Chris Crawford has a bit in one of his books that I’ll paraphrase: “You can judge the fitness of an interactive application by the ratio of suggested states to states that are actually achievable.”

To parse that: If a game has a chair in the room, it suggests that you can sit in the chair. If you can, that state is achievable, and all is well; if you can’t actually sit in the chair, then you’re broken out of the game a bit – you see the walls and the rail you’re riding on, instead of Mr Toad’s Wild Ride.

So Scribblenauts dove headlong into this chasm – it was a game that suggested almost everything, knowing it could never deliver. The fact that it works as well as it does is very impressive, but they set themselves an impossible task.

For example, the first puzzle had 4 people, a Cook, Policeman, Fireman, and Doctor, and asked you to put something they would use in their hands. I gave the cook a rolling pin, policeman a badge, fireman a firehose, and doctor a stethoscope. Mad, insane, ludicrous props to the game that I could do that in the first place, but (but but but but) it didn’t work. I had to replace two of those items before the game would accept the solution.

They could capture part, but not all, of the user’s creativity and intuition. Objects would usually work close to how you wanted, but not exactly. I know that’s what kept me to simple solutions. I solved most of the puzzles with a jetpack and a grappling gun (which is awesome!), because I knew how they worked. This some-but-not-all gap made exploring the possibility space somewhat frustrating, which encouraged the player to keep to simple, familiar solutions.

The game is very impressive, and gives some great experiences. For example, a friend at work solves most problems with a jetpack and a lasso, instead of a grappling gun. In his heart he’s a cowboy, and in mine I’m Batman. That the game lets both of us express that is awesome. But 5th Cell set themselves an impossible task, and ended up in a new kind of uncanny valley. It’s oddly similar to the Final Fantasy CGI move Spirits Within – stunningly impressive, but ultimately unconvincing, unfulfilling. Still, it deserves its place on the list, and everyone should get a copy; when it works it’s incredible, and this sort of radical experimentation should be encouraged.

(Oh yeah, full disclosure: I make games for WB, who published this game, but if you’ve read this far and you think that’s why I’m telling you to buy the game, you’re a very strange person.)

Or are there not yet any Android games worthy enough to be on the list?

:(