Review - Scribbland

Scribbland is a flash animation adventure game created by Newgrounds.com user Skellus. This one-button platformer was submitted to Newgrounds.com on December 7, 2009 and won a Daily 4th Place award on December 8, 2009.

Gameplay

The objective of the game is to reach the door in each stage without dying. There are a total of 20 stages that can be played. To unlock a stage, you must successfully complete the stage before the stage that you are trying to unlock. There are clocks in the game that can be collected that will affect your score; however, these clocks do not all need to be collected in order to reach the door at the end of the stage and advance to the next stage.

Each stage has a number of platforms and obstacles that you will have to get through in order to reach the door at the end of the stage. Once your reach the door, you will advance automatically to the next stage.

To control your fuzzy game character, click hold down your left mouse button to move forward. Release to jump. While in the air, you can click and hold down your left mouse button to move forward while in the air.

There are two modes of difficulty in this game. The two modes are:
-Easy Mode: running into walls decreases your score but does not kill you, and there are fewer enemies. You don't score as high in Easy Mode.
-Hard Mode: running into walls kills you (restarts level), and there are more enemies. You score higher in Hard Mode.

While in-game, press Escape to return to the stage selection page. Here, you can change the mode of difficulty and/or choose to replay a stage in order to improve your score.

When you feel like you have a decently high enough score, you can submit your score to an online, global leader board to compare how well you do with other players from around the world.

Game Controls

Click and hold your left mouse button to walk.
Release the left mouse button to jump.
While in the air, click and hold left mouse button to move forward in the air.
Press M to toggle music.
Press S to toggle sound effects.
Press Escape to return to the main screen.

Game Review

Scribbland is an interesting game due to its use of only one button. This one-button idea both simplifies the game and makes it that much more difficult. At first, the controls can be a little difficult to get used to. However, the game includes the option of playing on Easy Mode, which allows for beginners to learn the ropes before really getting into the game and scoring high. With this period of learning available, it then becomes just a matter of using this new one-button game concept and applying it to increasingly difficult stages. Overall, this isn't a bad game. The music is also quite nice and not too repetitive, and the black-and-white coloring is a nice touch.

Scribbland scores an 8/10 for its unique gameplay. The stages themselves are nothing too exciting, so improvement in that department would make this game that much better.