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Noby Noby Boy hauled off App Store next week

"Thank you for playing this silly app."

Noby Noby Boy, the curious stretch 'em up from Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi, will be removed from sale on the App Store next week.

In a note on the Uvula website titled Bye Bye Boy, Takahashi waved a solemn farewell to the iOS version of perhaps his most bonkers creation (via Hookshot Inc).

"NOBY NOBY BOY for iOS is ended a support and sale at 9th Oct of 2012. I'm so sorry. Please buy it before end if you are interested in. That is totally silly app but I'm enjoying it sometimes even now. Thank you for playing this silly app."

Its removal is yet to be explained by publisher Namco Bandai.

Takahashi made Noby Noby Boy for PlayStation Network while at the Japanese game company. He left in 2010 before resurfacing last year to work on Glitch, a cute free-to-play browser MMO from developer Tiny Speck.

"The reason why I quit Namco was because I started to feel like I didn't belong there any more," Takahashi told Eurogamer of his departure.

"The games I was making were not necessarily the best-selling ones. I realised Namco was, as a business, going down a bit."