Video: Nobi Nobi Boy Previewed At Game City
A wee while ago I mentioned that Game City was taking place in Nottingham, where Keita Takahashi was due to speak. Namco's prodigal son reprised his place as one of the most controversial contemporary designers by sharing a playable prototype for Nobi Nobi Boy. Three plucky hopefuls were invited to control the characters, a set of half-boy-half-animals with smiley faces made famous by their extremely stretchy bodies. From this early prototype you can see the same trademark simplicity and strong colour-scheme separating the playable characters for the npc animals which accompany them in the space.
As people tinker with the demo (thanks for the video George B.), you can see how Nobi Nobi Boy can be made to fly, work himself into knots, and herd the creatures with his stretchy torso. Takahashi refrained from defining exactly what the intended gameplay mechanic would be, instead alluding to animal herding as a possibly-maybe goal. With this malleable character there are several possible applications, and this certainly echoes the 'roll, collect grow' mechanic of the Katamari games.
Read on after the jump...
The gameplay potential of the Nobi Nobi Boy character is immense, and the name roughly translates to mean 'at ease with', implying the relaxed and playful personality of the physics and animation. Remembering Takahashi's GDCE 2005 keynote talk, where he spent a lot of time talking about his influences, I think it's important to hesitate from comparing his early prototypes with other games, since the designer himself regularly points to playgrounds and toys as inspiration for his game designs.
But Katamari is so much more than just compelling and simple gameplay (at least the first two in the series are anyway). Inspired choices in soundtrack, user interface design and dialogue scripting all work together to shape the highly original experience. The silence of watching Nobi Nobi in action was perhaps the biggest distraction since, if Katamari is anything to go by, anything that happens with these curious stretchy were-bears will be accompanied by an inspired soundtrack.
SuperSpecialDavey
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games, Videos on 4 November 2007
Other stuff like this: Game City, Keita Takahashi, nobi nobi boy
