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Noby Noby Boy's Keita Takahashi

On the new multiplayer update, with exclusive videos.

EurogamerWill the stretching of all the BOYs in multiplayer contribute to the growth of GIRL?
Keita Takahashi

I think that it will help it grow faster a little bit but I don't think that it will dramatically change. The multiplayer mode is not designed to make GIRL grow faster, so I don't really care.

In most multiplayer games, people compete or co-operate with each other. But Noby Noby Boy has no goals. What sort of fun can players have with each other in the game?

When you move the camera by using the motion sensor, the camera zooms on people or animals and the animals or people are actually looking at the camera. It's not like you get more points for doing this, or like if you had to remember something special, but it somehow makes players happy. Or you can try to make BOY move co-ordinated to the music playing from your songs you have on your hard drive, for example.

It's hard to explain, I don't have anything against strategies and difficult rules but it is these little somethings that make me have fun. These are the kind of experiences that I would like players to have.

I think that this kind of experience is also understandable in daily life. There are a lot of problems like this in our lives, and a lot of irrational things too. We shouldn't have a life of servility just because of that; even when you have no friends, when you don't have any money, when your situation is really bad, it's up to you to live a happy life.

If you sit on a precipitous road, if you take a different way than usual to walk, you will get a little bit happier. And from this happy feeling, you will open yourself to many other things.

I am exaggerating a little, but this is what it is all about.

EurogamerDo you think adding multiplayer will make the game more popular?
Keita Takahashi

I am not that naïve. But I think that this version is a little more fun than version 1.0, so I would like the people who had enough of the first version and who really didn't have fun with it to enjoy this one.

EurogamerWill you add any Trophies to the game with this update?
Keita Takahashi

We won't add any trophies. As this a free update, we can't add any.

EurogamerIs there anything else in the update? The "dreams" on the Web Web Boy website suggest new music, and hairstyles for the house...
Keita Takahashi

We are upgrading it to what people expect in terms of soundtrack. I think that with this update the music will reach the standards of music in a videogame.

There also is a mode that is not included in the manual and which is called Synchro BOY. When you press one button, you get out from the house from somewhere, and even though this a one-player mode, the number of BOYs is being increased. You will understand once you try it!

EurogamerMost players of your games really enjoy the music soundtracks. Do you select the music yourself?
Keita Takahashi

At the beginning of the project I talk with the sound engineer to give him the general idea of what I want and then I completely leave it to him.

The game is not only the result of my ideas, it is the result of the power of imagination of the people making it, an I am not only talking about the sound effects or the music here, so on a general basis I leave everything to the person in charge because we end up with things that are even better.

The thing is, we had some problems implementing the sound effects and musics, and at the end, we ran out of time, so that's why version 1.0 was very simple in this aspect. However, version 1.1 is actually pretty good! But I think that the music might disappoint people that are expecting some Katamari-ish music though.