Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure arrived in 2013 as the fifth game in 5th Cell’s word-solving series and the first to lean on a licensed property. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment published it. It came out for PlayStation 4, Nintendo 3DS, Windows Phone, PC, Wii U, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. You play as Maxwell, a boy with a notepad that turns written words into real objects and people, and you use that notepad to put the DC Universe back together.
The setup is simple, and the game knows it. Maxwell and his twin sister Lily argue over which of their favorite comic characters would win a fight, so they combine Lily’s magic globe with a page from Maxwell’s notebook to jump into the DC Universe. The globe shatters mid-teleport. Its power source, the starites, scatters across the universe. Batman finds the kids in a Gotham City alley, assumes they are criminals, and changes his mind only after Maxwell helps him fight Deadshot.
Trailer, via Warner Bros. Games.
Maxwell, Lily, and the Starites
The plot moves through the DC catalog at speed. Batman learns about the starites and offers to help. He reveals the Joker has a new ally who matches Maxwell’s description: Doppelganger, Maxwell’s villainous counterpart, who wants the starites for the villains. After Joker and Doppelganger are beaten, they teleport away before police arrive. Commissioner James Gordon turns up the first starite.
Batman grants Maxwell and Lily full access to the Batcave and alerts the rest of the Justice League. From there Maxwell travels to Metropolis, Oa, Wayne Manor, Arkham Asylum, Joker’s funhouse, and the Fortress of Solitude.
The locations are the draw, and the game lists them plainly:
- Batcave
- Gotham City
- Atlantis
- Metropolis
- Fortress of Solitude
- Central City
- Oa
Optional levels retell the origins of the Justice League’s members. The Wii U version adds “Sidekick mode,” where a second player uses a Wii Remote to control characters and objects. A Hero Creator lets players build custom objects. Reputation Points earned from missions and summoned objects unlock more levels and costumes.
A Notepad That Still Works
The core mechanic is unchanged from earlier Scribblenauts games, and that is fine. Maxwell manifests any object or person he writes down, then modifies them with adjectives. The DC skin gives that system a bigger toy box than the series had before, and the origin retellings give it a reason to exist beyond novelty.
The licensed material is the whole point, and it mostly holds up. The game treats the DC Universe as a puzzle set rather than a story to protect, which suits a series built on letting players write a word and watching what happens. The trade is that the plot is thin. Doppelganger is a mirror, not a character. The starite hunt is a delivery system for locations.
In September 2018, Scribblenauts Unmasked and Scribblenauts Unlimited were re-released as part of Scribblenauts Mega Pack. Unmasked got additional characters and levels in that version. It was also the final Scribblenauts game developed by 5th Cell.
Maxwell unites with Batman, Superman and the rest of The Justice League to restore order to the DC Comics Universe.
That sentence is the game. It is not a criticism to say so; it is the honest read of what 5th Cell built. The licensed crossover works because the notepad does the heavy lifting and the DC cast supplies the scenery. Where the game stumbles is in treating its own story as an excuse rather than a thing worth telling. Doppelganger arrives and leaves without weight. The starites are a fetch quest with a cape on.
Against that, the sandbox is generous, the location list is deep, and the Wii U co-op gives the whole thing a second seat. This is a good game for a kid with a comic habit and a parent willing to hand over the controller.
The Mega Pack is one way to find the game now, and it carries the additional characters and levels Unmasked received in 2018. The 2013 release is still the same puzzle set underneath, spread across seven platforms.
7.4/10 (IGDB critic aggregate, 9 outlets)
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