Rube Goldberg, Eat Your Heart Out

K's always saying that it's hard for designers to make crazy new ideas into an actual product because A) people love the familiar (read: King of Fighters XII) and B) if the idea is too weird, they won't go for it. However, if you were ever going to try out a completely innovative piece of IP (and support a small gaming company while you're at it!), Scribblenauts should be your next purchase.

Imagine a simple puzzle game where you have to finish a simple task using practically any tangible, common noun. For example, if the mission is to knock down a stack of bottles, I could type "ball," and a basketball would appear in front of my character. Or I could type "fire" and burn down the table underneath the bottles. Or how about calling forth a black hole to suck away everything on the screen. Or perhaps I'll create a kangaroo, glue a carrot to fishing pole, and have it jump toward me, knocking off the bottles in the process... okay, haven't actually tried that one yet, but you get the gist of it. ^_^

What I also enjoy is the Advanced Mode, where you have to complete the same level three times, without ever using the same words again. Yum, I can feel the brain juices flowing! Click on the image below for a short walkthrough video of this awesome game:


P.S. Did you know that people will pay good money for preorder goodies? K randomly looked on eBay and found out those Scribblenaut hats are going for ~$30. That pretty much pays for the whole game! I'm sure there's someone out there who badly needs a rooster hat with fake headphones more than I do. ^_~

Meet K's Brother

K is very close to his younger brother Steve (despite living in different states), and it's eerie how similar their mannerisms can be. They have the same strange sense of humor, say the same kind of outrageous things, and make the same type of horrible jokes... I can barely get a word in once they get started! With camaraderie that strong, you would think that Steve would be thoroughly immersed in the gaming world as well. Wrong! And it’s so weird too, since he has all the makings of a good gamer. He loves a good story, has an obsessive personality, and possesses great hand-eye coordination… so what’s the problem?

I got to observe the reason first hand when he came and visited last weekend. The two siblings started off going through the latest fighting games, and despite the fact that Steve doesn’t own any, he was completely matching K move for move, if not beating him 60% of the time. (I actually thought K was on a handicap at first since he typically dominates the casual player.)

But then we switched to Batman: Arkham Asylum, which is a more think-y, action-adventure stealth game (think Splinter Cell). Shortly after Steve started a new game, the tutorial section began and I noticed that K was repeating all the instructions on the screen verbatim. “Ok, push X to knock that guy down.” Then a few seconds later, “You gotta keep tapping the button to open the vent cover.” Wow, totally patronizing, right? But then I realized that Steve wasn’t reading any of the onscreen instructions. Left to his own devices, he would irritably wander around in circles, thwarted by his own impatience and blindness to the helpful HUD hints. Soon I found myself falling into the same pattern:

• Steve is caught in the midst of a crazy melee with 5 prisoners.
• Screen pop-up says "Push L2 + X for Ground Takedown."
• Steve ignores the hint, and bad guys keep attacking him instead of staying down.
• K says "If you push L2 + X, you can take them out with one hit."
• I say "Right there, you can do the Ground Takedown now!"
• Steve keeps swinging his fists, fighting them the slooow way.

So when it comes to playing games, Steve only excels at the type with, mm, instant feedback, like fighting games. K likes to read up on all the special moves and fight with finesse, but Steve just brute forces it with raw aggression. And as the TV show Deadliest Warrior has shown us, a baseball bat is a lot easier to use than a pair of nunchucks.



Related Links: 25 Annoying Things About Non-Gamers
(I'm definitely guilty of #16, but K thinks it's cute.)