Scribblenauts has enjoyed quite a bit of attention this year, starting with its numerous nods for game of show this past E3. It certainly sports a highly original concept: solve puzzles by summoning objects from the game's huge dictionary and utilizing their interactions. It has gathered a substantial amount of nerd appeal on its title screen alone, which is basically a playground for summoning whatever you want—perfect for "can x beat y" contests.

But I wasn't quite so sure it would prove to be a top-class game. Previews weren't always uniformly positive about the game's controls, the huge dictionary appeared to possibly be a little too ambitious for its own good, and it seemed like most of the excitement was still over the title screen. So I got into it a week ago with the intent of finding out for myself how it turned out.

Let's get this out of the way right away: Scribblenauts' control scheme does not seem particularly well thought-out. My first hours with the game were marked more by frustration than anything as I struggled with its context recognition, making avatar Maxwell run off a cliff when I meant to select an object among other trials. I had it in my mind to savage the game and move on, but I kept at it, gradually learning to deal with its idiosyncrasies, playing the puzzle levels more which tended to require less running about, and, slowly, I started to appreciate the peculiar joy which only this game has.

What got me really going was the "advanced mode"—basically, challenges on levels you've completed to solve them again, three times, without summoning like objects. If you're finding yourself stuck in a rut summoning the same things over and over again, I highly recommend you jump back and give these a shot. This particular challenge had a knack for opening up my mind to possibilities I hadn't thought of before, like using the Large Hadron Collider as a bridge to cross a chasm that a normal bridge was too small to surmount. (I'd actually tried to use a pair of nuns with chains attached as posts and have Maxwell climb the chain to the other side, but I kept getting foiled by one or the other getting suicidal on me.)

When my mind was open like this, I found that what makes Scribblenauts so entertaining isn't that it's got particularly thoughtful puzzles, a highly accurate physics model, or a perfect control scheme (I'm still bothered by the latter even now), but that it lets you tap into the wildest and weirdest corners of your imagination and watch the scene play out. While it's true you'll be continually finding that objects you write down may not do what you want them to, what's more important is that if you've got the will to take the game world's own rules, understand them, and try to find the most creative ways to solve a puzzle you can within those rules, it ends up really tickling your brain in ways that leave you with no choice but to grin—even if you end up not so much solving the puzzle as creating comical interactions that have no hope of getting you to your goal. And it gets even better when you can spin friends or kids into the mix, coming up with even weirder and wackier solutions than you'd ever think of yourself.

Bottom line is that if you let it, Scribblenauts will take you on a wild ride that you just can't get anywhere else. That will be its impact on you, long after you've forgotten about its problems. And for that, it's likely destined to be one of the essential titles in the DS' library. If you like this thought and value that most essential core of entertainment over all else—something that makes you smile—make it part of yours.