Guernican is back to ruminate on what the nature of play is, in light of some of the recent leftfield titles coming on the PS3…
Eat the pips and dodge the ghosts. Jump the barrels and save the princess. Fight the Helghast hordes and take the planet. Finish him. Avoid missing ball for high score.
I’m guessing that pretty much every game you’ve ever played has had an objective. It might be utterly straightforward… score more goals than the other team. It might be vague and nebulous… find out how and why Lucas Kane has brutally murdered someone. It might be deliberately misleading… what am I doing here in Rapture? It might be whimsical and weird: collect pollen and spectra and grow a garden.
It’s not very often that your goal is simply to play.
Keita Takahashi is the man who created Katamari Damacy and its successor, We Love Katamari. The game had one rule… get bigger. It was gleefully odd and, although not everyone’s cup of java, rather compelling. Takahashi-san has now followed that up with something that’s arguably even more freeform: Noby Noby Boy.
There’s some debate about the precise meaning of the Japanese word “nobi”. I’m told it can mean “stretch”, with “nobinobi” also translating loosely as “taking it easy”. Apologies to Japanophones if I’m savaging your language here. Anyway, the idea is that your Boy stretches his way around a stylised, brightly-coloured world with… er… stuff in it. Do what you like: there are no rules. There are a few (secret) PS Trophies available. At the time of writing, I have no idea what any of them are.
Obviously there’s more to this game than just moving around and stretching, but the online components - contributing to a user-generated Noby Girl to open new levels – strike me as less important than the precept. Just play. Don’t let us tell you what to do, or how to do it, or even why you should be doing it. If it feels good, play. If it doesn’t, stop. That’s all.
Check back for part two tomorrow…
“What is play? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more!”
Ahem, sorry.
Am quite curious about Noby Noby Boy and Flower. Any other threespeechers have particularly strong views on either title?
Comment by mrsatansdojo — Feb 25, 2009 @ 12:47 pm
whenever someone says noby noby bad thoughts come into my mind and so i must punish myself…
Comment by JohnSketch — Feb 25, 2009 @ 1:02 pm
Noby noby boy is great fun, glad I was involved from the off to help ‘girl’ reach the moon.
That may not make sense to those that haven’t played it, and it makes hardly any more to me who has.
For £3.19 you all really should try it out, it’s a good fun relaxing little game and has made me laugh out loud many times.
Comment by Robothamster — Feb 25, 2009 @ 1:17 pm
@3 Hmmm, in that case Robo I may take a look.
@Sketchy - let the self-flagellation begin!
Comment by mrsatansdojo — Feb 25, 2009 @ 2:20 pm
I get it - so we play with Noby Noby Boy until he gets bigger and bigger, eventually attracting the attention of a Girl.
What’s the age rating on this game?
Comment by reakt — Feb 25, 2009 @ 3:39 pm
Flower is an incredible game, but I regret buying Noby Noby boy…. I just don’t get it and got frustrated with it after about 15 minutes…. far from relaxing in my opinion. The music in noby noby boy did my head in too.
Flower however is a real treat.
Comment by Rob — Feb 25, 2009 @ 3:41 pm
I am really enjoying Flower, very relaxing and the essence of one button and motion gaming. Hopefully this will inspire more games that will bring in more gamers.
Only played Nobi Nobi for about 15 minutes so far, and all I can say is that I’m finding it interesting. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I did laugh out loud when I managed to pull a house from one level to another. Very gratifying. I’ll report back when I I’ve played more. Still need to finish KZ2 on Veteran first.
Comment by CartBlanche — Feb 25, 2009 @ 4:27 pm
@ Cart
On Veteran?!!
I think, to use the parlance of our times, I am going to get pwnd in the threespeech clan!
Comment by mrsatansdojo — Feb 25, 2009 @ 4:36 pm
@Blanche
At the refinery atm on veteran, 1 word - HOLY MOTHER OF GAWD!!!!
ok…that was 3 words and a “gawd” but its so hard *sobs*
Comment by JohnSketch — Feb 25, 2009 @ 6:15 pm
Comment by Rob — Feb 25, 2009 @ 6:30 pm
don’t worry did not get mine ether and I’m in Ipswich,mind you I did get 100% in trophies in NObBy NoBbY BoY even though I still can not make out what on earth is going on!$£.Still can’t nail that last bronze on Flower though where you have to get to the city inscathed its insane for a bronze trophy!
add me
xenokiller90
Comment by andy — Feb 25, 2009 @ 6:47 pm
@1 [mrsatansdojo]:
I appreciated your reference to Alexander Nestor Haddaway even if ‘noby noby’ else has picked up on it.
—
“Play”… voluntary, intrinsically motivated activities that are normally associated with pleasure and enjoyment.
I have purposely ignored “Linger In Shadows”, “Flower”, “Noby Noby Boy”, and any other titles that I have not been able to play prior to purchase, but certainly all three have been receiving very good reviews. They don’t sound like my kind of pastime, but then I thought that about “LittleBIGPlanet” (and how wrong I was there!). So if all else fails & next month we have negative interest rates, then the PlayStation Store will pay me to deposit funds into my virtual wallet & I’ll make money playing them
OK, it’s not going to happen, but it is an objective in any respect.
I first started console-based gaming with “Pong” on a Coleco Telstar Alpha model 6030 in 1977.
In some respects just when you think every genre, original idea, and not-so original idea has been used on home video game entertainment systems, along comes another.
I applaud the bravery & diversity of design, development, and production teams to both scrape the bottom of the proverbial wooden barrel as well as those that jump over it whilst scaling towers of excellence to bring us new incentives to spend our dwindling disposable income in both new & inventive ways.
For every “Elefunk” with a simple notion to traverse from one side of the screen to another there is a “Grand Theft Auto” with such a complex & over-the-top objective system. Both test the resilience, patience, & longevity of the player to differing degrees.
New ideas with their simple nature sometimes surprise you as to why such a direction has not been attempted previously.
Odd ideas are revamped, remodelled, and re-sold to later generations or indeed the same generations of the gaming public that it is equally surprising that Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Frogger, Battlezone, Asteroids, and Hunchback are not released every year to catch the next intake of eager participants. All are still good wastes of time, and good examples of when an idea is time immortal.
(What next? Releasing a compilation of older console titles for the PS3? That’ll never happen. Oh…)
Perhaps a good follow-up request to this blog entry would be for each of us to list which title was our first introduction to the video game concept & whether you can still gain enjoyment from it today.
As Marcus Brigstocke once stated (albeit incorrectly attributed to a Chief Executive Officer at Nintendo), “If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music”.
“Pac-Man” did affect me. It is one title that is relatively easy to develop on even the simplest of gaming platforms, but still a title that I will never quite master (even though I have previously written my own variations of the game-play some 25 years ago)
Games such as this, and my beloved “Pong”, are simple in premise, but the ability to test oneself just one more time is what makes a good game, regardless of how it is presented, and regardless of how it is played.
The only objective should be to have fun whilst trying.
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — Feb 25, 2009 @ 9:49 pm
will be getting this tonight and,..er.. helping everyone stretch girl………
Comment by Robin — Feb 26, 2009 @ 6:09 pm
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