Wanna see him in a game? Well, you’ll still have to keep waiting. Mech Mice is consuming most of my work hours right now. But I’m warning you, world, some day he’ll be in a game, and it will be awesome.

Be aware, this is very much a work-in-progress. This level will not show up in the final game, and the final game itself won’t be out for about two years.

P.S. Yes, I did compose the music.
P.P.S. A lot of people have asked about the pig sitting on my monitor, and some have even thought that it’s a working clock. That’s actually a model made by two friends of mine who were coworkers of mine when I worked at Club Penguin. It was made with Sculpey and then painted afterwards. It’s not actually a clock, and has electronic components whatsoever (although it would be sooo cool if it was).

Also, if you haven’t been watching Rocketsnail Games in the last few months, you might have missed this post. I’ve been working there for awhile now, mostly on a project called Mech Mice, and it’s been great!

Imagine, if you will, a wide open level of Super Mario Galaxy in which Bullet Bills are flying everywhere, and the only way to get to your destination is to fly with them as a bullet. But beware, because hitting a wall will destroy a Bullet Bill, and as Bullet Mario, if you hit a wall, it will destroy you too.

I figured that would be a cool idea for a level, so I made a song for it entitled “Billions of Bullet Bills”. You’ll find it at the Music Player, song number 20.

The concept is simple, yet profound; you are an odd-looking boy with a rooster hat named Maxwell, and there are a series of minor tasks for you to complete. The reward for solving these tasks is a starite. However, instead of taking the usual video game route where you have very few items to work with and must rely on your skill, in this game, you can summon into existence ANY OBJECT YOU CAN THINK OF to help you on your way. (There are restrictions to the “anything you can think of” rule, like not including vulgar terms, shapes, Latin names, or copyrighted things, but those restrictions do make a lot of sense, and don’t ruin the overall game.)

For example; on the far side of a lake, there is a flower that you have to pick, but between you and the flower is an angry bee that won’t let you go past it. How do you get rid of it? That is entirely up to you. Flyswatter? Sure, it works. Bug spray? That works too. Boomerang? Yep. Sword? Absolutely. Venus’ flytrap? Um… actually, I’m not sure about that one, let me check…

*a few seconds later*

OK, Venus flytrap doesn’t actually try to eat the bee. However, dropping the plant on the bee’s head seems to kill it. This illustrates one of the downsides about Scribblenauts. Just because you can summon nearly anything doesn’t mean that it will always act the way you may expect. An ostrich will not bury its head in sand. Playing the flute will not make rats follow you. A ceiling fan will not automatically attach to most ceilings.

In making this game, 5th Cell – the creators of the game – were doomed to at least some level of failure, because everyone who picks up the game will eventually find something that the game will not do. It has no hope of living up to anyone’s wildest expectation. However, it does do at least half of the things that I could dream up for it, and that’s amazing in itself. Monkeys will eat bananas and swing on vines. Elephants will run from mice (and so will mammoths). Electrocuting a corpse will turn it into a zombie, who will in turn try to turn any living human around it into a zombie.

It is a game that amazes me, but I couldn’t have a proper review of the game without mentioning its biggest flaws. There are two big ones that have dominated game reviews for Scribblenauts since the game launched, and I have to mention them here as well: player control and camera control.

All player movement is done with the DS stylus, rather than most games where control is done with the pushing of buttons. The problem with this is that the manipulating of objects in the game is also done with the stylus, meaning that you frequently move Maxwell around when you mean to pick up an object (or vice versa). When I first started playing this game, this annoyed me, but I’ve quickly found the solution for this… move Maxwell as little as possible. If there’s an enemy between me and the starite I need to get, I don’t give Maxwell a machete and try to fight the enemy myself. Nope, I send a T-Rex after him, or bury him in quicksand. The less that Maxwell does, the better.

The camera control problem is a harder one to deal with. You see, you use the buttons on the DS to scroll the camera around to the part of the level that you want to put an object in. The unfortunate problem is that the camera will automatically recenter you on Maxwell after a few seconds, and while that’s sometimes good in large levels when you have forgotten where Maxwell is, it usually is a pain in the butt. It makes levels longer and more tedious than they need to be.

There is a wide variety of things to do in Scribblenauts. The game contains 220 levels, although the game shines most for me in levels where you have a very simple task to do and can choose from a hundred different ways to do it. I should also mention that this isn’t the type of game that you’re likely to play for five hours at a time. I find it best to pick it up for twenty minutes, do a level or two, and shut it off again, because then the whimsy of being able to make any object I please to solve a problem stays fresh in my mind, and I enjoy the experience even more.

Scribblenauts is definitely worth buying, despite its flaws, and if the creators of Scribblenauts were to create a sequel that had better controls and more types of item interactions, I’d be first in line to buy that too. 5th Cell, my inner 8-year-old thanks you.

Unexpectedly Useful Items:

• RAMP: In Scribblenauts, there are these annoying buttons that are on the side of a wall. The level can only be passed if the button is continually held down. Ramp solves that problem… just roll a ball down the ramp, it will press the button and stay there.
• AIR VENT: Blow things in any direction you want. Useful for avoiding certain enemies or blowing a starite towards you. Similar objects: LARGE AIR VENT, FAN
• BLACK HOLE: At first I expected that a black hole would destroy absolutely everything, making it useless, but instead, a black hole only works in a localized area, which can be very good for clearing out enemies. As an extra bonus, if you create a LHC – which stands for “large Hadron Collider”, the world’s largest particle accelerator – and interact with it, it creates a black hole. Synonyms: NOTHING, ANYTHING
• HAIR DRYER: This is really quite useful, but not for the obvious reason of being able to blow air (it’s actually not particularly good at that at all). No, hair dryer’s are great because they kill sea creatures. You know how you’re not supposed to drop a hair dryer in the bathtub because it will electrocute you? It works in Scribblenauts… you can get rid of sharks, pirahna, and barracudas quite easily this way. TOASTER also works for this, and as a bonus, if you use a toaster, you can kill sharks and get a loaf of bread at the same time! Other similar objects: BLENDER, WAFFLEMAKER
• WINGS: I went into this game fully expecting that I would make a lot of use out of the JETPACK. It is indeed useful, but I hadn’t considered that there are situations (such as falling into water) when a jetpack will break down. Giving your character wings to fly takes away that problem. Of course, if you don’t need to fly into a small space, it’s a lot cooler to ride a PTERODACTYL, SPACE SHUTTLE, or PEGASUS.
• ICEBERG: If you need a flat surface to reliably float on in an open expanse of water, I’ve found none better than putting in an iceberg.
• CHERRY PICKER: Got a place that’s too high to jump to, but you don’t feel like flying? This may be just the thing for you. It’s a little difficult to use sometimes, though, so you may want to try other things that will lift you, like ESCALATOR or ELEVATOR.
• FISHING ROD: Are you close to the starite, but can’t quite reach? Do you need to get a small object from far away? Fishing rod may just be your best friend. It’s quite useful for much more than just fish.
• CARROT: If an enemy is standing on the edge of a precipice, the easiest way to get him out of your way isn’t to shoot him… it’s luring him with food. I chose “carrot” to represent this, but really, most foods will work just fine.

Unexpectedly Disappointing Items:

• GENIE: He doesn’t give you three wishes. He doesn’t spawn random items to help you. He certainly doesn’t sound like Robin Williams. Nope, he just stands there, and if he dies, IVORY appears. Seriously? Ivory? Not that I’m a genie expert, but that’s kind of random.
• DUCT TAPE: In the real world, many problems can be fixed with duct tape. In Scribblenauts, not so much. It’s just a small strip of tape that works the same as GLUE, and while it’s still kind of useful, you’re not going to be fixing a broken space shuttle with it or anything.
• TORNADO: Not particularly destructive, just annoying. It only pushes things without destroying them (and yes, I’ve even tried putting it on a TRAILER PARK).
• STARITE: It makes perfect sense, but in case you thought you’d cheat on this one, making a starite only creates a toy, without finishing the level.
• BRIDGE: I was pretty disappointed the first time I tried the word “bridge”. Not only is it small, but it’s pretty unstable and almost unusable for crossing large gaps. (Fortunately, I found BRIDGE LADDER fairly early into the game, which was much better).
• LIQUID NITROGEN: Oh, I had such high hopes for this item. I was hoping for a big tank of it with which to freeze things. No such luck. It’s the exact same item as a fire extinguisher.
• ELECTRIC EEL: The electric eel is not a particularly bad item to use. The problem is the fact that it naturally moves so much it’s a real pain to try and pick up and place anywhere in the game. It takes at least 5 times before I can get it with the DS stylus.
• FOLDING CHAIR: Completely useless. If anything touches it, it tips over.

Unexpectedly Funny items:

• DOOHICKEY: It spawns a Swiss Army Knife, which is brilliant, because if anything embodies the spirit of “doohickey”, it’s a Swiss Army Knife.
• CAVE: There are many items that have other items inside them. AMBULANCE has a PATIENT inside, MOLEHILL has a MOLE inside, and CAVE, I was surprised to discover, has a BEAR inside, which promptly attacked and killed me after I found him. Oops!
• LAWYER + AMBULANCE: The lawyer will chase a moving ambulance. I kid you not.
• TRAMPOLINE: The trampoline, by itself, is not that funny. However, choosing pretty much any small animal and putting that on the trampoline? Priceless.
• MONORAIL CAT: If you’re at all familiar with the humor of “lolcats”, you’ll be happy to know that Monorail Cat is there, as well as CEILING CAT, LONGCAT, and PIANO CAT.
• LOL WUT: Found this by accident. Typing it in creates… well, we’ll just let you find out for yourself!

I decided that one of the best places to look for good level design is in popular games and memorable games, and very few games are more popular or memorable than Super Mario Bros, and Level 1-1 is so well known that it became a stage in Super Smash Brothers Brawl, so let’s see what makes this level tick!

(I’m going to be writing this with the assumption that you are not particularly good at video games. It helps to see games from a new user’s point of view.)

Here we are, the start of the level. It starts out very boring, and I’m pretty sure that’s on purpose. All you see is Mario, the sky, and the ground. You try walking to the left, but that doesn’t go so well. You try walking to the right. Oh, what’s that? A question mark box? What could be inside? It’s very subtle, but putting that question mark box on screen gives you a gentle push as to which way you should go, inviting you to explore a bit more.

So, there you are, walking towards the question mark, and… what’s this? A creature of some kind is slowly walking towards Mario. Oh, what an angry fellow he is… why are you so angry, little guy… AAAACK! It killed Mario! Yes, you’ve encountered your first bad guy. At the very least, this teaches you to jump out of the way of the bad guy for next time, and if you’re lucky, you realize that jumping on the bad guy’s head removes him as a threat.

Where were we? Oh yes, the question mark box. The level sets you up in such a way that the most natural thing to do with the question mark is to try and hit it from underneath, and doing so creates a pleasing “ding” sound. The “ding” may seem like an insignificant detail, would you want to seek out question mark boxes if they made a foghorn sound every time you hit one? Neither would I… never underestimate the benefit sound effects can bring to a game.

Well, the first question mark was good (although we’re not quite sure why yet), so let’s hit the second one and get another ding! You hit the box, but it doesn’t ding. Instead, a mushroom comes out. What’s the deal with that? The mushroom is moving, and it doesn’t have angry eyes on it, so what happens if we hit it? Hey, Mario gets big!

Now, obviously, I’ve been describing this in way more detail than you consciously think about when you actually play the level. That was only about 15-20 seconds worth of gameplay. Here’s what the rest of the level teaches you (in order).

• Regular bricks can be destroyed if you’re big, but not if you’re small
• There are limits of how high you can jump (three increasingly large pipes)
• Holes in the ground are bad
• Fire flower power-ups are good, and make destroying enemies much easier
• Jumping on shelled enemies creates a different, slightly more dangerous result than jumping on goombas
• Stars make you temporarily invincible
• The end of a level is marked by a flagpole

Now, those are just the things that you can’t avoid learning. Super Mario Bros. also contains a large quantity of secrets, larger than any game before it. There’s the pipe that you can go into to get coins. There’s the hidden 1-UP block near the beginning of the level. There’s the varying score you can get from landing on different heights on the flagpole. There’s also the mysterious fireworks that occasionally show up at the end of a level, all of it creating a “Whoa, how did I do that?” reaction from the player.

Moving on, you have the cutscene in between level 1-1 and level 1-2, teaching the player that you can go into certain pipes. By the time you hit level 1-2, you already know every basic concept of how to pass the whole game, and the only thing stopping you from finishing the whole game is your own skill (and incidentally, I’ve never been able to finish the game).

I can’t end this little talk about level design without mentioning level 1-3. You remember level 1-3, don’t you? Don’t you? Actually, you probably don’t… it looks like this:

It’s a decent level… nothing wrong with it. So why isn’t it remembered? Because of level 1-2, of course. Everyone who was shown Super Mario Bros. by their friends was shown the end-of-level warp secret. It was one of the worst kept secrets in video games, but it was cool because it felt like you were cheating, and because human beings always like to use as little effort as possible to get to an end goal, you’d probably find that more people remember level 4-1 as the unofficial “third level” of the game.

Thus ends today’s lesson!

Two years ago, when I heard that Mario Galaxy was coming, I decided that it might be wise for me to get used to playing Mario games in 3D, as I’d never played classics like Mario 64. So, I picked up a copy of the Gamecube game Super Mario Sunshine – which, of course, plays on the Wii – and started playing. I soon discovered that I was not particularly good at the game… I had a difficult time mastering the controls, and there were too many precision jumps for me to master. Less than a tenth of the way through the game, I put the game away, hoping that Super Mario Galaxy would not be as difficult for me.

Fortunately, it is not. The controls are perfect, and the spin ability while jumping means that, if I’m about to land somewhere that I wasn’t intending to, I have a second chance before landing to correct my jump and land properly, which was much easier to master than Mario Sunshine’s F.L.U.D.D. system.

The gameplay is amazing. The opportunity and challenge of solving puzzles while walking upside-down is quite a feat in itself, but the fact that you can play gravity-defying levels without getting dizzy is astounding. The game seems to delight in twisting your brain in ways its never gone before, while still making sense.

From watching trailers of the game, I had gotten the impression that the game would all be about walking around on curved planets and puzzles with gravity, but it was much more than that. Some planets turned out to be giant watery racetracks, surfing on the back of a giant manta ray, while other planets put Mario in a bubble, requiring you to blow him around with the Wii remote.

One of the most overlooked points of Mario Galaxy is the fact that it’s a multi-player game. A second person can, whenever they want, pick up a second Wii remote and help Mario by collecting star bits for extra lives or holding back enemies, which is good for helping less skillful players (or giving less skillful players something helpful to do). Another frequently overlooked point is Mario Galaxy’s music, which is frequently fully orchestrated and gorgeous. If Nintendo ever decides to sell the soundtrack in North America, I’ll be in line to buy it.

There’s more to be said about the game, of course. Rosalina shines as a wonderful female character addition to the Mario series, the boss battles are frequently intense, the difficulty is just right; it’s a wonderful game to play.

I assume you mean designing new Pokemon, not drawing existing ones, right? Interesting idea. The Pokemon themselves have a unique art style within anime – especially the original group of 150-ish Pokemon – but I can’t say I’ve tried drawing in that style too much. Well, here goes:

I present to you Beaverbite, Geckameleon, and… some kind of small bird Pokemon with fire wings of some sort. I like the first two, but the third one looked a lot better in my head than what came out on paper, so he doesn’t get a name. (That’ll teach him for being drawn badly.)

As an extra treat for today, you know how I mentioned before that I don’t draw Pokemon often? Well, the only time I can ever recall drawing a Pokemon before today was the following drawing, done in early 2000.

If I could make my own Wii game… funny you should ask. This is probably my first time publicly saying this, but I very much would like to make my own single-player Wii game. In fact, I’ve been sketching out ideas for my game idea over the last four years.

Of course, it’s difficult to actually show sketches without giving away the game idea itself, but here’s some concepts for it that don’t give too much away:

This is one idea for the planet where the game would take place. I’d always liked the idea of a doughnut-shaped planet, and it makes for a few neat story possibilities in the game.

This is a concept for the interior of a cave in the game. The crystals would be somewhat significant in the game, but not in the usual “I have found a magical crystal” sense.

Enemies. Many games need them, and this game would need a lot of them.

Will my game idea ever get made? Who knows… but I sure hope so. Will it get made soon? I highly doubt it… keep in mind that I’ve already been sitting on this game idea for four years.