The tagline of Scribblenauts
is “Write Anything. Solve Everything” which accurately describes its premise-
armed with a magic notebook capable of summoning anything you write into
existence, players must utilise creative thinking to solve puzzles and collect
magical ‘Starites’ in order to progress through the game. Objects behave the
way you’d expect them to in real life- e.g. wooden objects burn, glue can stick
objects together, and policemen will chase robbers. There’s a ridiculous number
of options to utilise in your puzzle-solving, but the player will rarely feel
like they have no idea how to progress. This is because of the game’s
utilisation of key design concepts outlined in Norman’s The Psychology of Everyday Things, namely the idea of affordances,
conceptual models and mappings. Through a specific case study of one of the
game’s levels, we can see how these concepts come together to form interesting,
well-designed puzzles that allow players to stretch their creative muscles
without confusing them.
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The first action level in the game presents you with a
Starite in a tree, and the hint “Get it down”. There are a number of ways to
get the Starite, some more evident than others. An obvious idea is to chop the
tree down with an axe. The reason we think of this solution is because this is
how people quickly remove trees in real life. This single scenario brilliantly
illustrates all the previously mentioned concepts. Firstly, it illustrates an affordance
because the player has determined the properties of the tree and their tools. Norman
describes affordances as “the perceived and actual properties of things”,
primarily the important ones that determine an object’s use (Norman 1988, p.9). The purpose of
affordances is to allow a user to tell how to operate something just by looking
at it (Norman 1988, p.9) - this is
evident in level A1-1 because the player has seen the tree and identified it as
wooden. Wooden objects can be cut with axes. And so the player summons an axe
and cuts down the tree.
This also illustrates mappings. A mapping refers to a
relationship between two things, but specifically this is a natural mapping
“taking advantage of physical analogies and cultural standard” (Norman 1988, p.23) by applying the
functions these objects actually have to the game. The player has conjured two
mappings in their head- a mapping between the game objects and their real-life
counterparts, as well as between the axe and the tree. The player sees a tree,
and links it to what they know of trees in real life. By using an axe to cut
the tree down, they’ve identified the relationship between two objects- the axe
is used to cut down trees because the tree is wooden, and axes cut wood.
Finally, this level also illustrates a conceptual model.
According to Norman, conceptual models “are part of an important concept in
design: mental models, the models people have of themselves, others, the
environment, and the things with which they interact” (Norman 1988, p.17). They allow you to look at an object or system,
and mentally work through how it will operate (Norman 1988, p.12). A well-designed system gives you everything
you need in order to understand it just by looking at it and thinking (Norman 1988, pp.1, 13-14). The
affordances and mapping in the level allow the user to form a conceptual model
of how different items will interact with the space. They know they can chop
the tree down with an axe, but they may also think of solutions that don’t
involve cutting down the tree. They may instead attempt to bring themselves to
the Starite, instead of the reverse. They think of methods they normally use to
move upwards, like ladders and stairs- they picture themselves in a real
scenario, and because of the mapping between the virtual objects and their real
function, they know that the scenario will play out in the same way. They
understand how the system works, and can act on that, focusing on being
creative instead of worrying about complicated systems.
Throughout the game you’ll encounter less straightforward
puzzles than this, but the same concepts still apply. By knowing how objects
actually function, players can come up with interesting solutions to a variety
of puzzles. The player needs to jump start a broken down car- they summon
jumper cables and attach them to a power pole. The Starite is stuck in a narrow
passageway- the player can glue a mouse to the Starite, and lure it out of the
chamber with cheese. There’s so many creative ways to solve puzzles without having
the solution outright stated to them because players already know how objects
behave based off their own experiences, and their usage is simplified. Objects
are simple to use because they don’t possess a number of complicated functions,
and because the controls allow you to easily see and use these functions (Norman 1988, p.25). You don’t have to
actually know how to drive a car to use it in the game, you just need to know
the standard movement controls.
By looking at Scribblenauts
in relation to Norman’s concepts, we can see that it empowers players by
allowing them to think creatively and by presenting them with logical systems
that can be quickly understood. It also shows that while Norman’s concepts were
conceived with everyday objects in mind, they are also very useful to consider
when designing videogames.
References
Norman, D. A. (1988). The
Psychology of Everyday Things. Basic Books.
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