Designing games can be a very time-consuming process – especially if you take the time to play other games to keep an eye on the market. While working on a paper design project for class, I decided to share a couple games I really enjoy with my group to help inspire us.
One of my partners enjoys games, but not the same types of games that I play. He is more into the action, stealth, and FPS games. As our project was fairly free-form, we had a lot of room for innovation. However, it’s not easy to come up with an innovative idea that would be fun and engaging. This is where I decided to turn to two games I find very innovative: Katamari Damacy and Okami.

Again and again, I have found myself showing Katamari to people who only casually play games or rarely play at all. I even got my sister to buy it, and it became the first PS2 game she ever bought (the other title she owned being the RPG Legends of Legaia, which she never finished). She has been showing it to her friends, especially those who do not game. So why do we both want to show it to everyone?

There is something pleasantly surprising about rolling a ball and finding everything stick to it. The simple controls (mainly the two PS2 analog sticks) are fairly intuitive, making it easy for beginners to pick it up. An inherent beauty can be found in the ability to manipulate your environment in this new way – everything becomes a manipulative, as long as you are big enough. The sound effects are very amusing – especially when the annoying kid who blocked your way moments ago screams in terror as you roll him up along with a couple penguins. Then there’s the ridiculously Japanese music that ranges from perky J-Pop to jazzy swing. It’s quite satisfying to pick up everything around you while listening to such lyrics as “I want to wad you up into my life.” Aside from the mechanics and music, the visuals are highly stylized and full of colors so bright that they are almost hard on the eyes at first. The towering King of All Cosmos is terrifying with his huge head and tights that leave nothing to the imagination. Yet the little prince you control is so tiny and seemingly helpless, it’s hard not to love him.

With all these unique qualities, it’s no surprise that Katamari has spawned fiercely loyal fans. I am among them, even though I have not gotten around to finishing the game. However, this does not stop me from expressing my love of the game to others. I showed my partners the multiplayer mode of the game, in an effort to get them used to the unique world and innovative mechanics. I wanted to show them an experience that was very different from anything they had experiences, and Katamari is one of those games that truly has to be played to be understood.

After my partners had gotten a taste of Katamari, I played a quick demo of Okami. After all, I had heard little about the game until I saw someone else playing it. After watching the fluid movements of the wolf and staring transfixed at the screen for half an hour, I decided I had to play it. The art style is so unique in how it combined brush art with a 3-D environment that I was captivated simply as a viewer. My partners were similarly impressed with the art and flow of the movements. In the short time I played for them, they could see why I loved it.

This leads me to wonder, why do we love to share games with other people? In the one semester time that I have had the privilege of studying games in school, I have found a community of people who love games. They love talking about games and sharing their personal experiences. It could be about the desire to know the latest news, but I like to think that it could be more than that. Perhaps it’s more about sharing what we love with others and hoping that the market will someday adapt. I know that I dream of the day when innovation outsells the sequels, but it hardly seems commercially viable. Perhaps I love to share simply because I love games; I want understand the pleasure I find in video games and why I need to play them.