Scribblenauts: racism or a contrived controversy?

Is Scribblenauts racist? Probably not, but a report on Kotaku and another on Joystiq implies that it is. In the report, Kotaku’s Brian Ashcraft puts the word “sambo” in the game and gets a watermelon. He types slave in and gets a white man in a suit.

5th Cell’s Jeremiah Slaczka says that the term “sambo” refers to something other than the racial epiteth used as an extremely derogatory term years ago to describe African Americans. But as damning as “watermelon” and “sambo” being associated within the game, 5Th cell’s explains that a “sambo” is a alternate term for “fig leaf gourd,” an ingredient in the Ecuadorian dish fanesca. DSambo is the local term for the gourd. He also points out that some of the art from the game is reused for multiple words.

I don’t have a copy of Scribblenauts in front of me to put every filthy and derogatory name in the book in there, but this particular case sounds like it doesn’t warrant a news story at all. And yet, here you are reading. I suppose this is a news story to tell you, that at least for right now, there is no smoke, nor is there a fire here.

Scribblenauts in September

Scribblenauts fans will be happy to note that Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has revealed the official North American launch date of 5th Cell’s game as Sept. 15, 2009. In the game players use the Nintendo DS touch-screen to help their character Maxwell acquire the Starite in each level by solving a series of puzzles armed with a stylus, notepad and a bit of imagination. The game offers more than 200 puzzle and action-themed challenges, the ability to combine unlimited objects, create completely new situations and create their own interactive experience.

Check out Crispy Gamer’s Scribblenauts Preview to learn more about the game.

Scribblenauts Announced

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has signed an agreement to acquire, publish and distribute Scribblenauts, a revolutionary original IP for Nintendo DS created by 5TH Cell. Scribblenauts is a sandbox game with two styles of play and more than 200 levels.

In Scribblenauts, the player uses the Nintendo DS touch-screen to help Maxwell acquire the starite in each level by solving a series of puzzles. The player uses the stylus and notepad to write down the word for any object that comes to mind in order to reach the goal. Every object behaves as it would in the real world, and the player can combine objects together to create completely new behaviors. Every level has more than one written object to use as a solution.

The game is set for release this fall. Some visual aids can be found below:

Construction Combat: Lock’s Quest Announced

If you liked Drawn To Life then you might be interested in 5TH Cell’s latest project called Construction Combat: Lock’s Quest. This tower defense game for the DS charges players with designing a virtual world block-by-block to protect a “world” from marauding invaders.

As an “Archineer” (part architect, part engineer), players use the stylus to build the world using a variety of materials (stone, metal, or wood) to build defense towers that protect “sacred source artifacts” from these invaders. Besides different types of defense towers, players can also create special structures and traps to further protect the world like quicksand traps and glue cannons.

The game will also support multiplayer battles via Wi-Fi or multi-card play. Construction Combat: Lock’s Quest is expected to be available this fall.

THQ Conference Call Notes

A lot of interesting news came out of this week’’s THQ conference call besides just the usual facts and figures. THQ president Brian Farrell revealed some of the games the company plans to release in the next quarter and beyond, with a couple of interesting surprises.

One that everyone already knew about was Saint’s Row 2, but THQ talked a little bit about the game’’s focus in the second chapter of this gang-themed third-person action game, promising a more refined game. The most important thing to note is that Saint’’s Row 2 is going to avoid directly competing with Rockstar’’s Grand Theft Auto IV, which is probably a wise decision on THQ’’s part. The company said that the game for the PS3 and Xbox 360 is being built using existing technology at Volition and that it will hit outside of GTA IV‘’s release window (late April).

Farrell also revealed that developer 5th Cell’s popular DS game, Drawn to Life, is being developed for the Wii. The game has sold 700,000 copies worldwide on the DS. Farrell hopes to duplicate or improve on that success with the new game.

Red Faction, the latest in Volition’’s shooter franchise, was also revealed, with Farrell promising more action revolving around the concept of highly destructible environments. That game is being developed for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. More details on the game will be released within the next couple of weeks.

THQ is also putting a lot of faith into de Blob for the Wii and DS, which is one of its many original titles. The company delayed the game once, to give it more time for polish, say Farrell.

Farrell said that Frontlines: Fuel of War will prove to be a promising title for the company because of its keen focus on multiplayer. The game promises 32-player online games for the Xbox 360, with more on the PC. Finally, Farrell said that the PS3 version was canceled for a number of reasons but then went on to point the finger at Epic’’s Unreal engine as a major roadblock. According to Farrell, Unreal engine is not optimized for open-world development. Sticking with the development of the PS3 game would have put its release date 60 to 90 days behind the other games. A playable demo will be released sometime next week on Xbox Live Marketplace.

Here are some other small but interesting tidbits from THQ:

- First details on the new UFC title will be revealed on Memorial Day weekend in conjunction with a live event. The game is being scheduled for a release in March 2009 — prior to the launch of its regular WWE game season. Farrell says that the game has one year of development under its belt and another year to go.

- THQ expects Disney Pixar’’s Wall.E to outperform the previously licensed Disney Pixar title Ratatouille (which was kind of a bust).

- A new Tak game is coming, along with other licensed Nickelodeon titles.

- Company of Heroes Online will launch soon in China and is the first of many planned free-to-play online titles.

- THQ Wireless will be creating mobile phone titles based on LucasFilms” Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises.

- There are currently 1,700 developers working in THQ’’s various studio systems and each is working on three skus or less.

- Stuntman failed because it did not translate well to next-generation platforms.

- Juiced failed because it was way too ambitious and the developers were overburdened (they were working on a whopping six sku’’s!).

- Farrell said that he was pleasantly surprised with Warhammer 40K Online‘’s progress but cautioned that development is still the early stages. So far, so good, he said.