Issue Date: November 8, 2009

A game to help you think creatively

In "Scribblenauts," released in September, objects you write down on screen come to life.

Everyone is talking about "Scribblenauts," a puzzle game for the Nintendo DS, not because it's controversial, heavily advertised or visually stunning, but because if you want a unicorn, a black hole, a burrito or Abraham Lincoln, "Scribblenauts" will give it to you.

The game's puzzles can be solved by your character, Maxwell, above, using whatever object you think might work. Type a word into a virtual keyboard and "Scribblenauts" will almost always give it to you; it recognizes more than 20,000 words, from aardvark to zopfe (braided bread).

What was a seemingly minor title generated huge buzz with a demo shown earlier this year at the annual video game trade show E3, resulting in a famous, foulmouthed game post describing a player's experience creating a time machine, going to the past and riding a dinosaur back into the future to battle robot zombies.

"Scribblenauts" ($29.99), which is one of this year's best-selling and most award-winning games, succeeds by letting players stretch their imaginations.

-- Charles Herold