This post has not been edited by the GamesBeat staff. Opinions by GamesBeat community writers do not necessarily reflect those of the staff.
Editor’s note: A lack of imagination gets in the way of gamers enjoying a wide range of games. Cody thinks this “unfunness” gets in the way of enjoying Scribblenauts. Do you agree? -Jason
Sitting alone in my room, I find myself confronted by a dragon. This isn’t one of your run-of-the-mill, defeated-by-a-Hobbit kind of dragons, either. It has wings. Dragons are known to use these for, you know, flying around and killing people.
This particular dragon guards a switch that I need to press — a switch that opens a cage containing a king, letting His Highness make his grand escape and return to his castle, hopefully unharmed. Sounds easy, right?
Oh, did I forget to mention that the dragon and the switch are both on the other side of a river of lava? It’s not exactly so easy after all.
Though this sounds like something a 5-year-old would make up — and believe me, I thought up this scenario and many like it when I still needed tip-toes for arcade gaming — it’s actually just one of hundreds of puzzles in Scribblenauts.
Most of the puzzles are easy to solve, and you don’t need much in the way of creativity to master them. In fact, I solved about 80 percent of the puzzles that I came across with a helicopter, a rope, and some chloroform.
One might think that the game’s rather boring and easy because of this, but it’s my fault, not the game’s. After all, it’s not Scribblenuats that stopped having an imagination when girls became more of a fascination than tree forts transformed into legendary ruins or a stick in the backyard magically becoming a lightsaber.
No, it’s me that limits the enjoyment to be found in Scribblenauts; as it turns out, being an adult is just as unfun as we all thought it would be.
It sort of makes you wonder: How many games out there are limited by our own lack of imagination? Is that why games that are gritty, grayscale, and überrealistic always seem to get our attention, while childlike (I use that word in the nicest way possible) stuff like Little King’s Story or Animal Crossing are doomed to don pejoratives like “baby game”? By “growing up,” are we losing something that makes it almost impossible to enjoy the things that we once spent months having fun with?
I like to think that everyone has an inner-child in them, a tiny little voice that reminds you about the magic and the wonders found in this world. Sadly, we listen to that voice so little most of the time that sooner or later, it stops speaking, and we forget what it’s like to look at the world through a child’s eyes.
If I were my 5-year-old self, I probably would’ve come up with a lot more inventive stuff to type into that in-game keyboard, and I probably would’ve spent a lot more time with Scribblenauts — and enjoyed it a lot more because of that.
So here’s what I’m going to do. As soon as I get done typing this blog, I’m going to move the living room furniture and maybe throw a few cushions across the carpet. I’m then going to pretend that the floor’s lava, that my cat’s a sabertooth tiger, and that I have to rescue a fair princess who’s being held hostage in the kitchen. Once I rescue her and steal a kiss, I’ll ride off into the sunset on my trusty steed — a paint roller.
Maybe after I get in touch with my younger self again, I can play through Scribblenauts the way it was meant to be played — with a little imagination. And hey, maybe there’s some hope for me yet: I just killed that dragon with a house fan.