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Posted by Kotaku Oct 10 2013 04:00 GMT
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The Gameological Society had a simple idea: take the creatures, beasts and people from Scribblenauts and pit them against each other. See which thing, real or fictional, could kick the most ass.Read more...

Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun Sep 26 2013 20:00 GMT
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The adventures of Maxwell, and his notepad on which anything written comes to life, have proven quite the lucrative run of games for 5th Cell. This latest version – out on Steam now for a sizeable £27 – comes with a massive DC tie-in, pitting the kid hero alongside the biggest (and smallest) names in the comic universe. How does the format hold up in such a strange place? Here’s wot I think:

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Posted by Kotaku May 04 2013 17:00 GMT
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People howled when word spread that the creators of Nyan Cat and Keyboard Cat were suing Scribblenauts over the unauthorized use of those memes in the series' latest game. Frivolous lawsuit! Bullshit! Well, think of it this way: Big Video Game is finally getting sued by the little guy—for copyright infringement. That is how Christopher Orlando Torres, the holder of the copyright to Nyan Cat (yes, it is copyrighted and yes, memes may be copyrighted) argues it in his statement on the lawsuit, which came to light on Thursday. He says he and the creator of Keyboard Cat are suing 5th Cell, the makers of Scribblenauts, because the studio and publisher Warner Bros. acted "as if we had no rights in characters we created. "I have no issues with Nyan Cat being enjoyed by millions of fans as a meme, and I have never tried to prevent people from making creative uses of it that contribute artistically and are not for profit," Torres writes on his personal Tumblr. "But this is a commercial use, and these companies themselves are protectors of their own intellectual property." He does have a point there. "Just because popularity with millions of fans has caused Nyan Cat and Keyboard Cat to become famous by virtue of their viral or meme nature, doesn't give these companies a right to take our work for free in order to make profits for themselves," he continued, "especially considering too that they would be the first to file lawsuits against people who misappropriate their copyrights and trademarks." Also pinned on point. Nyan Cat was a valid copyright as of 2011. (Torres also holds copyrights to Pirate Nyan Cat, Mummy Nyan Cat, Pumpkin Nyan Cat, Zombie Nyan Cat, Christmas Nyan Cat, Cool Jazz Nyan Cat, Rasta Nyan Cat and Disco Nyan Cat.) He notes the irony of Scribblenauts advising players that they the game will not summon "copyrighted materials" by writing them on the notepad. His claim is over the use of Nyan Cat in Scribblenauts Unlimited, which released for 3DS, Wii U and PC in November last year. Charles Lamarr Schmidt has held the copyright to Keyboard Cat since 2010. "There are many reputable companies that have respected our rights and negotiated fees to use our characters commercially," Torres said. "Warner Bros. and 5th Cell should have done the same." One follower of Torres noted that when "some random troublemaker" got the original Nyan Cat video taken down from YouTube on a bogus DMCA complaint, Torres "fought with everything he had to get them to put it back up, because he wasn't the one who took it down ... all while dealing with death threats and such" from those who assumed he was. "So yeah, they would have to screw him pretty hard to have pushed him far enough to make him sue anyone." A Legal Dispute I've Been Going Through [prguitarman.tumblr.com]

Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun May 03 2013 13:00 GMT
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Here at RPS, we make a policy of loving Scribblenauts in spite of its flaws, and sometimes we use it to construct elaborate, oddly poignant superhero parodies. And yet, even before DC license announcements entered the picture, I was always impressed by how carefully the series balanced on the glossy lip of pop culture without falling into a bottomless well of legal troubles. No, it’s never applied names (or any proper nouns at all) to its homages, but some of the candy coated likenesses are uncanny. So naturally, it’s finally happened: a lawsuit. But it didn’t come from Rick Astley, Barack Obama, or even a wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube man. Oh no. So then, who are 5th Cell’s mighty legal foes? Why, none other than the folks who created Keyboard Cat and Nyan Cat. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Internet.

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Posted by Kotaku May 02 2013 18:30 GMT
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Oh man. The guy who created Keyboard Cat (Charles Schmidt) and the guy who created Nyan Cat (Christopher Orlando Torres) are suing Warner Bros. and 5th Cell for using the two cat memes in their game Scribblenauts. This complaint comes a little bit late: Scribblenauts came out in 2009. But hey, trademark lawyers are gonna do their trademark lawyer thing: Plaintiffs accuse Warner Bros and 5th Cell of including, without any licenses or authorizations, the Keyboard Cat and Nyan Cat characters in their original Scribblenauts videogame released in 2009, the 2010 Super Scribblenauts, 2011 Scribblenauts Remix, and the 2012 Scribblenauts Unlimited. Defendants are accused of shamelessly using identifying “Nyan Cat” and “Keyboard Cat” by name to promote and market their games. Plaintiffs claim that Warner Bros and 5th Cell’s trademark infringement was willful and intentional and are requesting an award of treble damages and requesting the case be deemed exception under 15 U.S.C. § 1117(a), thereby entitling Plaintiffs to an award of reasonable attorneys’ fees. The lawsuit, which is worth reading in its entirety, has a few great gems, like: "Nyan Cat, a character with a cat's face and a body resembling a horizontal breakfast bar with pink frosting sprinkled with light red dots, flies across the screen, leaving a stream of exhaust in the form of a bright rainbow in its wake." Amazing. We've reached out to Warner Bros, 5th Cell, and the lawyers involved. We'll update should we hear back from any of them. To contact the author of this post, write to jason@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter at @jasonschreier.

Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun Apr 26 2013 18:00 GMT
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IGN bring news that the next Scribblenauts game, to be officially announced at E3, will use the DC license. Even without potential legal problems, Scribblenauts has always been somewhat shy of licensed characters due to Max’s inability to summon into existence specific people and places, described by proper nouns. The series has previously included Nintendo characters, although only on the developer’s own platforms, but otherwise it doesn’t share its universe with anyone. How much can a license add to a game where a little imagination can create equivalents of so many characters though? I jumped into Scribblenauts Unlimited to create my own DC universe. The results are below.

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Posted by Kotaku Jan 16 2013 19:00 GMT
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#miiversemoments We live in divisive times. The public discourse is rife with bickering and malice, and yet there is at least one thing we can all agree on: Scribblenauts is adorable. More »

Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun Nov 22 2012 20:00 GMT
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Scribblenauts Unlimited has now been released in both North and South America. It’s soon out in Australia. And Europe’s not getting it until next year, and no one will say why. Sigh. And that’s a damned stupid shame, because it’s a ridiculously lovely thing, that I’d will everyone to check out. If only the could. Here’s wot I think:

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Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun Aug 31 2012 19:30 GMT
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Was this already a known thing? 5th Cell’s absolutely amazing Scribblenauts series is finally seeing a version released on the mothership. No one had told me. The utterly magical platform-game-meets-actual-proper-magic is going to be on PC, as well as Wii U and 3DS, and Scribblenauts: Unlimited going to be using Steamworks to let you share the madness you create.

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Posted by Giant Bomb Aug 24 2012 01:00 GMT
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You'll spend an awful lot of your time doing this.

It probably shouldn't be a surprise that if anyone could actually do something fresh in the online shooter space at this point, it would be the people who made...Scribblenauts. Just when I thought I couldn't stand to play another multiplayer game with level progression and unlocks, along comes Hybrid with a less-is-more approach that subtracts freedom of movement and gains an increased importance on tactics and positioning as a result. You're still going to pull one trigger to aim at enemies and the other trigger to shoot them, but enough of the gameplay around that basic shooting feels original to make Hybrid worth checking out.

Except for the one key difference, Hybrid is like every other shooter on the market. Aim at guy, shoot guy. Occasionally activate your secondary ability to teleport, see enemies through walls, or heal nearby teammates. Check your kill-death ratio afterward and feel a deep sense of shame. And every few matches, gain a level that lets you unlock a new weapon, ability, passive buff, or helmet to use in subsequent matches. But it's that one difference--the inability to just run freely around the map--that gives Hybrid its unique identity. At all times you're stuck to one of only a handful of predefined cover points on a given map, and your only freedom of movement is to sidle back and forth behind the cover, flip over to the other side of it, or jetpack your way to one of the other cover points that you've got a direct line of sight to.

Since there's only a small number of places you, your teammates, and all your enemies can be at any one time, where you are in relation to where everyone else is becomes of extreme importance over the course of each match. Things like flanking an enemy position from two sides or circling around the back way to creep up on someone who isn't paying attention become regular matters of course. You also have to learn how to make the best use of your limited movement, by knowing when to do things like charge someone's position and wildly blind-fire at them from the other side of their own cover, or hit the retreat button and hurtle backwards to get away from someone who's about to kill you. The matches have a unique flow to them in an online-shooter context, especially since the three-versus-three match size is notably small.

Hybrid goes a step beyond the typical multiplayer-progression metagame with a second layer of between-match progress that takes every player's performance collectively into account. It's a persistent war spread across the entire world's geography, where you pick between multiple zones on every continent before you start matchmaking into a game. Winning matches in a particular zone advances your faction's progress in that zone, and the first team to hit 100 percent there earns double the points of the other side (who still has to hit 100 itself before a single point is awarded).

Knowing when to retreat is an important part of surviving most confrontations.

It was pretty exciting in the first few days of release to see my faction struggling to pull ahead of the other guys in the point totals, though it got a bit less exciting once they gained what looked like an unrecoverable lead over us. Lo and behold, my side ended up winning the first season after all, due to more strategically targeting low-traffic zones rather than focusing on a smaller number of high-value ones. It's a shame there's no sort of in-game bulletin board for members of a faction to coordinate their efforts, or at least a better at-a-glance way to highlight the most contentious zones; as it is, you have to drill way down on the map to see which areas you should focus on. But the persistent war is still a cool idea that gives you a reason to stick with the game for a relatively long period of time.

Actually, the very beginning of Hybrid's release was pretty much a complete disaster, as a server outage rendered the game completely unplayable on day one. That problem was fixed in a few hours, but it's worth noting that the same thing could theoretically happen again in the future. The matchmaking can also be pretty slow, and coupled with the long loading times, sometimes it feel like it takes forever to get into a match. (The game uses a neat trick of pitting you against "traitors" from your own faction when it can't pull a team full of enemies, at least.) Also, while every weapon and ability in the game is unlockable purely by leveling, and the leveling curve isn't any slower than any other game of this type, you can also spend real money to unlock whatever you want right away, or to give yourself an experience buff. That feels a little gross. It's made worse since the type of weapon or ability you unlock at each level is fixed, and there's no way to test out a weapon before you burn an unlock on it, which in a couple of cases led to me going for a weapon that sounded cool but which I immediately ended up hating. After you pick, say, a new shotgun, it's going to be several hours of leveling before you get a chance at another shotgun, unless you want to pay hard cash.

Hybrid's peripheral shortcomings are easy enough to ignore, though, since the core idea is so well executed. Even if you thought you couldn't prestige again to save your life, the game feels different enough from the pack to be worth your time. In the highly specific category of inexpensive downloadable multiplayer Xbox shooters, it's one of the best things going.


Posted by Kotaku Jan 13 2012 14:30 GMT
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#gamingappoftheday The App Store's rotten with platformers. Everywhere you turn, there's some developer revisiting his or her childhood with their own take on the hoppy/jumpy left-to-right adventure genre. Many of these stink or are otherwise unremarkable. But 5th Cell's Run Roo Run is different. More »

Posted by Joystiq Dec 10 2011 00:00 GMT
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You'll forgive us, but we're banking on the concept of Aunt Eileen stuffing your stocking with iTunes gift cards rather than, say, a Zune Marketplace one. Perhaps that depends on if you've been naughty or nice? We're not quite sure how this holiday stuff works, but we're trying our best here.

Anyway, below the break we've compiled another year's worth of great games on both iPhone and iPad platforms that we hope you'll love as well. Even if you don't get those gift cards, these games should still be affordable -- even after buying all those presents. Good luck with the relatives!

YouTube
Posted by Kotaku Dec 08 2011 18:20 GMT
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#scribblenauts The iPhone iteration of 5th Cell's magical word puzzle game gains voice control on the 4S, integrating Siri's voice recognition technology in Scribblenauts: Remix to make you say things like "Giant Flying Kielbasa" in mixed company. More »

Posted by Kotaku Nov 11 2011 22:40 GMT
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#scribblenauts The fantastic image you see above is courtesy of someone named crzisme over at Reddit, and is an actual in-game screenshot! A pretty realistic representation of the Occupy Together movement, wouldn't you say? More »
Fallen Shade
I actually had no idea you could get guy fawkes masks.

Posted by Kotaku Oct 12 2011 13:30 GMT
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#gamingappoftheday The premise and the promise of Scribblenauts always was extraordinary: write any noun (concrete noun, no proper names) into the game and the virtual object it represents will appear. More »

Posted by Joystiq Oct 12 2011 04:46 GMT
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5TH Cell used its magic pen and notebook (actually a bunch of professional programmers, designers, and engineers within its own team and Iron Galaxy Studios, but whatever) to create an iOS version of its innovative DS game Scribblenauts, delivering the complete product to the App Store ... right now.

For 5 bucks, you can download the universal app Scribblenauts Remix (so that's what that title is!) featuring the signature gameplay -- writing words to summon objects, then using those objects to solve puzzles. The app is apparently based on Super Scribblenauts, meaning you can punch up your items with adjectives. It even has new iOS-exclusive levels.

For five dollars.

Posted by Kotaku Aug 03 2011 23:50 GMT
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Currently, we know Scribblenauts Remix is a new domain registered by Warner Bros. (and spotted by "superannuation"), but little else about mysterious Scribblenauts project. But, I wonder what would be summoned if we typed in "iOS" into a Scribblenauts game... More »

Posted by Giant Bomb May 12 2011 21:50 GMT
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Until Scribblenauts developer 5th Cell finally showed Hybrid at the Game Developers Conference this year, the question on everyone's mind was simple: what's the hook? The hook turned out to be dynamic, cover-based multiplayer shooter where you don't control basic movement at all. Impressions from GDC were solid, but in a pretty surprising move, 5th Cell announced today Hybrid's coming in 2012.

“Hybrid was very well received this past GDC; people really seemed to enjoy it,” said 5th Cell CEO and creative director Jeremiah Slaczka in a brief statement today, “but with an additional year, we can take what we've learned and really drill down on our ideas to hopefully transform this game into something great. At 5th Cell, our goal is to strive toward making the best titles we can, with the extra time we can make quality a focus."

Using the term "additional year" certainly suggests this is a lengthy extension of Hybrid's development time, but given that people were already digging it, even more time can't be a bad thing for Hybrid.


Posted by Joystiq Jan 28 2011 23:00 GMT
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In addition to the ability to buy it in Japan and play it in Japanese, there are additional benefits to Konami's Japanese localization of Scribblenauts. Specifically, you can use the power of your words to bring forth Konami characters into 5th Cell's world.

In these screenshots, including one tweeted by Hideo Kojima and two from Hachimaki, you can see Scribblenized versions of Old Snake, Gradius's Vic Viper, and Love Plus's Manaka Takane. Apparently, the other two Love Plus girls were left out for some reason.
Fallen Shade
lucky
©na
>Vic Viper
WANT

Posted by Kotaku Mar 04 2011 18:20 GMT
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#gdc The next great innovation in shooting video game bad guys is focused not on our virtual guns, but on our virtual feet. More »

Posted by Kotaku Jan 28 2011 11:00 GMT
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#ds Scribblenauts is now out in Japan, and to make up for the delay, some extra characters have been added to the game. Like who? Well, the fact it's been published by Konami might give you an idea or two... More »

YouTube
Posted by GoNintendo Jan 04 2011 22:50 GMT
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Viddd
LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!111111111111
Popple
Does that question really need to be asked.

Posted by Joystiq Nov 09 2010 14:47 GMT
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Konami has agreed to undertake the arduous task of translating Scribblenauts into Japanese. On January 27, Konami will release 5TH Cell's DS adventure game as "Flash Puzzle: Maxwell's Peculiar Notebook." ("Fushigi" means anything from "strange" to "mysterious" -- we've gone with Andriasang's translation here.)

Ironically, it seems to be a localization of the first Scribblenauts, which means it'll lack the sequel's adjective function, making it impossible to create a "mysterious" notebook in-game. But Konami already has to translate the 22,000 word dictionary for this (budget!) release, so it's understandable. It's probably been working quietly on the game since before Super Scribblenauts even came out.

No screens were released, so we don't yet know if any cosmetic changes were made to the game, nor how text entry is handled.

Posted by Kotaku Oct 21 2010 16:13 GMT
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5th Cell, the team behind Scribblenauts, plan to unveil their next game a week from today on Spike TV at 10 p.m. PDT. The team says that the new title is going to be a "a completely new experience for Xbox Live Arcade players." More »

Posted by Kotaku Oct 13 2010 08:30 GMT
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#ds Super Scribblenauts, out yesterday, contains more words than its decidedly wordier predecessor. How many words is that? Try 35,000. And here they all are! More »

Posted by GoNintendo Jul 28 2009 16:55 GMT
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Yes, once again, this will be available for preorder bonus in North America. I can’t wait to wear mine until it falls apart from all the love I’ll give it!
>>
Fallen Shade

Funny I still have the original rooster hat from when I preordered the first game


Posted by Joystiq May 17 2010 18:28 GMT
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Start flexing those ... whatever muscles you would use to exercise your imagination. Warner Bros. Interactive today announced Super Scribblenauts, the sequel to last year's similarly titled puzzle-platformer. The DS game will hit store shelves sometime this fall. Check out the first three (tiny, tiny) screenshots from the game in the gallery below.

As hinted at by the April issue of Nintendo Power, players will be able to modify the game's catalog of summonable items using adjectives, leading to complex creations such as "gentlemanly, flaming, flying zombies and purple, obese, winged elephants." That sounds wonderful, but we're more excited by the announcement's surreptitious reference to "upgraded controls." Does that mean we'll actually be able to walk to said lavender pachyderm without accidentally jumping into that adjacent pit of lava? We can only hope!