I'm hoping that 5th cell's database system to store attributes is expansive and technology has evolved enough to live up to the hype

btw the following is probably the most important part of the interview that fleshes out their ambitious plans

IGN: So how in the world can you keep track of that all? It has to be just a ridiculous list of assets, and then on top of that comes all the art, the animations, the info for all these interactions Maxwell has with them. How do you even go about doing something like that. It's something – when you really think about how limitless the idea is – thus unprecedented, and we're not just talking about "on DS" here…

Miah: Our Technical Director Marius Fahlbusch is one of the founders of the company, so he's been with us for a longtime obviously. When I told him the idea from the beginning other programmers would have backed away from the idea and said "How are we going to do this?" or "No, this is impossible." But he was just like "Yeah, we can handle this. We can tackle this concept." So he got started on a system where everything in the game can be data-driven. We've got this tool that we created in-house called "Objectnaut", so now designers can put in any name of any object, and put in all sorts of data. We're talking AI properties, physical properties, attraction and repulsion to other objects, weight, size, where it splits, can you pick it up, is it flammable or how do elements effect it… really all these things that you need. We're spending a great deal of time just imputing tons and tons of these objects, and once we flesh it all out with this Objectnaut system, we have a hierarchy of data.

Let's look at an elephant, for example. It's an animal – a mammal – so we know that. It has organic flesh therefore, since every mammal has organic flesh. Now we don't have to write that in for every animal we make, the system just knows to attach that to anything we label "animal." We can then look at it and say "organic flesh can… well, it can be eaten, right?"

It's a simple game, really. Maxwell likes Starites, and policemen like doughnuts. Easy enough, right?

IGN: Haha. By what! I'm not messing with an elephant...

Miah: You aren't. But tigers, raptors, sharks...

IGN: Land sharks?

Miah: It's Scribblenauts! Make a pool, drop the elephant in, write down shark. That should be a no-brainer.

IGN: Good call.

Miah: Or maybe attach a laser gun to the shark.

IGN: Every creature deserves a warm meal?

Miah: Exactly. So same idea here. We can say "is this animal a predator or prey?" and put that in, and its set up to obey those rules no matter how common or obscure they may be. It's very hierarchical in that way. So again, going back to the elephant idea, what's an elephant? Well it's an animal, it's heavy, so it moves with weight but is also allowed to go underwater, it can breathe through its trunk. All these things are examples of how this system works. Then it's just a matter of going deeper and deeper, and getting grittier and grittier with our properties and data, but overall it isn't a big hassle to come up with, since it's all data-driven. It already knows what can interact with what. Fire will always burn wood. Should we really say fire burns organic flesh? How about "Fire burns wood."

IGN: Haha.

Miah: But I mean that's the idea, right? It's all properties, and they're real properties. Spawn a ladder, and you can climb it or burn it. A ladder is wood, so that's allowed.

IGN: Okay, so in the trailer – that people need to check out, by the way – you can see that you write down a ladder and can then climb up it, right? Now could you also turn that ladder on its side and instead light it on fire and the tree would then burn, since it's all made of would.

Miah: You could, yup. You can flip objects, you can take an axe and cut the ladder in half if you wanted – not sure why you'd do it, but you could if you wanted – and even if it wouldn't help anything in that situation you can do it. That's half the fun of the game really. You can just do anything. It's all about messing around with these objects and properties and seeing what you come up with and how you can solve problems. That's what's really fun about showing off this game to people so far. They look at it and say "Wow. So wait, can I do this and this and this" and then of course, yes, you can.
Yes, Beaver is an option, but would you know to try Beaver without having read it in your game dictionary? What about squirrel, or woodworm, or triceratops? The advantage of a visual inventory is you can see all your options. They'll have to do something clever to have the written solutions work intuitively enough to not be frustrating, I think. The idea 'think of a solution, write the components, and wee it happen' doesn't strike me as plausible.

 

[midorigreenwood]

hmm..... abit n00bish maybe....but there doesn't seem to be an option to edit posts

because I got alittle of your last post mixed up with the quoted interview....

so disregard the last part of the quoted interview

uhm this bit

Yes, Beaver is an option, but would you know to try Beaver without having read it in your game dictionary? What about squirrel, or woodworm, or triceratops? The advantage of a visual inventory is you can see all your options. They'll have to do something clever to have the written solutions work intuitively enough to not be frustrating, I think. The idea 'think of a solution, write the components, and wee it happen' doesn't strike me as plausible.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Miah: Or maybe attach a laser gun to the shark.

IGN: Every creature deserves a warm meal?

Miah: Exactly.

Well atleast they are adequately enlightened on great movies. +1

 

[DeadlyNinja]

I want to summon Agonis.

It's a mind-blowing concept and the game is still almost a year away. I know I enjoyed Lock's Quest so I'll be keeping a close eye on this.

 

[midorigreenwood]

atomic bump >,>

well, e3 is over and the hype has multiplied 100 fold.

its interesting to compare and contrast the manufactured viral campaign of EA staging the fake Christian Dante protest which barely made a blip in the radar and left a bad taste in some ppl's mouths and the bonafide grassroots word-of-mouth-athon of Scribblenauts.

ie: several Tweets of "OMG, Keyboard cat is in" and "WTF are you for real?" leads to crowded lines by day 3 and beating out many high profile games when it came to the handing out Game of E3 awards on some major publications.

Even more curious is that Nintendo basically ignored the game during their mostly boring and tired E3 Conference.

I'm a born and bred Nintendork but its hard to fathom the mindset which leads to a company choosing Women's Murder Club and Ubisoft's Cop: The Recruit over this innovative gem to bestole free publicity to >,>

I'm still slightly sceptical about the final product despite all the great things that was revealed at the trade show(eg: God > Kraken > Einstein) as there hasn't really been a really complicated puzzle that has been shown off.....but with 220 of them.... there is alot of room to shine

Interesting that 5th Cell is planning a worldwide launch with several different language versions being planned.

This really smells like a plot for world domination

 

[patsu]

Yap, this one is a winner.

I dug out my fat DS because of this game. Now my kid is learing how to write and spell simple words. I am keen to see what his thought train is like.

Also, I read through earlier posts. This game is not only for women.

 

[midorigreenwood]

yah, its not just for women :3

was just pointing out that females could easily be targeted as the focus of a marketing campaign.

but the biggest push could be as Edu-tainment....

I can already picture little kiddies looking up the dictionary for interesting words to try :smile:

not a hard sell to parents me thinks

 

[mrcorbo]

This may push me over the edge to get a DS (along with several other unique and fun titles). And I've never owned a (dedicated) portable gaming system.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What's the vocubulary like on this game? It's a fabulous idea and ties in with Natal possibilities.

 

[patsu]

There are 10,000 items in Scribblenauts. Goes well with speech, handwriting, drawing and typing interfaces.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Wow! 10,000 items all available at all times all with their own suitable responses? Or is it a case of a few valid choices with correct responses, and the rest just sit on the screen doing nothing?

 

[patsu]

Looking at some of the gameplay videos, it sounds like a 10,000 x 10,000 interaction but they may be able to cheat by "inheriting" behaviour classes.

I love the concept because of the built-in intelligence (Did you see the "Kraken vs God" video I posted ?). The input mechanism in this case is more secondary (Typing is probably the easiest for DS)

 

[midorigreenwood]

some interesting quotes

"We've actually had five people and all they did is they went through dictionaries and Wikipedia and encyclopaedias and anything you can think of for six months, that's all they did every day during the week," he told G4TV.

We're into the specialist area right now - if you're a palaeontologist and you know some ridiculously obscure kind of dinosaur, that's what we're putting in at the moment, as we've done all the main ones.

The developers described a bug which they thankfully caught at the E3 release: A pair of rabbits would breed so explosively, baby bunnies would keep appearing until the game crashed. They say it's been fixed for the final version.

Have any items turned out to have emergent uses in-game that you didn't expect?

Oh, all the time. Last week someone gave a bazooka to an elephant, who picked it up with its trunk, and then Maxwell threw a rock at the elephant to see what would happen. Of course the elephant got upset and started shooting randomly to defend itself. It wasn't very accurate - it's an elephant using its trunk to shoot a bazooka after all. But after all those explosions Maxwell didn't survive the ordeal. Still it was pretty funny though.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm intrigued! Not sure how I'll get to see this, but I want to. I could borrow a DS, but buying the game is a bit extreme just for a curious investigation.