I'm a very hard to please gamer. I read more about games than play them, because there is very few games that pleases me. To be frank, I don't play much popular games, especially FPSes. I played Half-Life 2 halfway, and stopped. RPGs, I haven't even touched Dragon Quest or Zelda before. WoW bores me at level 30. So really, I missed the experience of all these games.
I don't really have the time to play these games. My genres are mostly short games, that doesn't take too long to play. One of my favourites include Katamari Damacy. So this post I shall analyse why Katamari Damacy is so fun.
Katamari Damacy
The game first strikes players with it's unique cartoony graphics. It is a style of it's own. Blocky graphic with a colorful palette. It causes everyone to be curious and actually check the game out.
The gameplay is summarised as: Roll over things to stick them onto your ball and become bigger. And bigger. No quest like "Become bigger to kill the monster". It's straightforward. Why are players even doing all these? The excuse is that we are supposed to create a bigger star, but none of us bothers.
So why is this simple concept so addictive? There were a few factors I found satisfying.
First of all, you start the game as a small ball rolling around in the small house. Initially, it was pins that you would roll over, then erasers, pencils, caramels. Who would have thought such things were so interesting? You start out small, everything looks big to you. So you set an aim to become bigger and start to roll.
Slowly you become a book sized ball and pins and erasers are all insignificant to you. The cassette tapes suddenly look very important to you. Books were all no match for you now. You skip past the oranges to go for the watermelons because it's bigger.
So the stage ends. You ended your introductory stage. 3 minutes game. So how does another go sound? Stage 2.
Now, you are not just limited to the house. You are given access to the outside world. You see golf balls, golf poles, dogs, cats, birds, potted plants and various stuff. You start out small again, that pins and erasers and mahjong's tiles looked so big to you. You become bigger, become watermelon sized, and became big enough to overcome the barriers and roll outside. Now you see new stuff. Living things. You stuck the dogs and cats, ignoring whatever cries they made (they are going to die in space by the way) and become even bigger than you were in stage 1.
Finally, you begin to think "How big could I get?". As you moved past the stages, Katamari really caused you to think like that. Initially within a house. Then outside a house. Then, you were shocked then you could actually roll over human beings!! And they are totally helpless to your car sized ball. Then you thought maybe that's the end? You start rolling houses. But still, gigantic buildings like schools and towering buildings seems like the end. No. You become even bigger. You roll over houses, elephants, whales, and become as big as the tower. You roll over the tower. Ok, how much bigger? Surely there must be a limitation to this, this is just a PS2!! The final stage, you start out as small as a golf ball again, rolling over pins. At the end of the 30 minute game, you are sucking up entire islands, clouds, meteors. Even the land that you spawn in, you became so big that you actually rolled over the land. The end of the game usually ends up the stage becoming totally just a sea. No more land to roll over.
Obviously, this is a shock to the player. Who would have expected this? The first time i rolled over a human, I was stunned. Then I rolled over my first house. Shocked again. Then I rolled over the Twin Tower replica. What the. Then I rolled over the Earth.
So you roll over EVERYTHING in the game. Why do you still play after you finish? What's the thrill of this game. It is the fact you conquer over everything. In the beginning, books are gigantic walls. You feel weak. So you rolled over the erasers and pencils and gradually bigger. Now you stomp over the stack of books as if they are an ant. Even humans, cars can only delay your rampage. Buildings become no match either. So basically, Katamari Damacy is a game about conquering over everything. You feel supreme.
Secondly, not everything is dead in the game. As I said, humans and cars knock you over many times in the game while you were still small. In fact, beginning, even mice, cats, dogs, snails are major obstacles. Especially cats, when they will really chase your ball and knock you around so many times. You feel frustrated. That alligator is blocking you! Argh. I want my revenge.
So I become bigger, and roll over the very cat or alligator or car that knock me in the first place. They cry out for help, but you are merciless. Revenge is sweet.
Finally, with such a dark theme in this game, the soundtrack is the final addition. It's a cute soundtrack coupled with cute graphics. You don't really feel the stress within this game, you feel addicted partly because of the cute presentation. It's catchy. And you don't feel the damage over rolling over living things. You feel like a conquerer in this cute world. You don't feel the stress.
That's why I love Katamari Damacy. The concept is very nicely designed. This game idea came out when the creator saw 2 pandas hugging each other and rolling around. That's it. It took the creator several tries to get the game published. Namco wanted to spice up things by introducing a more realistic graphic style. But the creator doesn't want that. He did it right.
