Scribblenauts Developer Like a Boxer with One Hand Tied

5th Cell 'done with handhelds'... at least, for this year.

Posted by Staff
Giraffes, deities, Rick Astley... the possibilities are endless.
Giraffes, deities, Rick Astley... the possibilities are endless.
The developer of Scribblenauts, 5th Cell, has revealed to Gamasutra that it is currently working on an Xbox Live Arcade title, and it's going to be "pretty big".

Co-founder Jeremiah Slaczka explained that the game is in the very early stages, and that the XBLA development marks a move away from handheld games. "This year, we're actually done with handheld for original titles. We're not going to spend our stuff on new original titles. We'll put that onto consoles."

Scribblenauts is an indie game on the Nintendo DS that managed to win more acclaim from the press than most, due to its unique concept and gameplay. Using nothing but the imagination, players overcome obstacles by writing words on the screen and seeing the object appear in the game. It is well documented that thousands of words have been programmed into the game for a huge number of possibilities - Rick Astley (type 'Rickroll') is just one of the items you can call in-game.

But Slaczka laments the short time frame in which Scribblenauts was developed; "[Larger studios and publishers such as Nintendo and Square Enix] get three years, and I get one year. That's the big difference. I feel like a boxer with one hand tied between my back. I can make incredible stuff in three years, you know?"

The new Xbox Live Arcade game is nowhere near ready for release or even announcement, with Slaczka stating "it's totally not ready to be announced. It's far away." It's cool, we can wait, we've still got words to discover in Scribblenauts.
Companies:
Games:

Comments

Posting of new comments is now locked for this page.