Scribblenauts Showdown

Scribblenauts Showdown
Logo
Developer(s)	Shiver Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Release date(s)	US: March 6, 2018 EU: March 9, 2018
Platform(s)	Nintendo Switch Playstation 4 Xbox One Nintendo Switch 2 (backwards compatibility) Playstation 5 (backwards compatibility) Xbox Series X (backwards compatibility)
Genre(s)	Puzzle, Party, Action
Mode(s)	Single-player, Multi-player
Rating(s)	ACB: ? ESRB: E10+ PEGI: 12

Scribblenauts Showdown is the sixth game in the Scribblenauts franchise, released in March 2018. Instead of original series creator 5th Cell, Showdown was developed by Shiver Entertainment, a small company mostly known for Nintendo Switch ports of Xbox and PlayStation games.

History

Following Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure in 2013, development started on the next game in the series, titled Scribblenauts Fighting Words, in 2014. Fighting Words was planned as a mobile RPG set for release for iOS devices (and possibly Android) in 2016. However, in March 2016, Fighting Words was cancelled, leading to the layoff of 45 5TH Cell employees.

In December 2017, a new Scribblenauts game was leaked when a rating from the Taiwanese game ratings board was discovered early, revealing Nintendo Switch as well as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as possible release platforms. The game was later leaked a second time on the ESRB website in the United States.

Scribblenauts Showdown was officially announced in January 2018. Instead of the usual puzzle gameplay, Showdown was revealed to be a Mario Party-inspired minigame collection with an optional sandbox mode closer to the original gameplay style of the series.

Scribblenauts Showdown was released in North America on March 6, 2018, for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, and Europe and Australia on March 9.

Gameplay

Unlike previous entries in the series, Scribblenauts Showdown is multiplayer-oriented. Up to four players compete against each other in over 25 minigames, including "wordy-type" and "speedy-type" games, which offer various challenges. The game also offers a sandbox mode more akin to previous entries, with eight different levels to explore. Various minigames in the Nintendo Switch version use motion controls with the Joy-Con, while the Xbox and PlayStation versions have players spam a certain button in those minigames instead.

Unlike Unlimited and Unmasked, NPC objectives in the sandbox mode aren't given to you when characters are clicked on. Instead, you're given a list in the pause menu with all the objectives, forcing you to figure out what NPCs the puzzles correspond to yourself.

Minigames

See: Scribblenauts Showdown Minigames

Minigames are divided into two categories: wordy and speedy. Speedy games are similar to minigames found in Mario Party. In the Nintendo Switch version, most of these games are played with motion controls and require you to repeat a certain movement with a single Joy-Con as fast as possible and complete an action such as chopping down a tree before the other player(s). PlayStation and Xbox have players spam a button instead. Wordy games utilize the typing mechanic by making players spin a wheel to determine what category of object or objects starting with a certain letter can be used in the games. Whatever category or letter is picked, players are tasked with choosing an object from that category or an object that starts with the chosen letter to use in the game. How the chosen objects are used differs between games.

There are twenty-seven minigames in total, with twelve wordy and fifteen speedy games.

Sandbox Mode

See: List of Scribblenauts Showdown sandbox levels and Sandbox Store

My Scribblenaut

Main article: My Scribblenaut

My Scribblenaut is a character creator that lets players create their own custom character as well as customize different skins for vehicles used in the minigames.

Reception

Scribblenauts Showdown received mostly mixed reviews, with Metacritic, giving it a 47/100 score on Switch, a 64/100 score on the PS4 and a 66/100 score on Xbox One. Nintendo Life gave it a 5/10 score, saying that "while its mini-game focus does suit the local multiplayer ethos of the console, it ends up feeling like a discount 1-2-Switch."

Gallery

Official Art

Press release image

Box art

Discs, Cartridges, and Icons

Nintendo Switch cartridge

Xbox One disc

PS4 disc

Nintendo Switch home menu icon

Screenshots

Videos

Official Scribblenauts Showdown Announce Trailer

Official Scribblenauts Showdown Launch Trailer - Game Day 60

HOW TO USE YOUR WORDS - Scribblenauts Showdown

Other

Initial Taiwanese leak

Early logo found in the game's files, showing the name "Scribblenauts Party"

Trivia

• The word dictionary is now over 35,000 words.
• It is the first game in the series to multiplayer be the main focus of the game.
• A logo exists in the game's files for "Scribblenauts Party", suggesting this was the original name of the game.
• It seems to have been built using Scribblenauts Unlimited as a base, as none of the object changes or new items introduced in Scribblenauts Unmasked are present in Showdown.
  • This may have been done to avoid the work it would require to remove all of the DC Objects from Unmasked's engine.
  • Notably, Unmasked has introduced changes for several items that are not DC related, including adding over 50 synonyms for Cards, redesigning the Video Game, and modified functionality for Black Holes and Remotes, among many others. None of these returned in Showdown as a result of this decision.
    • Notably, Doppelily no longer appears, despite her significance to the story of Unmasked. This has lead some people to speculate Doppelily is not canon, though this remains unlikely.
• Using the new text system, the player can no longer enter the characters Ā Ē Ī Ō and Ū compared to previous games. As a result, all words using these characters have been removed.
• Shiver Entertainment Members can be spawned in-game similar to how prior games allowed 5th Cell Members to be spawned.
  • However, this seemingly hasn't removed any objects, as all of the words that use these characters are synonyms for other words.
• Scribblenauts Showdown introduced redesigns for several objects, often making them more detailed or more accurate to their real life appearance.
  • Some objects also received multiple design variants, which are randomly chosen when the object is spawned.
• Scribblenauts Showdown also redesigned several objects to remove references to other materials.
  • This also includes outright removing some items such as the Black Knight and Laser Sword. These may have been considered too heavily rooted in their reference to redesign.
  • It's possible this is an expansion of the internet meme removal seen in prior games following the Nyan Cat and Keyboard Cat Lawsuit
• Scribblenauts Showdown is the first game to not include words that had vulgar alternate-meanings. Several prior words were removed as a result of this change.
• Changing Abraham Lincoln to female crashes and freezes the game. This is likely because the game logic still attempts to spawn Babraham Lincoln, despite the fact that her object was removed, causing the data to be missing or invalid.