Noby Noby Boy's Keita Takahashi Interview

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Thursday sees the PSN release - for a mere GBP 3.19 / EUR 3.99 - of Noby Noby Boy, the new game by Katamari Damacy's creator Keita Takahashi.

Noby Noby Boy is an interactive playground where players control both ends of a stretchy character called BOY and just fool around, interacting with the structures and bizarre inhabitants of randomly-generated maps. All the BOY-stretching done collectively by all players across the PlayStation Network is reported to a GIRL in space, who grows in turn, connecting the Earth to the Moon and Mars, and opening up new environments to explore.

It's not an easy game to explain - so we're pleased to present five exclusive videos and a chat with Takahashi that will, hopefully, shed some light on Noby Noby Boy's strange and wonderful world.

Eurogamer: I was in the audience when you showed Noby Noby Boy at Nottingham GameCity a little over a year ago. Back then, it was just a grey world, a BOY, and a pig - but it was still fun to play with. What have you added since then?

Keita Takahashi: Were you at the event? Well, that's kind of embarrassing for me... The version shown at GameCity was not completed at all. There were 3 BOYs shown back then, and the structure of BOY wasn't finished - like the way collisions between BOY or the pig and the environments worked. The game as it is now is a totally different game. In short, the game sequences were not finished and I was working until the very morning of my departure from Japan to make the game as polished as possible, even though it was clearly impossible to show something completed.

So, one year later, I am here with this game hoping that people will enjoy it!

The parrot in the bottom left tells you if you're connected to PSN.Video in higher quality on EGTV

Eurogamer: Tell us about the relationship between the BOY and the GIRL. What does the GIRL do? Is she the BOY's GIRLfriend?

Keita Takahashi: When BOY grows, he informs GIRL about it and her body grows accordingly. GIRL lives in space and is trying to link all the planets of the solar system. I think that she is trying to link all the planets of the solar system together to make all the people living there understand each other, and have a good relationship with each other.

As earthlings are not getting along with each other very well, that's where things should start. However, I believe that if the whole solar system gets along better, then earth will get better too. Well, maybe with this will and energy people on Earth will get along better!

Regarding the fact that BOY and GIRL might be more than friends, I can't answer this question, as it is a private matter.

Spot the banana-tractor in the background.Video in higher quality on EGTV

Eurogamer: Why did you choose to have all the players on the PlayStation Network work together to unlock everything in the game, rather than have each one do it on his or her own?

Keita Takahashi: Right now the trend for online gaming is online co-op. However, with BOY's body growing as it does, and with the engine managing the physics of the moving objects, it would have needed a huge server to manage everything at the same time. We met this issue at the beginning of the development, so we came up with this idea of a network mode which is not a multiplayer mode. We had a lot of other ideas, but we ran out of time and could not implement them in the game.

Apart from the technical reasons, we wanted to show players how it feels to achieve something when everybody shares the same goal. I think that it will be fun - but I think that there is something more to it.

I am really looking forward to seeing the players' reactions, as this is something that I cannot do or even imagine before the game's released.

Eurogamer: Are there any techniques or secrets to being able to stretch your BOY super long?

This isn't a real BOY - it's an animated sculpture that sometimes appears.Video in higher quality on EGTV

Keita Takahashi: There is a super technique, which consists of leaving the game on and not touching it! When you don't control BOY, he wanders around freely by himself. So if you leave the game on during the night, he might have grown when you wake up in the morning.

Eurogamer: There are a lot of love hearts in the screenshots. What do these mean? Can you make friends with the people and animals?

Keita Takahashi: Sorry, there is no special meaning except that he is happy! It is just an effect that pops out when BOY is walking. Usually in games we use an effect with dust flying in the air, but I think it's boring. So I wanted to use something that would make me happy if I were walking in the real world. That's why I decided to use hearts

Even without the flashy hearts displaying, you will notice that in Noby Noby Boy's world, people are already on good terms with animals too, so not only they will ride on BOY's back, they will also ride on animals' backs sometimes.

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