GDCE: 'Feature: Seeing What Sticks: Developing a Katamari Sequel'

In today's coverage of GDC Europe in London, Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi gave an open and personal look into the making of its sequel, We Love Katamari, including his admission that he had never planned on making a sequel. In this excerpt, Takahashi shares some of his thoughts on packaging and what they couldn't get into the sequel: "Keita also examines the importance of packaging to him, describing how when as a child he played videogames he would pore over manuals which extended the pleasure of experience by re-living it in his mind. The lavishly illustrated Japanese manual of We Love Katamari and the playful cover of the outside of Namco building, with the design team holding up signs and a Giraffe on the roof is a world away from Inevitable Sequel VII. While Keita admits some would critique this and the game’s title as self-indulgence, he views it as an attack on the stupefying seriousness. And it’s fun. Fun for him, his team and hopefully everyone else. He dwells on areas and elements they hoped to get into the sequel, but proved impossible for either time or technical reasons. On the technical side, a worms-eye view of the katamari to let you understand how big you’ve managed to make the enormous bolus proved unachievable. More esoteric urges to try and make the decreasing of katamari size not be a negative, fail-state aspect in the game were equally unachievable." You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject (no registration required, please feel free to link to the article from external websites).