An Objective Analysis of the Production and Development By: Christopher Schweitzer Chris.T.Schweitzer@gmail.com www.chrisinfiea2013.com ChrisInFIEA2013.com 1
Quick Synopsis Scribblenauts, in the simplest terms, is a puzzle game created and developed by 5 th Cell and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for the Nintendo DS. It was released in September 2009 to great critical acclaim, with the help of multiple Best of Show awards from that year's E3 convention. The game revolves around Maxwell, who s main goal is to obtain the Starite from each level with the help of summoning objects. With 220 different levels, Maxwell and the player will be able to summon animals, people, vehicles, weapons, and many more objects to bring to life as they attempt to obtain the Starites. It is truly a game for everyone, as it challenges players to use their imagination and creativity to solve puzzles in an entirely new way said Samantha Ryan, Senior Vice President of Production and Development for Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. [1] How Production Started 5 th Cell first started production of Scribblenauts in 2008. What prompted development was the first royalty check received from Drawn to Life, which gave an opening to start a self-financed project. Also, 5 th Cell realized that every year from 2006 to 2008, hiring grew 14% [3], and needed a project otherwise the company would bleed cash while their new hires are not involved. Co-founder and Creative Director of 5 th Cell Jeremiah Slaczka, along with Co-founder and General Manager Joseph Tringali, wanted to create a title that would Compete with the Top Nintendo [DS] first-party titles such as Brain Age, Nintendogs, and WarioWare. [2] They have the direction that they want to move forward with, they just need the concept. The Benefit and Disadvantage of a Self-financing Their ideal goal was to self-finance development for the game (to a certain point) so that they were not under certain restrictions that are common to productions under publishing companies, to make a game our own way, not only with product design, but with control over our development process and planning. Most developers do not have the financial resources to self finance development, so they seek out publishers and make contracted deals. However, under these contracts, the development team needs to meet the purposed budget, be open to outside critiques, and meet hard scheduled build deadlines or risk losing funding. The disadvantage is that the risk is great that the small independent developers would not see a return on investment. This could be due to a poor concept that was not thought out fully with a comprehensive financial analysis, the production schedule is not being followed as strictly and will end up costing more, or the financial analysis was not correct and the ChrisInFIEA2013.com 2
funding is not there to finish the project. However, 5 th Cell understood that to be successful there has to be constant efforts to minimize risk. So, why did it work with Scribblenauts? Joseph Tringali said it the best For many reasons, Scribblenauts was un-publishable as a concept. [2] In order to effectively seek out publisher funding, a strong concept and schedule should be ready to present, with possibly an early demo or vertical slice to show proof of concept. 5 th Cell could not do this as it would be months before concepts took design and the working Objectnaut game engine was built. If they sought the funding at the beginning, then their creative process of iteration until happy [2] would have been limited by deadlines. 5 th Cell had the royalties from Drawn to Life to provide financing until a working build and an agreed game design was in place to then seek out a publisher. The risk was great, but the reward of a game built Objectnaut In order for Scribblenauts to performed as concept, a new engine would need to be created. The goal was always to have tens of thousand objects available for the user, but also to make them interact and function as that object. Marius Fahlbusch, 5 th Cell's Tech Director, came up with the idea to incorporate the object-oriented idea of data inheritance to give each object their properties. In objectoriented programming, the subclass inherits the properties and behaviors of the superclass. Using this idea, it is easier to create certain objects that inherit the properties associated with it. For example, a doctor is a subclass of humans, so a doctor inherits the properties associated with humans on top of the properties associated with just a doctor. Now if you expand that to the different object groups, and then add in behaviors such as flammability and aggressiveness, you can define movement for many different objects in a smaller capacity. This approach was ideal, as not only does it make adding objects easier by only having to define a limited number of properties since the rest are going to be inherited, it saves memory compared to the brute force attack of adding in each object separately and defining separately how each will interact. Using the Objectnaut framework, a group of 5 people in 6 months were able to map out a hierarchy of data for each object that would have taken a larger group years to produce without Objectnaut. [4] The negative drawback about this approach is that testing each object's properties interaction became impossible before release. While some testing was done, to test each property would have taken away from more important quality assurance such as level design playability or feature functionality. ChrisInFIEA2013.com 3
Game Controls One of the biggest issues that critics and users have found is the game controls with the stylus. The stylus is used to both interact with objects placed on the level and to move the protagonist on the screen. If you wanted to select an object, you would have to tap directly on the object because if you tap near the object, the game would recognize that as a command to move the protagonist to that destination. It's a problem when the object is a dinosaur and you are about to get eaten. According to Jospeh Tringali, the issue is the sensitivity of the stylus and something 5 th Cell was aware of when the game shipped We knew this was going to take a big hit from reviewers. [2] So if the issues was found, why wasn't it addressed before shipping? Tringali mentions a discussion about a secondary control with the D-pad midway through development, but it was not feasible It would have taken a single person 3-4 weeks to integrate it. [2] On the development schedule outlined, especially by self funded development, would have caused more issues, such as lack of complete object properties or not delivering on the concept promise, than solving the movement. Some filters were created and implemented to make sure that movement was not accidental, but there were only a few filters, not enough comprehensible to correct the issue. The development schedule did not allow for more time to implement more, as there were deadlines to be reached and more important issues to address. The problem comes to the concept design. The goal for Scribblenauts was to be a game that anyone could play. With that in mind, the control scheme of the stylus was approved The DS is a casual platform by design and allowing non-gamers the ease of use of a pencil-like system for a game targeted at everyone over a D-pad only scheme was overall the best choice. [2] This issue should have been solved while in pre-production. But, due to the unique concept and the creation of the Objectnaut engine, a vertical slice was not created until the midway point of development once the core functionality was implemented. This lack of a vertical slice until late into development meant that play testing and quality assurance could not be performed until after scheduled deadlines were approved. Adjusting deadlines would have caused more issues as the self funded project by this time was bleeding money and on strict constraints. ChrisInFIEA2013.com 4
Localization For a game based on objects with names, localization becomes not only important but a part of the production instead of post-production contracted work. Scribblenauts does a fantastic job by shipping with English, French, Spanish, Brazilian, Portuguese, German, Italian, Dutch, U.K. - English, Danish, Finish, Swedish and Norwegian. [1] Localization was planned from the start for a worldwide release. It was built into the Objectnaut engine as another property to define an object. 5 th Cell relied on a custom tool that pulls text from.txt strings and exported to Microsoft Excel, which would then be sent to the localizers. [2] A problem is that this custom tool was used for in game text, such as the hint system and tutorials. This tool did not account for the dictionary of objects, as that was a separate system. A separate dictionary would have to be created for each language. This process was an undertaking due to the tens of thousands objects strong dictionaries. However, 5 th Cell found problems for localization when it came to homonyms, words that are spelled the same but have different meanings. Joseph Tringali mentioned three different issues arose, character length, lack of communication with localization team, dictionaries with the same multiple word and descriptions. As mentioned, localization was planned since the beginning, but these three issues originated during mid production. While character length issue is addressed rather quickly with changing to smaller font for longer words, the lack of communication was the developers responsibility. Because it was not explained well enough, the localization team made a different word as an alternate for homonyms. This caused a late in development resulted in an unplanned but highly necessary scrubbing of the entire word list in every language. [2] This issue might not have happened if communication was better between teams, which might have allowed for another feature to be implemented instead of allocating time to scrubbing the word list. Reception The reception for Scribblenauts was impressive. At the 2009 E3 conference, Scribblenauts became the first hand held game to win Best of Show as well as winning over 40 different awards. This was accomplished by the publisher's marketing team promoting the game and then word of mouth at the conference. When 5 th Cell signed with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, a contractual promise for promotion was made, which included traditional and retail marketing with prominent signage at E3. The great reception at E3 carried over into sales, as Scribblenauts sold almost 200,000 units in September in the US, and continued to show strong sales through the holiday. By February ChrisInFIEA2013.com 5
2010, it had sold over one million units worldwide. It was the 5 th best-selling DS game for 2009 and the 1 st best selling 3 rd party game on the DS. [5] This positive reception guaranteed a sequel were to be made. Super Scribblenauts went into production shortly thereafter, where it addressed many of the flawed features from Scribblenauts. Such improvements included a new control scheme, multi-layered hints, a new dynamic merit system, and a progress tracking system. Conclusion Scribblenauts took a huge step for not only hand held gaming, but for Emergent Gameplay as well. The ability to create objects is part of what makes customizable content so appealing to everyone, evoking that open-ended play level of imagination. It was a risky proposition from the beginning using the developers own funding to create what could have ended up a disaster if not for the strong concept design. The iteration development style ensured that the gameplay would live up to the strong expectations of 5 th Cell, and the amazing reception only proved the effort was not in vain. According to Joseph Tringali, The key has been to create, not imitate. [2] ChrisInFIEA2013.com 6
References 1. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Rolls with Scribblenauts for Nintendo DS. Entertainment Close Up (2009). ABI/INFORM. Retrieved 2012-10-24. 2. "Postmortem: Scribblenauts". Game Developer Magazine. November 2009. Retrieved 2012-10- 24. 3. Game Studio 5 th Cell Creates Imaginative Fun. Dudley, Brier. Tribune Business News. September 03, 2009. ABI/INFORM. Retrieved 2012-10-28. 4. "5 People Spent 6 Months Researching Words For Scribblenauts". Klepek, Patrick. 2009-06-16. G4 TV. Retrieved 2012-10-29. 5. "Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Announces Scribblenauts Sells In More Than One Million Units Worldwide". BusinessWire. 2010-02-03. Retrieved 2012-10-29. Thank you for reading. Please visit the website for more reasons why I should be considered for FIEA enrollment. ChrisInFIEA2013.com 7