By Wired magazine contributing editor Brian Ashcraft
In a country full of iconoclastic game designers, Japan's Keita Takahashi somehow manages to stand out even more.
He gives press conferences barefoot. He doesn't like having his picture taken — his office couldn't get us one. He dreams of someday designing a playground. And he doesn't even play videogames.
"There aren't really any I like," Takahashi says. Instead, the 33-year-old designer just watches trailers for upcoming games. "The camera work and cut scenes are amazing," he says.
And yet, somehow, Takahashi managed to create Katamari Damacy, one of the most innovative, charming and addictive games of the past few years. On Thursday, Namco Bandai will release Takahashi's latest creation: Noby Noby Boy, a downloadable game for PlayStation 3 that turns you into a giant, gummy tapeworm.
The strangeness of the game is one reason *Noby Noby Boy *will be exclusive to Sony's system. "Going multiplatform for a vague, off-beat, new title is risky," Takahashi says. Another factor: The PlayStation 3 controller's right and left thumbsticks are symmetrical, which Takahashi calls perfect for Noby Noby Boy's weird gameplay.
When asked what makes Noby Noby Boy different, Takahashi replies that he had not thought at all about marketing or sales when coming up with the game's design. Perhaps that's why it's so hard to describe. You play as the eponymous Boy, a rubbery, candy-colored, four-legged critter who snakes around a board-gamelike town devouring things and growing longer and longer.
Did any other games inspire Noby Noby Boy? Of course not. "Even though I haven't played the actual game," says Takahashi, "we consulted the opening camera work in a trailer for Dirt, a racing game, for Noby Noby Boy."
Takahashi has a history of making bizarre games with no apparent influences. Released in 2004 on the PlayStation 2, Katamari Damacy follows a 10-centimeter-tall Prince who has traveled to Earth to collect enough materials to re-create the universe — which was wiped out after his father, the King, went on a drinking bender and smashed everything up. Literally translating to "clump of soul," Katamari Damacy has players roll a sticky sphere that picks up any objects it touches (chopsticks, cows and even clouds) as the lump increases in size like a snowball.
Instead of drawing upon hackneyed gaming conventions, Katamari
took its inspiration from everything from Picasso to Playmobil. It did OK in its native Japan, but became a sleeper hit in the United States. Namco
Bandai produced a small initial run for the U.S. release. After the game sold out completely, the company scrambled to get Katamari back on shelves.
"I never fathomed Katamari becoming popular abroad," says Takahashi. "I was completely surprised."
Even better, it was a bargain: In an age where the skyrocketing development cost of many games is approaching that of big-budget Hollywood flicks, Takahashi and his team churned out *Katamari Damacy *on the cheap for a mere $1 million.
As Katamari became an international brand-name franchise, spawning three sequels, Takahashi bowed out. "When you completely forget the desire to make something new," he says, "it's not good for you as a creator — or even as a person."
So what's next for Takahashi, if sequels are off the table? We don't know — and as near as we can tell, neither does he.
"What do you think I should do?" he says. "Making games is fun, but I also really need to think seriously about the other things I want to do in the game business."
Image courtesy Namco Bandai
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