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. ^_~