Scribblenauts Only Took A Year To Develop News

How long does it take to draw thousands of nouns from the English language, put them in a videogame, and then designate specific properties to each object? Only a year and three months, according to the visionary behind recently released DS title, Scribblenauts.

"About a year and three months, which is crazy," said Jeremiah Slaczka, the co-founder of 5th Cell, Scribblenauts' developer. "That's probably the only thing I don't like about 5th Cell's development. It's just how it is. That's the way it is. We're competing against companies like Square Enix and Nintendo, triple-A products.

"People hold us to the same standard, which I'm totally fine with - I want them to hold us to that standard," Slaczka continued. "But they 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. I made Scribblenauts in one year. What could I make in three years with their budget? That's just how it is. That's just what you have to deal with."

Scribblenauts, which was released in the UK last Friday, is a platforming puzzle game that allows users to populate the game world with objects simply by writing in which object they want to see appear. Freeform puzzles can then be solved using these objects, resulting in gameplay that's more limited by a player's imagination than it is the game itself (although a slightly annoying control system doesn't exactly help).

What's next for 5th Cell, the studio that previously developed DS titles Lock's Quest and Drawn to Life? "We're doing an Xbox Live Arcade title next, and it's going to be pretty big. It's going to be really cool. We're very excited about it. It'll be cool," stated Slaczka.

There's more in a Gamasutra Q&A with Slaczka, which you can find through here.