Aside from the sometimes-maddening movement controls, I’ve been enjoying Scribblenauts quite a bit, and I haven’t even finished World 3 yet. But as I was finishing up the second world, I began to realize that despite the game’s unlimited possiblities, I was getting a bit bored. I found myself re-using all the same objects from level to level: rope, shovels, bombs, glue, and of course the jetpack.
A new inspiration came with a tweet made by Wil Wheaton. Scribblenauts as a social experience? Fantastic. Where to start? I don’t want to spoil anything for those who may not want anything spoiled. That in mind, minor spoilers follow.
A couple of the cool things I’ve done in Scribblenauts.
- When I needed to knock down milk bottles, I dropped a Satellite onto them, presumably out of orbit. (The rhino I tried to use killed the attendant and I lost)
- Handcuffed a chupacabra to a starite and gave it a goat to chase. How else do you move a starite?
Something else I’d like to ask of anyone else who’s played the game: has anyone figured out any way to press a button or pull a lever without actually being there? I’ve tried everything from creating a clone of myself to push it to gluing a punching bag to the button and putting a boxer in front of it, and nothing works. I even tried using a perpetual motion machine to push a button, but it just created a black hole and swallowed me up.
That said, I’d like to share my experience on the game’s “Heist!” level. Needless to say, spoilers follow.
“Heist” challenges you to steal the starite. There’s a security guard with a club nearby, and a camera pointed at the starite. When the camera sees anyone, a steel door drops down in front of the starite. There’s a way around, but it’s guarded by a second security guard who has a gun.
The first thing I tried to do is get rid of the club guard. I dropped a ghost next to him. But the guard was brave – rather than running, he began to club the ghost. The ghost fought back and killed the guard, which caused me to lose – you can’t kill the guards.
Next, I tried to make a Tazer, but it wouldn’t work. Tazer is actually a brand name. So I made a tranquilizer gun. That worked. It put the guard to sleep, but only for about five seconds, which wasn’t nearly enough time for me to begin to think about addressing the camera.
Creating a pit worked. The guard with the club fell into the pit, and I was left to deal with the camera. First I tried an EMP. It blew up when I activated it, and did nothing to the camera. Placing a mirror in front of the camera didn’t work at all either. And when I tried an invisibility cloak, it turned me invisible, which was great. But the cloak itself remained visible, and the camera saw it and shut the steel door. That’s when I started thinking about taking the back way around, past the guard with the gun.
So how to distract that guard? There wasn’t room up there for a pit. First, I tried to put his girlfriend there. He shot her. The bastard. The coldhearted bastard. He was really serious about his job. I finally managed to tranq him with the tranquilizer gun and run past before he got up. Then I blew up the pile of crap behind him with a bomb and got to the starite.
I’d be glad to hear how anyone else got through the heist level.
jetpack to fly up to second guard, donut to distract him, pick to break apart the crap at the bottom. you have to move fast before the guard finishes the donut
I don’t know of a way to activate switches from afar, but as for buttons:
If the button is on the wall, you can glue a fan to the back of a car (facing forward, oddly enough) and the car will move on its own, pressing the button when it hits the wall. You may have to play around with it and try different vehicles, but glueing either a fan (facing forward from the back) or a propeller (facing forward at the front) to a vehicle is a great way to send it off unmanned. For even more fun, glue a bomb or a gas tank to the front and send it off to detonate some foes
If the button is on the ceiling, you can put a balloon just under it. Balloons are also great fun for getting past enemies — what could be more hilarious than giving your foe so many balloons that he just floats away (takes about 6).
I’d also recommend playing with springs, plenty of fun to be had with them — try putting one on a ramp, at a 45 degree angle facing up the slope (difficult to drop it properly to achieve this until you get the hang of it), then drop something on the ramp and send it flying. My favorites launch items are fire, gas tank, and corpse.
I haven’t made it through heist yet but for future reference “stun gun” works just fine if you need a Tazer
“Something else I’d like to ask of anyone else who’s played the game: has anyone figured out any way to press a button or pull a lever without actually being there?”
Haven’t played the game yet…
Have you tried using a Sonic Screwdriver?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60W-AClT23A
I just heard that a “mechanic” will pull levers for you. Haven’t had a chance to try it out, but if so, that’ll be an enormous help in certain levels.
Electricians will flick switches for you. Don’t know about buttons.
An important thing to note in levels with big steel spikes: you can survive touching them lots of times before you die. In the level with the red trapdoor that drops the starite onto a spike, I just flew up there, triggered the button with a brick or something, then flew up and caught the starite before it hit the spike. Quick and elegant, I thought.
For the red trap door one, I put cement blocks either side and a plant on top. Then i dropped a toaster into the water to electrocute the shark and kill it. To activate buttons i drop boulders/rocks onto them, then the starite fell bounced off my little structure over the spike and into the water. Then I lassoed it..the lasso’s good for getting starites from a distance!!
I know that whenever there’s something in my way that’s trying to kill me, if it doesn’t matter if the animal lives or dies, I just summon Death. He shows up, I send him around to kill everything, and then throw him in the trash as I waltz through the level unharmed. It works pretty well.
Erin- Death and Grim Reaper summon the same being, and the Grim Reaper is one of the four finalists in today’s Scribblenauts Smackdown. Thus, as far as I’ve been able to determine, Death is one of the four most powerful creatures in the game.
i assembled my own team of powerful beings:
1: hydra
2:god
3:death
4:behemoth
ooze is invinsable and can own death
Weirdly, I put a post next to the club guard (an option after I chose an unavailbale item) and it made him want to protect me. The I shot the camera.
Another great character is medusa. If you can kill her…
To activate buttons, you need to put a block on it if it is on the ground. If it’s on the sides, then put a large air vent about 1 metre away and then put a pole so it hits the button. If the button is on top, then put an air vent on the ground and put a block and it will float up and hit the button.
Hope this tip helps! ^^
i used peroxide on the guard and he fell asleep and when he woke up protected me, then tried shooting the camera, it saw me, so i peroxided the guard again when i retried, and used a fan to blow the starite to me
Well, i actually tried alot of the things you did. i tried to put a woman there to distract the gun guy but he shot her. tried EMP but it blew up. my trusty jet pack just made everything harder so i left that out. :P. in the end i used a “Tether” to tie the man to the camera so he could bash me and then put a fan behind the starite. you then slowly move the fan foward and it pushed it along 😛
For the button, just put a rock on it. It’ll hold it down.