By Brian Perry

What do you get when you mix a Nintendo DS card, an adventure game, and dictionary? Apparently Scribblenaughts, This inventive new game by 5th cell was the buzz of e3 this year and for good reason. The premise of the game is fairly simple, you need to you’re your character Maxwell collect starite in each of the 220 levels. But to get each piece of starite you must summon tools to help you grab or cajole from where ever it is in the challenge. Sometimes it can be as simple as summoning a ladder and climbing up to claim your starite. In others it may involve achieving a separate goal to unlock the starite, as demonstrated in a demo level requiring you to “refresh” a man lost in the desert. But each challenge offers endless opportunities to claim your prize.

This is where the game shines. Scribblenaughts charm is in the inventiveness and breadth of choices you have in obtaining the stars. That simple ladder challenge could be solved with a ladder, or with a jet pack, or a helicopter, or a giraffe wearing a top hat. Where the man can be refreshed with a drink, or a rainstorm, or any number of other items.

All of this summoning is achieved by typing common, non trademarked nouns of a pg nature with your stylus into the digital keyboard. To make things even easier 5th cell predicted that many of you like myself are spelling impaired and also included a built in spell checker to boot, a godsend to say the least.

Overall the demonstration has me looking forward to Scribblenaughts release later this year so I can fulfill my dreams of a zombie Darwin vs. God death match set in 12,000 BC.