I’ve been thinking a lot recently, as I’m sure much of the Internet has, about the possibilities that will be in Scribblenauts. It presents an intriguing way of play: your imagination is your biggest obstacle. Thinking of strange ways to beat things will be where the real fun is.

That lead me to something else I have been thinking about a lot recently, as prompted by Angus’s recent article on game morality: creating artificial barriers to overcome.

I’ve seen it in countless other scenarios in games since I found myself staring into the 16-color abyss of a Netscape Navigator window in 1997: beat Final Fantasy with four white mages. Survive a Roguelike with only the items you can forage within the dungeon. Finish Ikaruga without firing a bullet (or, you know, finish it while playing two players simultaneously). Solo Onyxia. Beat Mirror’s Edge without using a gun. Don’t kill anyone in a Metal Gear Solid game. The list goes on, I’m sure.

I, on the other hand, never have the patience or skill to do any of these things; they require qualities (namely, hand-eye co-ordination and/or unemployment) I’m devoid of. However, I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty clever kid (my imagination is at least good enough to imagine that I’m an imaginative person) with a decent grasp on the English language (I know great nouns such as “dirge,” “colugo” and “arthrodesis”), and as such, I see Scribblenauts as a fantastic way to get creative with arbitrary rules.

I know it’s a bit early to start coming up with arbitrary “hard modes” for the game, but it’s been on my mind for a while. As such, I’d like to solicit ideas from my audience!

Here are some of my ideas so far, ranked in ascending order of assumed difficulty:

1. Played-Out Mode: Beat Scribblenauts without summoning zombies. ZOMBIES ARE PLAYED OUT.

2. Acrophobic Pacifist Mode: Beat Scribblenauts without use of height-assisting items or weapons (although, in true Pacifist style, tools which are also weapons can be used for their original tool-like purpose, so a chainsaw can be summoned but only to cut down a tree).

3. Fantasy Mode: Beat Scribblenauts summoning only items that only exist in the realm of fantasy. If a replica has been created of an item, it is okay, but use your discretion: a Bat’leth is okay because it is strictly from the realm of fiction, but a robot may not be, despite its birth in the realm of sci-fi.

4. Alphabet Aerobics Mode: Beat the first “level” (or stage, or starite, or whatever they end up being) using only items that start with A. Beat the next with B. The next with C. You know how the rest of the alphabet goes. Flip back to A, I guess, if there are more than 26, flip back to A, I guess. Have fun on level 24! (For the record, though, Phi-Life Cypher did the ABC thing better only a year later.)

5. Conversationist Mode: Beat Scribblenauts without destroying any of the environment. Summoning animate objects to do the destruction for you is also not permitted.

6. Breath of Life Mode: Beat Scribblenauts summoning only items that are alive upon their summoning. A tree is okay; a wood pole is not.

7. Midas Mode: Beat Scribblenauts summoning only gold-coloured items.

8. Intangible Mode: Beat Scribblenauts summoning only items whose noun is an “intangible.” While they typically become tangible once summoned in the game, words like “dream,” “temptation” or “theorem” are acceptable while “pillow,” “chocolate bar” or “right angle triangle” are not. Homonyms are a cheeky way to get around it, but are not allowed if the word you’re pretending is allowed isn’t a noun. So, no using stalk and saying “but the verb is intangible!”

9. Gadsby Mode: Beat Scribblenauts without using the letter E.

10. Summon Nothing Mode: Beat Scribblenauts summoning only items that rhyme with wolf. Remember that wolf does not rhyme with wolf. They’re the same word no matter what terrible rappers may try to trick you into believing.

11 (yes, THIS LIST GOES TO 11). 43 Mode: Beat Scribblenauts summoning only words that are a part of George W. Bush’s active vocabulary.