Attention PS3 owners: Turn on the nearest black-light and put on your copy of Dark Side of the Moon, because the world’s most advanced LSD simulator will be hitting the PlayStation Network later today.
Katamari Damacy was a great game. Sure, it had its moments of crack-inspired “WTF?!” (namely, the entire game) but it was still easy to understand the point of the game just by watching someone play: Stuff sticks to ball. Roll ball around. Ball gets bigger. Pick up bigger stuff. Very, very simple.
I’ve watched every teaser video of Noby Noby Boy – the next brainchild of Katamari creator Keita Takahashi – that I can get my hands on, and I still don’t have a single damn clue what the hell is going on in the game … just a vague concern that there might have been something wrong with the cookies I just ate.
Nor am I alone in my confusion – Takahashi himself doesn’t know how to describe the game, and he made the thing! The only hard fact that I’ve been able to glean from reading up on the game is that the goal for players is to stretch one character, Boy, as far as possible. Every single gamer playing Noby Noby Boy and stretching their own Boy will contribute to the lengthening of another entity, Girl – and the longer Girl gets, the more stages will be unlocked for gamers worldwide.
Don’t get me wrong, the idea of this communal level-unlocking is actually really, really cool. I think it’s absolutely fantastic, and a stroke of pure brilliance. It’s the rest of the game that gives me pause. Perhaps that’s the point, though, according to Takahashi:
By making an undefined and ambitious game, I want the player’s reaction to be something like, “I don’t know why, but it’s somehow interesting. I can’t stop playing.”
Congratulations, Takahashi-san. If your aim was to confuse, then you have succeeded with flying colors. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I have to go off and watch my hand move for the next four hours.
