In Scribblenauts, you can summon god simply by tapping his name on the virtual keyboard. One would think with god at your disposal, a small ledge intruding on your path would be a menial task. That may be, but only if you’re willing to miss the point of the game in the first place.

See, Scribblenauts is sort of an adventure, an adventure of your vocabulary. That ledge which prevents the character of Wesley from capturing his level-ending Starite can be conquered in countless ways. For the boring person, a set of stairs could handle the task. For the eclectic personality, a helicopter can be summoned to fly over the ledge.

And for the slightly insane person, you could try summoning a monster in the hopes of it throwing you over the raised land. In this game, it just might work. Considering setting a house on fire to burn down a tree with a kitten in it lets you reach your goal of rescuing the animal, anything seems possible.

Scribblenauts, despite its closed puzzle-like nature, could very well be the new definition of “open world” games. No, you cannot maneuver through a fully realized city to complete objectives, but in a sense, you can do anything. It is literally impossible for the game to be played the same way by two different people. The level of potential variances are too high.

Something typical of video games, such as replay value, does not factor into the equation. Scribblenauts is infinitely replayable because each scenario presents the opportunity to complete it in thousands of different ways. Words cannot possibly describe what a versatile piece of software this is, ironic considering words are its strong suit.

If Scribblenauts has any failings, it is the control of Wesley. Working with the DS screen is a sea of frustration, with miscued taps sending the chicken-hat wearing character into danger, causing a full restart of the puzzle in question. Scribblenauts does not offer mid-level saves, easy to overlook during the design phase when cramming the game with so many objects. However, given Wesley’s inability to stand still, ruining a complex puzzle attempt is never fun.

Scibblenauts has an outlet for frustration though: it’s title screen. Here you can summon anything and watch it fight, permanently ending the long-standing debate over pirates and ninjas (pirates win). Oh, and for the record, death himself can kill god, bringing into question who is actually in control of our universe. To think we’ve been praying to the wrong deity for the history of our species. Thanks for clearing that up Scribblenauts.

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