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February 19, 2009 3:46 PM Subscribe
Noby Noby Boy is out! What is Noby Noby Boy? The creator speaks: "At this stage, it's too early for me to sum up this game in one word." Why was it made? "Seriously, I don’t know. When I figure it out, I’ll share it on this blog." A bit more cogent explanation follows:
Noby Noby Boy is a PS3 downloadable game from noted Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi where the players "control a pink worm with feet named BOY, and move, eat objects to stretch your stomach, jump to any height you choose, and stretch lengthwise by pulling yourself in opposite directions, ". The goal is the game is well..."absolutely nothing at all".
Noby Noby Boy is a PS3 downloadable game from noted Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi where the players "control a pink worm with feet named BOY, and move, eat objects to stretch your stomach, jump to any height you choose, and stretch lengthwise by pulling yourself in opposite directions, ". The goal is the game is well..."absolutely nothing at all".
This is one of those things I'd have to be stoned to appreciate, isn't it?
posted by LordSludge at 4:10 PM on February 19, 2009
posted by LordSludge at 4:10 PM on February 19, 2009
Looks strangely addictive. Sort of like Katamari Damacy with a tube instead of a ball.
posted by zardoz at 4:13 PM on February 19, 2009
posted by zardoz at 4:13 PM on February 19, 2009
And for anyone who may be interested, I literally just posted our Noby Noby Boy T-Shirts for pre-order. They're being printing right now. Four different "lengths" available! :)
Please enjoy. o--T--o.com
posted by cabel at 4:14 PM on February 19, 2009 [6 favorites]
Please enjoy. o--T--o.com
posted by cabel at 4:14 PM on February 19, 2009 [6 favorites]
And for anyone who may be interested, I literally just posted our Noby Noby Boy T-Shirts for pre-order. They're being printing right now. Four different "lengths" available! :)
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYY!!!! I was thinking about putting a link to the panic shirts for Katamari, and musing if there would be any t-shirts. Awesome that there is.
posted by zabuni at 4:21 PM on February 19, 2009
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYY!!!! I was thinking about putting a link to the panic shirts for Katamari, and musing if there would be any t-shirts. Awesome that there is.
posted by zabuni at 4:21 PM on February 19, 2009
Those are some hilarious t-shirts!
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 4:21 PM on February 19, 2009
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 4:21 PM on February 19, 2009
Oh man. I didn't even know it was dropping this week. NEED to get home and download this.
posted by eyeballkid at 4:25 PM on February 19, 2009
posted by eyeballkid at 4:25 PM on February 19, 2009
Does the Noby Noby Boy sing the Numa Numa Song?
posted by Robert Angelo at 4:28 PM on February 19, 2009
posted by Robert Angelo at 4:28 PM on February 19, 2009
This, honestly, makes me want to buy a Playstation 3 more than any other game out there, but even if the game is cheap it's hard justifying blowing that much money on the console. I still pull out Katamari Damacy and its sequel from time to time, years past its prime. It's a true classic.
posted by ardgedee at 4:53 PM on February 19, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by ardgedee at 4:53 PM on February 19, 2009 [1 favorite]
I think I want to play this game. Or play with this toy.
posted by I Foody at 5:06 PM on February 19, 2009
posted by I Foody at 5:06 PM on February 19, 2009
cabel, I've always wondered.. how and why did Panic branch out from developing mac software to selling tshirts for Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy?
Does Namco do game development using Coda? Does Keita Takahashi really really like your drag-and-drop online store? It is so confusing.
posted by rajbot at 5:11 PM on February 19, 2009
Does Namco do game development using Coda? Does Keita Takahashi really really like your drag-and-drop online store? It is so confusing.
posted by rajbot at 5:11 PM on February 19, 2009
It looks a bit like one of Ken Perlin's demos writ large.
But yes, shame it's a PS3 exclusive.
posted by lucidium at 5:19 PM on February 19, 2009
But yes, shame it's a PS3 exclusive.
posted by lucidium at 5:19 PM on February 19, 2009
rajbot: A little searching brought up this:
We all loved the Katamari game. And we had some t-shirt experience with our MacWorld shirts, and had started selling shirts online. My friend Jason Sturgill off-handidly suggested that we should make Katamari shirts. I half-jokingly suggested it via e-mail to Noby, our guy in Japan. Noby half-seriously looked in the phone book and called Namco Japan and, after a brief discussion, they scheduled a face-to-face licensing meeting that same day. Noby met with Keita Takahashi and Kei Umeki (Namco's licensing guy), and, after talking, permission was granted.
That's it. That's how it happened. Just like that, we were the first — and, to this day, the only — company to ever get a license to make Katamari Damacy goods.
posted by zabuni at 5:25 PM on February 19, 2009
We all loved the Katamari game. And we had some t-shirt experience with our MacWorld shirts, and had started selling shirts online. My friend Jason Sturgill off-handidly suggested that we should make Katamari shirts. I half-jokingly suggested it via e-mail to Noby, our guy in Japan. Noby half-seriously looked in the phone book and called Namco Japan and, after a brief discussion, they scheduled a face-to-face licensing meeting that same day. Noby met with Keita Takahashi and Kei Umeki (Namco's licensing guy), and, after talking, permission was granted.
That's it. That's how it happened. Just like that, we were the first — and, to this day, the only — company to ever get a license to make Katamari Damacy goods.
posted by zabuni at 5:25 PM on February 19, 2009
rajbot: What Zabuni said, with one additional note. As Keita told us, roughly, "I'm an artist that happens to be making video games. You guys are software guys who happen to make t-shirts." The logic made sense to him. It's been a cool thing! :)
posted by cabel at 5:35 PM on February 19, 2009
posted by cabel at 5:35 PM on February 19, 2009
I'll be downloading it soon, sadly not stoned. I saw a strange video of BOY humping a rainbow for about a minute while ostriches flopped around. Very odd, yet I must try it.
posted by yellowbinder at 6:24 PM on February 19, 2009
posted by yellowbinder at 6:24 PM on February 19, 2009
Oh, boy, you can't ship the tshirts in Italy. That's just mean.
posted by darkripper at 7:03 PM on February 19, 2009
posted by darkripper at 7:03 PM on February 19, 2009
Dammit - I don't wanna get a PS3. But I gotta play this!! How do 35-year-old chicks faire at cam whoring for Amazon Wish List gifts these days?
posted by Kloryne at 7:39 PM on February 19, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by Kloryne at 7:39 PM on February 19, 2009 [1 favorite]
yellowbinder tells no lies. Those videos from 1UP are vaguely terrifying. This Noby Noby Boy seems like a menace. Like some psychedelic conflation of Gorey, Lovecraft, and Hello Kitty.
posted by clockwork at 7:59 PM on February 19, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by clockwork at 7:59 PM on February 19, 2009 [2 favorites]
Most games work with a Rock Band guitar assigned to 1 and a Dual Shock on 2, but this one required unplugging the guitar receiver & setting a Dual Shock to 1. Fair warning.
It's weird. You can walk Boy off the edge of the world & even pull other characters along, but he ends up being dropped back on the world.
Oh & it's $4.99.
posted by morganw at 10:44 PM on February 19, 2009
It's weird. You can walk Boy off the edge of the world & even pull other characters along, but he ends up being dropped back on the world.
Oh & it's $4.99.
posted by morganw at 10:44 PM on February 19, 2009
I so wish this was out for the PC or the 360, but a PS3 just costs a stupid amount of money and I've not managed to convince myself this, Littlebigplanet and Flower are worth it yet. Another watch of the rainbow-humping video might do it.
posted by terpsichoria at 11:07 PM on February 19, 2009
posted by terpsichoria at 11:07 PM on February 19, 2009
morganw, this sort of thing happens to me all the time (I have the opposite experience in that most games want your controller to be #1), but you don't actually have to unplug anything. Hold down the PS button on the controller, hit "Controller Settings," reassign the controller to 1. Done.
It is pretty friggin' annoying, though.
posted by chrominance at 4:12 AM on February 20, 2009
It is pretty friggin' annoying, though.
posted by chrominance at 4:12 AM on February 20, 2009
clockwork, thanks for digging that up. I downloaded and checked it out briefly last night... very interesting, took me a while to get a handle on it, but it's a nice sandbox. You're right about the creepiness. Katamari always had a slight touch of creepy, this takes it much further.
posted by yellowbinder at 5:24 AM on February 20, 2009
posted by yellowbinder at 5:24 AM on February 20, 2009
Speaking of creepiness, it kind of reminds me of the "long boy" from Stephen King's Lisey's Story.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 5:44 AM on February 20, 2009
posted by aeschenkarnos at 5:44 AM on February 20, 2009
Explosion, Beautiful Katamari turned out (in my opinion) to be significantly worse than "more of the same". More of the same is pretty much what I was hoping for out of it, but unfortunately, someone at Namco decided that they needed to jump on the downloadable content bandwagon and that they could do that without actually creating any new content to download. So several levels on the game disc are actually locked on shipping. I didn't realize this at first, but when I finished all the levels on the game, I was struck by (a) how short it was in comparison to the previous games, (b) the absence of particular level types that seemed like obvious inclusions, (c) an odd discrepancy in the naming scheme leaving out one of the planets, and (d) the fact that there were achievements listed that didn't seem achievable. The game seemed incomplete somehow. So I did a little research and discovered that you had to pay extra money to play the last few levels on the disc. This wasn't just a case of preloading some downloadable content onto the disc. It felt as though they took a complete game and chopped out a few levels so that they could charge more money for it. They didn't even do a good chop job. I was so pissed off that I haven't played the game since.
This shouldn't reflect poorly on Keita Takahashi, by the way. He was only involved in the first two. I was aware of this fact, but since all I really had wanted was another game's worth of levels (a sign of a truly good concept is that you want more even after the novelty wears off). Well, that and I had been lead to believe that you could seamlessly play from smallish size (where the world might as well be flat) up past the point where the curvature of the world became noticeable in a single run. There is a level that tries to do this, but the seam between flat to round is so severe that it completely breaks all illusions of continuity. Can't fault them for trying, I guess.
But I can fault them for crappy chop job.
posted by ErWenn at 6:11 AM on February 20, 2009 [1 favorite]
This shouldn't reflect poorly on Keita Takahashi, by the way. He was only involved in the first two. I was aware of this fact, but since all I really had wanted was another game's worth of levels (a sign of a truly good concept is that you want more even after the novelty wears off). Well, that and I had been lead to believe that you could seamlessly play from smallish size (where the world might as well be flat) up past the point where the curvature of the world became noticeable in a single run. There is a level that tries to do this, but the seam between flat to round is so severe that it completely breaks all illusions of continuity. Can't fault them for trying, I guess.
But I can fault them for crappy chop job.
posted by ErWenn at 6:11 AM on February 20, 2009 [1 favorite]
something worth considering about Noby Noby boy...
some of the areas to explore in the game will be locked until more people come along to explore the given content to its fullest. There's a sort of worldwide universal Noby Noby Boy present in the game, one that represents how much of the game everyone in the world has played. Any time you turn the game on, you will (as I understand it) see a giant noby guy representing how much of the game has been played by everyone that owns it. as it gets longer from more play, it unlocks more levels in the game for everyone who has it. so, the more people play the game, and the more of the game they play, the longer this guy gets and the more levels the disc unlocks for everyone to play.
posted by shmegegge at 9:59 AM on February 20, 2009
some of the areas to explore in the game will be locked until more people come along to explore the given content to its fullest. There's a sort of worldwide universal Noby Noby Boy present in the game, one that represents how much of the game everyone in the world has played. Any time you turn the game on, you will (as I understand it) see a giant noby guy representing how much of the game has been played by everyone that owns it. as it gets longer from more play, it unlocks more levels in the game for everyone who has it. so, the more people play the game, and the more of the game they play, the longer this guy gets and the more levels the disc unlocks for everyone to play.
posted by shmegegge at 9:59 AM on February 20, 2009
I went and downloaded this last night on my cousin's PS3 (can't affing efford one myself), and this is a rather neat game. I have to wonder about it's staying power, but I did have a good 30 minutes twisting the thing around, dangling the ends off opposite sides of the world, then trying to extend the two sides around various objects to try to stretch him out as far as possible. (It seems there's a trophy, by the way, for getting 100 units in length.)
I have to wonder about the eat-then-fart-stuff-out feature, though. I mean, it's already such a weird game, but then you discover you can do that.
posted by JHarris at 10:01 AM on February 20, 2009
I have to wonder about the eat-then-fart-stuff-out feature, though. I mean, it's already such a weird game, but then you discover you can do that.
posted by JHarris at 10:01 AM on February 20, 2009
Oh, and shmegegge, it's not a disc, this is a downloadable game.
posted by JHarris at 10:02 AM on February 20, 2009
posted by JHarris at 10:02 AM on February 20, 2009
Oh man, after total FAIL at trying to find Katamari for PS3, I am definitely going to get this.
I do love me a totally pointless, totally cute game.
(Also: there are like, four games that I can play being as most of them involve some kind of flashing "action" - the less action, the better for my poor damaged brains. Most games I play are designed for children. *sigh*)
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:51 AM on February 20, 2009
I do love me a totally pointless, totally cute game.
(Also: there are like, four games that I can play being as most of them involve some kind of flashing "action" - the less action, the better for my poor damaged brains. Most games I play are designed for children. *sigh*)
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:51 AM on February 20, 2009
grapefruitmoon, I thought that the Katamari games moved pretty quickly, they even had time limits. Are you talking about the flashy special effects that seem to permeate high-budget games?
posted by LogicalDash at 5:23 PM on February 21, 2009
posted by LogicalDash at 5:23 PM on February 21, 2009
Yeah, it's the flashy special effects that I can't do. My brain gives out. Anything that involves shooting is right out because it always also involves flashing.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 6:38 AM on February 22, 2009
posted by grapefruitmoon at 6:38 AM on February 22, 2009
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This looks wonderfully different, though.
posted by explosion at 4:08 PM on February 19, 2009