Can’t Press Start!

Every quest needs a beginning and for my quest, the beginning was in the middle of a lush green forest.  The sun hung in the sky with a child like beauty, the trees were various shades of luscious green, not a worry in the world.  Feeling a little hungry I ate a sandwich that I just happened to have in front of my very eyes, swiftly followed down by a nice cold drink.  As quests go this was quite sedate really nothing much going on at all, a nice day, my appetite filled what could possibly go wrong?  As if some higher being heard me, I heard the approach of an animal.  It sounded large and quite fierce so I attempted to run only to be faced with the bulk of a brown bear!

Fearing for my life I attempted to contain the bear in a cage that I had lying around, alas it was too small… what was I going to do?  From out of nowhere two lions came running and mauled the bear until it was no more, that was a close escape.  I breathed a heavy sigh of relief and turned to walk away, unfortunately the lions were still hungry and decided that I was going to be their next meal.  Luckily for me my friend the lion tamer just happened to be dropping by and the lion’s rages were instantly quelled, he bundled them up and took them away.  This day was turning out to be less than brilliant.  In what seemed like a very short space of time the moon was hanging in the sky casting eerie shadows all around me.  The slightest noises were amplified to the point that I was terrified, walking slowly through the forest I was confronted with a sight I shall never forget.

There, in front of me, stood none other than Count Dracula himself!  He was dressed immaculately from head to toe with astoundingly good looking hair but I could see instantly that he only wanted to drink my blood.  Without hesitating I produced a solid gold cross and held it in front of me, the evil lord of the night made some strange sound and was turned into a pile of dust.  Surely nothing else could go wrong now, my quest was barely a day old but was suffering from some major setbacks.  How wrong could I be?  From the skies dropped a shower of cute but deadly meerkats, they were everywhere!  From years of watching nature programmes I remembered that there is nothing a meerkat loves better than a large wooden packing crate, lucky then that there was one lying right beside me.  Swiftly I collected all the furry nuisances and put them in the box to be shipped to some exotic zoo.  A strange metal structure was in front of me, I approached it and read the label; “Teleporter,” was what it said… no way!

Cautiously I stepped on to the large metal plate and pushed the start button.  In what seemed like a few seconds, and surrounded by blue and white flashes, I was transported to lands unknown.  My eyes and my brain could not believe what they were seeing, dinosaurs!  Great big snarly, scaly dinosaurs, I nearly had an accident looking at them.  A Tyrannosaurus Rex caught sight of me and started its death charge towards me, it was relentless and was bearing down on me in seconds.  Fortunately I had on my possession, a rocket launcher that I had been dying to try out.  I brought the weapon up to my eye level, took aim and let off the rocket which whooshed towards the startled T-Rex, blam!  The once fierce dinosaur was no more, I took one last look at the volcano strewn landscape and started up the teleporter again.  In my journeys that day I was lucky enough to visit other planets with alien lifeforms, the future of earth where Terminator like robots walked about and even an archaeological dig where a familiar looking adventurer was running about.  Eventually I decided that enough was enough and I returned to the forest where my quest began, it was here that I saw the strangest thing of my whole quest.  There in blatant view right in front of me was a large star burst sign with the word “START” emblazoned across it.  What?  I hadn’t even pressed start yet?!?

Some of you clever people may have sussed it by now, for those that haven’t I’ll tell you what my quest was about.  I have been playing Scribblenauts on the DS and I have been taken in by its charms.  The main game is a series of puzzles that can be solved by typing in the right items to help you progress through each small level but before you get to that point you have to get past the amazing start screen.  On this screen you can experiment with all the game has to offer which is reported to be in the region of 20,000 recognised words.  You simply type in an item and more often than not it appears, you can then interact with said item until your heart is content.  There is huge scope for experimentation for example, I typed in “Medusa” who then appeared and turned me to stone, I respawned and typed in “Mirror”, Medusa looked in it and she turned to stone.  I picked up her head and typed in “Kraken” a huge octopus appeared, I showed it Medusa’s head and it turned to stone, amazing!  Children also love to muck about with it, any kids that I’ve seen playing it are transfixed for hours, my daughter had a hamster farm with fairies flying around.  It is also a great way for kids to practise and improve their spelling, although you can get a bit fed up with constant, “how do I spell…?” questions.  That aside it is the most fun I’ve had with my DS and it keeps me coming back for more so if you’ll excuse me I’m off to see if a monkey can wear an aqualung while a U.F.O hovers overhead.