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Scribbling Outside the Grown-Up Lines
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Thursday, October 08, 2009
ARTICLE TOOLS

Editor's note: A lack of imagination gets in the way of gamers enjoying a wide range of games. Cody thinks this "unfunness" gets in the way of enjoying Scribblenauts. Do you agree? -Jason


Sitting alone in my room, I find myself confronted by a dragon. This isn't one of your run-of-the-mill, defeated-by-a-Hobbit kind of dragons, either. It has wings. Dragons are known to use these for, you know, flying around and killing people.

This particular dragon guards a switch that I need to press -- a switch that opens a cage containing a king, letting His Highness make his grand escape and return to his castle, hopefully unharmed. Sounds easy, right?

Oh, did I forget to mention that the dragon and the switch are both on the other side of a river of lava? It's not exactly so easy after all.

Though this sounds like something a 5-year-old would make up -- and believe me, I thought up this scenario and many like it when I still needed tip-toes for arcade gaming -- it's actually just one of hundreds of puzzles in Scribblenauts.

Most of the puzzles are easy to solve, and you don't need much in the way of creativity to master them. In fact, I solved about 80 percent of the puzzles that I came across with a helicopter, a rope, and some chloroform.

One might think that the game's rather boring and easy because of this, but it's my fault, not the game's. After all, it's not Scribblenuats that stopped having an imagination when girls became more of a fascination than tree forts transformed into legendary ruins or a stick in the backyard magically becoming a lightsaber.

No, it's me that limits the enjoyment to be found in Scribblenauts; as it turns out, being an adult is just as unfun as we all thought it would be.

 

It sort of makes you wonder: How many games out there are limited by our own lack of imagination? Is that why games that are gritty, grayscale, and überrealistic always seem to get our attention, while childlike (I use that word in the nicest way possible) stuff like Little King's Story or Animal Crossing are doomed to don pejoratives like "baby game"? By "growing up," are we losing something that makes it almost impossible to enjoy the things that we once spent months having fun with?

I like to think that everyone has an inner-child in them, a tiny little voice that reminds you about the magic and the wonders found in this world. Sadly, we listen to that voice so little most of the time that sooner or later, it stops speaking, and we forget what it's like to look at the world through a child's eyes.

If I were my 5-year-old self, I probably would've come up with a lot more inventive stuff to type into that in-game keyboard, and I probably would've spent a lot more time with Scribblenauts -- and enjoyed it a lot more because of that.

So here's what I'm going to do. As soon as I get done typing this blog, I'm going to move the living room furniture and maybe throw a few cushions across the carpet. I'm then going to pretend that the floor's lava, that my cat's a sabertooth tiger, and that I have to rescue a fair princess who's being held hostage in the kitchen. Once I rescue her and steal a kiss, I'll ride off into the sunset on my trusty steed -- a paint roller.

Maybe after I get in touch with my younger self again, I can play through Scribblenauts the way it was meant to be played -- with a little imagination. And hey, maybe there's some hope for me yet: I just killed that dragon with a house fan.

 
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Comments (7)
Lance_darnell
October 06, 2009 22:40
Smaug was not defeated by a Hobbit, he was too bad-ass for that, he was killed by Bard the bowman! I loved your post though, especially the bit about imagination. I truly do believe that there are many games out there that would be a lot better received if people just had a better imagination.
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October 07, 2009 01:00
Lance, darn! I haven't read the book in so long I guess my memory failed me, ha ha. And yeah, I think we could all use a bit of imagination these days.
John-wayne-rooster-cogburn
October 07, 2009 03:04
You summed up my problem with Scribblenauts so succinctly! I love the Calvin and Hobbes comics, too. Brilliant stuff.
No-photo
October 07, 2009 05:39
Good ol' Calvin & Hobbes. I've often wondered the same thing -- that perhaps many adult gamers have forgotten their imaginations. It's a shame that so many games are written off as kiddie, and I think it often has to do not only with one's imagination, but fear of being perceived as a kid by others. A lot of guys think it's far more acceptable to play something like Gears of War than Final Fantasy, so they'll often go with the former. Anyway, nice article!
No-photo
October 08, 2009 06:29
See, I approach this game like it's the new crossword / sudoku type of thing - I actively avoid the obvious solution unless all my other wacky ideas fail (usually due to the physics rather than any failing on my behalf - of course)and that's how I get my fun. C'mon - you don't really think that my inner child is louder than yours?
Redeye
October 08, 2009 08:57
I mostly lose my patience with scribblenauts not because I can't think of anything, but the solutions I think of are always things that the game designers didn't allow for or the crappy controls make impossible. My imagination is alive and well sir! It just became more twisted and depressed! *sob*
October 09, 2009 01:32
Definitely games were way funner when I was a child. As a kid I could of played the biggest piece of shit game and would of got some sort enjoyment out of it. Trying that today, and I can't play past 10 minutes into such mediocrity. You change greatly. People are creatures of habit, especially the older you get, and your imagination definitely wanes. You become more "realistic," which I suppose is very important as an adult. You have to deal with reality as it is, not as how it should be. This affects the way we play games, but it must be for the best. Right? :(
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