Most of the booths at PAX: Midwest have a raucous, party-like atmosphere to them. People are excited to play upcoming games, industry folk are handing out swag, and random women criss-cross the floor with buckets of free corn-on-the-cob for everyone. Beautiful. One area of the convention, however, has a much more subdued air surrounding it.

The 5^th Cell, developer behind the wildly successful new release, Scribblenauts, has set up a literacy booth. Dewey D., one of the designers, explains why: “Scribblenauts has been extremely well received in most markets in the country, however we have had some problems with the more, uh, rural regions. What better place to attack the problem than Topeka, Kansas at PAX: Midwest?”

You see, Scribblenauts is dependent upon users creating objects in the game by typing their names into a cute little keyboard. The gameplay has been lauded as unprecedented, innovative, even revolutionary; all words that are completely foreign to a certain percentage of the American Midwest and the Dirty, Dirty South.  I may as well be writing this  in Aramaic.

“Our goal is to combat this problem with our new Scribblenauts Literacy Centers, or ‘Word Learnin’ Huts’ as they are known by our adorable customers” Mr. Decimal told me. “The game is certainly powerful enough to render 20 cows and 60 pickup trucks at once, but we hope to open our customers eyes to the thousands of other options they have in the game. Soon, these folks will be playing around with rockets, indoor plumbing, napkins, and several other objects they have not had exposure to in the real world.”

Bless you, 5^th Cell. May you change the world, one yokel at a time.

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