It's not a feeling inspired by playing his games. Katamari was great, Noby Noby Boy, also great. It's based more on what the guy says. Here he is chatting with Gamasutra, who ask him whether his current work designing playgrounds is a reaction to the fact he's over the corporate machinations of the gaming business.

"I think that's true," he said. "In fact, I've been feeling for a few years now that I'm just not suited to the games industry. Yeah, that's certainly been an impetus for working on the playground. You're right."

You know what, he may be right. And before you complain, remember, if you truly love them, you have to let them go...

Interview: The Melancholy Of Keita Takahashi [Gamasutra]

Talking with game site Develop, Takahashi explains, "I had this idea for an FPS where the player's character grows in size, gets bigger and bigger as the game progresses. But as you get bigger some weapons are too small to use, so you have to improvise; maybe throw airplanes at the enemies. That sort of stuff.
So I have this idea of making a fun and unique FPS, with the right team it would be a good FPS."

Even if it wasn't a very good FPS, it would sure be something.

Interview: Keita Takahashi [Develop] [Pic]

According to game site GameSetWatch, UK gaming even GameCity and the Nottingham City Council have announced that Takahashi will design a children's playground for Nottingham City at Woodthorpe Grange Park.

Takahashi is currently spending a month in the area and talking to children and locals as well as the City Council landscape architect. Back in 2006, Takahashi expressed interest in a playground "that's soft, and with lots of big blocky shapes, and a place [kids] can't really get hurt - very colorful - where kids can roll around and be free. But it's probably okay if they occasionally get hurt too."

Councillor David Trimbl says, "We're delighted to have Takahashi-san on board and very much looking forward to working with him on this unique collaboration."

Takahashi Designing Children's Playground In Nottingham [GameSetWatch]

For game enthusiasts who may find themselves in the greater Los Angeles area, you'll be lucky enough to have access to indie game exhibitions for a nominal entrance fee. That means more than two dozen selected independent games, all of which will be on hand at the Wonderful World of Art Gallery, Culver Hotel Mezzanine and Gregg Fleishman Gallery daily from 10 AM to 7 PM.

Also attending this year's IndieCade will be game development luminaries such as Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi, Will Wright, Henry Jenkins, Jenova Chen and many, many more. Some will even give thrilling keynote speeches! Hearing those in real-time might cost you a little more.

More information on IndieCade 2009 is available at the official site. I'll be there. Will you?

IndieCade 2009 [Official Site]

According to a report from Impress Game Watch, the iPhone spin-off of Noby Noby Boy is about 60% complete. That may help you determine a loose release date, because Takahashi doesn't offer one. But hey, if he can actually offer the thing for "like free" as he teased at this year's GDC, who cares when it comes?

For another look at Noby Noby Boy as held by Boy himself, read on.

Takahashi implied that that iPhone/iPod Touch version of Noby Noby Boy may interact with the PlayStation Network version, adding to the length of Girl. At GDC Takahashi lamented that he may never see Girl reach the end of the solar system during his lifetime, something the iPhone version might contribute to.

Hell, if it's free or even "like free," consider my pledge to the lengthening of Girl, well, pledged.

Thanks to Olias for the heads up.

Version 1.1 of Noby Noby Boy adds four-Boy offline multiplayer to the mix, in addition to the brassy Fart Boy, as well as lower key updates like "variations for your Boy House hair styles" and new thinking poses for the game's birds. Since when do patches have to makes sense? Obviously, with the addition of the newest Boy comes new "powered up" sound and new sound effects.

Of course, the Noby Noby Boy update begs the question, "What will become of Onara Boy when another Boy eats his butt?" The answer to that fascinating riddle will soon be solved.

Noby Noby Boy Gets Gassy [AndriaSang]

See, it relies on lots of players playing lots of Noby Noby Boy for those cumulative figures to get her anywhere. And while first-week sales saw the player base reach around 60,000, which got her from Earth to the moon in only four days, there's now only around 1000-2000 people playing the game.

Which means that, at the current rate, it'll take her over 2000 days just to reach Mars. We could extrapolate that and work out how long it'd take her to reach, say, Uranus, but that would be both childish and depressing.

If creator Keita Takahashi built this feature into the game to guilt us into playing it more, well...congratulations, Keita, you sick bastard, it's working.

Days Until Mars [Noby Noby Stats, via VG247]

The man behind Noby Noby Boy and Katamari Damacy delivered one of GDC's most fascinating sessions this week, full of behind-the-scenes insights into the creation of the PlayStation Network game and off-message rants.

Let's take a look at some of the most enjoyable quotes that will likely have Takahashi meeting with his more buttoned down superiors at Namco Bandai when he returns to Japan.

On his early concepts for Noby Noby Boy: "I showed one programmer [my drawings], and he said ‘Yes, I've been thinking about these kinds of things as well.' He showed his wife, and she said ‘You should work on this as though your life depended on it.' We have a collection of crazy people working on it."

On Noby Noby Boy's design: "I wanted to show an ironic point of view about our consumption-based society. But I wanted to make more objects. If [the game] were empty, I would feel empty or lonely. When I made Katamari Damacy and objects were rolled up into a ball, they were gone. I felt empty. I feel this way about our disposable society."

On disappointment with games having rules: "Katamari Damacy had rules, meaning you wanted to have a huge katamari. So there was a size goal and a time limitation as well. I didn't want that. The stages increased in size [as the game went on], something I didn't like."

On unforeseen Noby Noby Boy development: "I wanted to create a game where even the developers couldn't see what was coming. Of course I wasn't thinking about debugging at this point. The people who did the debugging asked me what was a bug. I couldn't answer that."

On players on a train: "In Japan, everyone on the train is playing a Nintendo DS or PSP. They're always looking down at their consoles, bleeping and blooping. Of course, that's good for the people who make games, because we make money from it. But is this how we want people to look?"

On users versus players: "Hiyao Miyazaki, the film director, says that children today are not playing, they're consumers. I think that's true. In Japan, people who play games are called 'users.' I think games should be played. Perhaps it's minute, but that bothered me. We just throw around the term users and that bothers me."

On workplace violence: "People who come to the company call them users and I that makes me so mad I want to bonk them! Sometimes I think they should die."

On sales: "Maybe I should make sure that Noby Noby Boy should only be available on PlayStation 3 and only available by download. That way, maybe it won't sell that much. It's only been available for a month or so, but I was right! It's not selling that much. That's probably not a good thing."

On Noby Noby Boy's homegrown physics engine: "I was going to use Havok physics, but I if you use it, you have to show their logo. I didn't want to do that. I thought it would be awful to have to put a logo on the game every time. We used physics from SCE instead. But I still had to put the Namco Bandai logo [on it]."

On the game's long development cycle: "People higher up were really mad at me. Some of them really glared at me if they saw me in the hall."

On goals in Noby Noby Boy: "Despite the fact that I said there are problems with having definite goals, Noby Noby Boy has a definite goal as well. That goal is to take this character, this space Girl, this huge character and make her longer by communicating to her the size of the Boy. The goal is to connect the solar system. Why did I create a goal like this? Because it's such a huge goal, I thought it might be hard to reach."

Takahashi showed off an early prototype of the title, way before it was bound for release via the PlayStation Network. While crude, it showed off many of Noby Noby Boy's gameplay mechanics. But there was a problem, forcing the game to change platforms.

Takahashi says that, because the Xbox 360 was selling so slowly in Japan at the time, you might think that it was a political decision. But the switch from the Xbox 360 to PS3 was due to one thing: the horizontal layout of the PlayStation 3's DualShock/Sixaxis.

The Xbox 360 controller's diagonal analog stick layout was simply no good.

Besides, Takahashi says that one of his hopes for Noby Noby Boy was that it wouldn't sell very well. More on that later.

The version we saw appeared to be touchscreen controlled, apparently from a top-down perspective and, frankly, not very clear, as the speaker showed the iPhone game via his laptop's built-in camera. Takahashi had earlier lamented in his talk that to fully connect the solar system in Noby Noby Boy, at the current rate, would take, well, it would take centuries.

"On average, the Girl is growing 40 million meters a day on average. If we go at this rate, in order to connect the entire solar system, it will take 820 years," Takahashi explained. "This is a problem. I'm going to be dead by then."

Takahashi hinted that he would like to add the growth of both the PlayStation 3 version of the game and the iPhone version, but it was unclear if this was possible. Takahashi did not provide specifics on a release date, saying it had only been in development for a week or so, but said it could potentially be free.

It's a unique title for the PlayStation Network from a unique game developer. Takahashi is largely indifferent about video games, saying, "There aren't really any I like." Rather than drawing up from other games, he was inspired by game trailer. In this case, the trailer for racing game DiRT, a game Takahashi hasn't played, was a source of stimulus.

According to the Katamari developer, "We consulted the opening camera work in a trailer for DiRT, a racing game, for Noby Noby Boy."

For someone who shirks video games, Takahashi clearly explains why Noby Noby Boy is a PS3 exclusive. The thumbsticks for Sony's home console are symmetrical — perfect for Noby Noby Boy's gameplay. What's more, Takahashi explains, "Going multiplatform for a vague, off-beat, new title is risky."

Katamari Creator Gets Weird, Wormy With Noby Noby Boy [Wired]

In an interview with Eurogamer, Namco Bandai's Keita Takahashi reveals that downloadable content is already in the works for his new PlayStation Network title, Noby Noby Boy, with a major update in store "approximately two months after the release". While Takaashi didn't reveal details on the first update, which we'll assume contains more levels to stretch your Noby Noby Boy around or maybe bigger frogs, he did basically beg people to play his game so he can keep working on it.

"Without having a lot of people playing the game, I don't think that the decison-makers at the company will allow another update," he said. "So I want many people to play the game. Please allow me to keep updating the game!"

You heard the man! He can't make more frogs if you don't love the frogs he gives you.

Noby Noby Boy to get DLC soon News [Eurogamer]

Nope, they most certainly cannot. Nice use of frogs though. Were I a big fan of frogs, I would be camped outside the PlayStation Store next Thursday, wearing a frog t-shirt and waving a little frog banner about. I figure someone who is that big of a fan of frogs wouldn't realize that the PlayStation Store wasn't a real place...and would own a frog banner. I assume a lot, but the chances of a crossover frog fan / Kotaku reader are so slim that I feel confident that I will get away with it.

Anyway, here's some screenshots.

Let's let the man explain: "Basically players can control and stretch Boy, the main character of the game. As players stretch Boy, the lengths to which he grows are uploaded to a persistent character known as Girl, who grows at the same rate as the combined length of all the players in the world. Girl starts at Earth and expands around the solar system. When Girl reaches a new milestone in the solar system, new areas are unlocked as playable stages for everyone around the world."

Cool. But why did Takahashi make a game that's seemingly so hard to define? "By making an undefined and ambitious game," he writes "I want the player's reaction to be something like, 'I don't know why, but it's somehow interesting. I can't stop playing.'"

You know, you could've just given us a video of Boy humping a rainbow while ostriches milled about his flaccid body, Takahashi. That's pretty self explanatory.

Noby Noby Boy Is... [PlayStation.blog]

Oh sure, you may have actually paid attention to previews of the PlayStation 3 game, hopefully due any day now, but some of the slower Kotaku editors still don't quite get Noby Noby Boy. And Takahashi's certainly no help!

Thorough ESRB descriptions, help us out!

This is a puzzle game in which players control a large snake-like creature whose objective is to grow by gobbling up objects (e.g., mailboxes, small animals, houses, etc.). Players advance in the game by growing the creature as big as possible and then reporting its length to a character in space. Consumed objects sometimes pop out of the snake's rear end, making a comical "splat" sound.

Well, that sounds quite a bit like Katamari Damacy to me. Consider me signed up, especially now that we can expect comical "splat" sounds.

ESRB Game Ratings [ESRB]

But he tells 1UP that the PlayStation 3 game is "the perfect break after winding down from a game of Killzone 2 and before starting up God of War 3." Great! But what is it? Takahashi supposes it's kind of like a playground, but hasn't found the right word to summarize what Noby Noby Boy is all about, but he will say that things like objectives and mini-games and the other "sort of things like that that everyone's expecting aren't going to be in this game."

Well, okay then. While we're still a little confused about what Noby Noby Boy is (and isn't), the good news is that Takahashi doesn't sound like he's done with making video games. He tells 1UP that he still has a few thoughts kicking around upstairs. Hopefully he'll not waste those extra brainwaves trying to put his games into words and just get back to work.

Noby Noby Boy Preview [1UP]

It'll be out in Japan and Korea on January 29, and in recognition of the game's lack of structure (you basically just stretch a boy around like a snake, watching him...do...stuff) it's priced at ￥800 (USD$9).

Sony Europe tell us only that it'll be out in "early 2009", which isn't very helpful, but they also tell us it'll cost €4, which is helpful. American info should be on its way once American PR folks finish their breakfasts.

To tide you over, some new screens for the game are below.

Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi's next game, Noby Noby Boy (nee Nobi Nobi Boy), is being shown in video form only at Tokyo Game Show. Honestly, this is not what we had in mind. Unfortunately, of all the Namco Bandai games we've seen so far at TGS, this is not one of them. We're left scratching our heads. It's shockingly different in... gameplay(?) than what we'd seen at previous demos. We'll be camped out at the TGS PlayStation booth to try to make sense of the madness...

For the full list of Namco Bandai wares on display at TGS, please continue.

Games being shown in video form only are italicized.

PlayStation 3
Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2
Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm
Nobi Nobi Boy

Xbox 360
Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2
Galaga Legions

Wii
Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces
Daikaiju Battle Ultra Coliseum
Happy Dance Collection
Family Ski World Ski & Snowboard
Fragile: Farewell, Ruins of the Moon
One Piece Unlimited Cruise Episode 1
Kotoba no Puzzle Mojipittan Wii Deluxe
Pro Golfer Saru

Nintendo DS
Soul Eater: Medusa’s Conspiracy
Yes! Pre Cure 5 GO GO! Zenin Shuu Go! Dream Carnival
Dr. Slump Arale Chan
Tamagatchi no Kira Kira Omisecchi
Tales of Hearts Anime Movie Edition
Tales of Hearts CG Movie Edition
Dragon Ball: Origins
Anpanman to Touch de Waku Waku Training

PSP
Macross Ace Frontier
Mobile Suit Gundam Vs. Gundam
Idolmaster SP Perfect Sun
Tales of the World Radiant Mythology 2
Idolmaster SP Wandering Star
Idolmaster SP Missing Moon

PlayStation 2
Mobile Suit Gundam 00: Gundam Meisers
Dragon Ball Z: Infinite World
Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2
Super Robot Taisen Z

PC
Legend of the Galactic Heroes

Tokyo Game Show 2008 [NBGI via Siliconera]

Defining the word creativity is difficult in a sense. Even the likes of God of War, for instance, it is really well made. It's a great graphic game with an interesting story. It's not fair to tell them that their games have no creativity. Having said that I do feel many games do lack the wow factor in a sense.

There's nothing surreal about it. I think if Katamari is considered so creative then to me it feels like the video game industry in general has lost its direction.