HCUFS & VMACHIN: the unlikely combo that brought down Scribblenauts

'Brought down's obviously an overstatement, but the Occam's Razor trouble with creating a game in which players can do "anything" is that they'll use that anything to skirt the obstacles you place in their way.

In Scribblenauts's case, it's an innocuous pair of handcuffs and a vending machine, the former of which can be attached to the level-goal collectible Starites, stuffed wholesale into the machine, and then dragged back wholesale to wherever you stand, where it will handily dispense your win-condition free of charge.

Luckily, with no online ranking or competitive aspect to speak of, the exploit does nothing but defeat and deflate your own pleasure with the game, should you choose to use it, but it'll be interesting to see if developer 5th Cell respond with more than a smirking shrug over the coming weeks.

Previously:

5 Comments

Icupnimpn2

#1 – 10:20 AM September 26, 2009

Gamebreaking combo aside, I'm relieved I'm not the only one struggling with the controls in this game.

UncleAlias

#2 – 12:55 AM September 27, 2009

You say "does nothing but defeat and deflate your own pleasure with the game" as if that will actually stop people from doing it.

Remember when they had to add an option to Bioshock to turn off the vita-chambers for people who were apparently incapable of just not using them? Similarily, I once made a single-player dungeon crawl game that could be made completely unchallenging by recording where the traps were on a piece of paper, and one reviewer actually criticized the fact that there was no way to stop people from doing that (another, strangely, thought you were supposed to do that).

AirPillo

#3 – 2:53 PM September 27, 2009

I remember the last time I toyed around with handcuffs and a vending machine. Whoo, that was quite a weekend.

eviladrian

#4 – 11:58 PM September 27, 2009

Or if you're really in a hurry:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/9/23/

WeightedCompanionCube

#5 – 1:27 PM October 2, 2009

AIRPILLO - I was drinking coffee. You owe me a keyboard.