I personally think the bizarre setting, art design, and great soundtrack (perhaps a top-3 ever in gaming) did a lot to overcome a lot of the awkwardness of the gameplay. It was an experience you wanted to have, it was original, and the concept was almost 80's arcade pure. The ambience provided the reason to want to be there.
If you were to reframe the game without those things, I'm not entirely sure it holds up as well.
But 20+ years later I can walk into a room with my friends, start whistling the theme and everybody will join in.
What a joyful game.
my fav has to be the lounge singer track, or maybe the one with a bunch of kids singing.
> I worked on the basic concept on my own. I found that if I started to listen to others, the concept tended to become diluted and unfocused. However, once the basic concept was decided, it was helpful to have open discussions with the team. There were many more ideas that were not used in the game, but I still got something out of all the different ideas that were brought up even if I didn't use them as they were presented.
Better level design (than in the original Katamari Damacy) is the answer. See Carmageddon as an example. Despite having a time limit and technically being in a race against other drivers, you can just go off course and explore the level, picking time bonuses as you do that. It's fun because the levels are full of secret areas and there's always something to explore. The other drivers are just dumb enough to not be a problem, and will also go off course if you do. Or you can play it as a racing game and ignore all that, no problem.
I think the time limits worked fine for adding challenge to the game — IIRC the first game had an eternal level whereas the 2nd game’s longest level was 18min, but that was long enough to swallow most of the earth if you were good enough. I loved the novelty levels where the goal was something different than “biggest katamari” — e.g. roll the most expensive or calorie-dense katamaris, which really let you appreciate the detail and variety of objects that were in the world
> IIRC the first game had an eternal level whereas the 2nd game’s longest level was 18min.
For the record, a recent remastered version for PC does have eternal levels.
It went past the earth and you eventually swallowed up planets, stars etc if you didn’t know. Really cool for the hardware.
Moment of silence for the death of "culture fit" in companies. I know it was not all great and warped hiring in ways that were problematic but there's something to be said for working on a project with other people who you know will just "get it."
When you start becoming a big tech company whose products have the power to bend entire societies though, that's when people typically start calling for more accountability in hiring practices.
My interpretation is that it's because they make the art for them, not for the audience. In a sense they got lucky that one piece of their work found itself at the right confluence of factors to blow up like it did, because that's not something you can really control or guarantee, unless you play it extremely safe (which is why all the big game/movie studios produce sequel after sequel, or old rockstars will just keep performing their classics).
There's an interview with Jon Blow I heard recently that stuck with me, where he says that he could probably have made lots of money making Braid 2 or The Witness 2, but that it just wasn't interesting to him.
Willingly leaving money on the table, now that's the mark of an artist.
If you're wanting more of The Witness you can find it in childrens puzzles books and the backs of cereal boxes. See also The Looker: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1985690/The_Looker/
- Taiji, which is a very The Witness-inspired 2D exploration/puzzle game https://store.steampowered.com/app/1141580/Taiji/
- Fidel Rescue Dungeon (which I only just learned of and haven't yet played), which is The Witness puzzles, but dressed up as a roguelike https://store.steampowered.com/app/573170/Fidel_Dungeon_Resc...
but sometimes, you get someone who really gets into a small niche in gaming where their other interests are far flung elsewhere, like the ever lovely MOTHER series by Shigasato Itoi
It was like looking at a 1960s oil bath light show. As the layers of colour moved over each other, and fused and split
With no major outcome depending on it, I've always wanted to know what the game was. Very abstracted. Simple goal, simple controls. There must have been more to it I didn't see (adversarial play of some kind, threats and risks)
Sony can really put out some amazing first (second?) party stuff when they want to, which makes me wonder why they don't do it more often.
He created the Katamari games, but they’re rolling on without him - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37374489 - Sept 2023 (67 comments)
Keita Takahashi Created the Katamari Games, but They’re Rolling on Without Him - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36950382 - July 2023 (4 comments)
Katamari Hack (2011) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33381345 - Oct 2022 (37 comments)
Katamari Christmassy (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25783731 - Jan 2021 (1 comment)
Keita Takahashi (creator of Katamari) joins Glitch - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2748128 - July 2011 (2 comments)
Katamari Hack - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2486038 - April 2011 (5 comments)
Turn any page into Katamari Damacy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2318076 - March 2011 (33 comments)
Life Size Katamari - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=625489 - May 2009 (3 comments)
Later releases of the game directly address this concern. I wonder how far away game engine technology is from keeping track of every single item in the ball, so the scaling is more smooth, and the items in the ball have a direct impact on how the ball rolls.
If you want to see state of the art in physics and collision, check out Dennis Gustafsson's work. He created the game Teardown.
Shame that no developer takes risks like this anymore, the whole concept was just so foreign, so strange, yet it worked.
Balatro, Baba Is You, Superhot, Superliminal, and Slay the Spire come to mind immediately.
The OST for the first two games, how they stick (ha!) well together, and how WLK managed to be a perfect blend of paying homage to the first game (Scorching Savanna!) _and_ being a solid improvement on it should be studied.
It's striking to me how humble Takahashi-sensei is regarding the shortcomings he perceives in the first game as well. I can see them much better dealt with in We Love Katamari, but I feel like some of them aren't that bad as a player who picks it to play every once in a while. In turn, it makes me appreciate the holistic and honest view he has for such an original game.
The soundtrack is its killer feature and I'm glad to be able to read a bit more about the background.
I'm not sure if it was this one exactly but close enough.
That explains a lot, and boy did they succeed. I love them, Some songs are such earworms that I dread hearing anything from the Katamari OST because they'll stick for __DAYS__.