5th Cell had five people research words for six months for Scribblenauts

by David Hinkle { Jun 16th 2009 at 6:40PM }

In Scribblenauts, you can manifest basically anything. Whether it's a skateboarding god fighting Cthulhu, or hilarious internet memes involving cats, it seems like this game has endless potential. We're anxiously anticipating the game's arrival, with a gigantic notebook full of ideas that we can't wait to try out. As confident as we are that we'll be able to best the game, it's tough when developer 5th Cell admits to G4 that it had five people reading just about everything for six months. Encyclopedias, dictionaries, and Wikipedias are just a few of the sources these folks scoured for juicy words to add to the game's enormous lexicon.

Check out the video past the break, where 5th Cell's Jeremiah Slaczka and Matt Cox detail how much work went into building this game's robust vocabulary.

Gallery: Scribblenauts

Tags: 5th-cell, scribblenauts

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

Longhorn of Myon [PSN: MariusElijah] @ Jun 16th 2009 6:43PM

Tmac your time to shine

Jason Statham (Aka Vegeta) @ Jun 16th 2009 6:48PM

You do realize that by calling him out, you have effectively made yourself look worse in comparison right?

Longhorn of Myon [PSN: MariusElijah] @ Jun 16th 2009 6:51PM

eh it was a joke
On topic:
This is the first time I see this game and I see what Joystiq is getting at

Jason Statham (Aka Vegeta) @ Jun 16th 2009 6:58PM

I'm just saying, if he hasn't done anything yet, there's really no reason to call him out.

Longhorn of Myon [PSN: MariusElijah] @ Jun 16th 2009 7:00PM

look at the last post, then you will see

tmacairjordan87 @ Jun 16th 2009 7:11PM

Why would I say anything when I'm not even looking at....wait a minute I'm typing this so that means..DAMN YOU MARIUS.

WREturns @ Jun 16th 2009 7:33PM

Tmac, how are you here? I thought you were "playing Burnout with friends". Which part did you lie about, the Burnout and the playing thereof or the friends?

SoshiKitai @ Jun 16th 2009 7:53PM

He's doing both. He's JUST THAT GOOD.

tmacairjordan87 @ Jun 16th 2009 7:58PM

I am actually doing both, you can log on to ps3 and see for yourself WRE.

It was just getting too crazy in that other article and I couldn't respond to 10 different people every minute and play burnout at the same time.

Sly [PSN SniperChameleon] @ Jun 16th 2009 10:29PM

he _WAS_ playing burnout...

giantenemycrab @ Jun 16th 2009 11:55PM

why even acknowledge him? That's exactly what trolls want: infamy.

Shagittarius @ Jun 16th 2009 6:45PM

Theres this feature on the Snow White dvd where it guesses what your thinking of after asking you some questions...you guys should really check it out...seems like it would be right up your alley.

JXCgunrunna @ Jun 16th 2009 6:58PM

There is this controller on the wii that watches where ur hand is moving and can tell the movements it can make, much like that thing that sony is at least a year away from getting out... I think you would be really interested in it.

JXCgunrunna @ Jun 16th 2009 7:01PM

Hold up I just realized that was a horrible comparison, scriblenaughts is a new idea and the thing sony is doing is already in at least 50,000,000 peoples houses. My mistake

/mocking tone

Longhorn of Myon [PSN: MariusElijah] @ Jun 16th 2009 7:04PM

There is this camera on the PS3 that watches where you are moving and can tell the movements you make, much like that thing that MS is at least a year away from getting out... I think you would be really interested in it.

JXCgunrunna @ Jun 16th 2009 7:10PM

@longhorn

I dont really like that Natel because the lack of controller. I love FPS and adventure games and i just dont see any good uses for the motion capture as far as character movement. I have no problem swinging my arm but i would rather not have to walk around through a game the size of oblivion or fallout or fable or farcry. I like motion controls in general IF they are implemented well like in madworld.

None of us know what sonys controller will have but if it has at least one analog stick, ill stick to shoots on the wii with worse graphics before trying to play on the 360 by pointing with my finger or buying a plastic gun

Fun DMC @ Jun 16th 2009 7:16PM

Shaggi's hardly a Sony fanboy. He mocks EVERYTHING AND EVERYTHING, not just the Wii.

With that said, what warranted the comparison? you just come off as a fanboy.

JXCgunrunna @ Jun 16th 2009 7:23PM

shag used to be to sony what franando was for nintendo. they have both mellowed out/have lives outside of joystiq flamewars and usually have thoughtout opinions in the recent months tho.

Meh @ Jun 17th 2009 3:27PM

"I dont really like that Natel because the lack of controller."
You can hold the controller when you're using Natal, duh. It was even in the promo video.

Damian @ Jun 16th 2009 6:47PM

This is DS GOTY for sure.

thesimplicity @ Jun 16th 2009 7:58PM

GOTY, I don't think the DS limitation is necessary.

Jason Statham (Aka Vegeta) @ Jun 16th 2009 6:49PM

"t's tough when developer 5th Cell admits to G4 that it had five people reading just about everything for six months"

Jeez that's pretty ridiculous. Ridiculously awesome.

religiousjedi @ Jun 16th 2009 10:02PM

Respect Points +1000000000

In any case, this game is perking up my interest quite a lot now...

ArchiGamer @ Jun 16th 2009 6:52PM

Every time I hear about this game, it just gets better and better.

ThatPCgameryouhate @ Jun 16th 2009 7:00PM

HOW IS THIS GAME EVEN POSSIBLE?
I'm afraid it will be too deep, and the space-time continuum will just explode upon its release.
Really though, I'm amazed this isn't a console release, I wonder how big the game is, and how they go it to "program itself".

Kattleox @ Jun 16th 2009 8:54PM

You had just better not type in "skynet".

PedoJokerBear (aka Deeznuts) @ Jun 16th 2009 9:21PM

if i type in Armageddon will the game implode? or will it just be bruce willis committing a last act of bravery?

RossGough @ Jun 17th 2009 8:58AM

hahahahahaha.

fantastic PedoJokerBear, fantastic.

Ghen @ Jun 17th 2009 9:42AM

I just want to use "Black Hole" on every level.

Get rid of that whale? no problem!
Chop down the tree? Well, sorta!

Manly Mcbeefington (Mr. ESC) @ Jun 16th 2009 7:05PM

Just curious what happens when I type supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?

Kindrik @ Jun 16th 2009 7:36PM

I'm willing to bet you'd reach a character input limit before you got the chance to write all of that in.

Maximun2k10 @ Jun 16th 2009 7:09PM

Amazing download material... ;)

harusame @ Jun 16th 2009 7:10PM

No genitals? :(

Johnathan @ Jun 16th 2009 7:23PM

Sucks. Would have been the best bludgeon ever

CubeGuy @ Jun 16th 2009 7:16PM

I'm wondering how big the asset library is for this game. As far as I can recall, the largest DS game so far has been 256MB.

Kindrik @ Jun 16th 2009 7:37PM

256 MB is the max any DS card can hold. When I think about how they were able to fit the entire game on that makes my head explode.

Kevin949 @ Jun 16th 2009 8:41PM

last I heard it was 512mb.

Kenofthedead @ Jun 16th 2009 9:12PM

I thought Archaic Sealed Heat was 2 gigabytes.

CubeGuy @ Jun 16th 2009 10:33PM

Bytes? Are you sure that isn't two gigabits?

sam @ Jun 17th 2009 7:19AM

Wikipedia says 2 gigabits = 256MB.

If you figure that most implemented words might have a small DS-sized graphical sprite and a data block categorising it as what type of behaviour it should have, you can fit one hell of a lot of those into 256MB.

I wonder if the hype's swinging too far on this game now - before E3, nobody believed it could work at all, then thanks to the E3 demos, now we know it works... but it still can't actually do *magic*... or can it... :) I definitely plan to get it, just trying to keep my expectations reasonable.