Keita Takahashi, game developer and apparent future playground designer, is best known for Katamari Damacy and its sequel We Love Katamari. Both games are extremely creative and have spawned an incredibly devoted fan following, there’s even an iPhone game– I love Katamari [$4.99 / Free]. Takahashi kicked things up a notch with his next game, Noby Noby Boy which was first revealed at a Sony event in 2007, and didn’t make it to the PS3 PlayStationNetwork store until 2009.
In the PS3 game, you take control of a multicolored worm character that the game refers to as “BOY". With the analog sticks you can move BOY around the 3D environment filled with various buildings and animals. You can also stretch BOY, and points are accumulated by making BOY grow as long as possible. As players stretch their respective BOYs, points are collected by an online character called GIRL which causes GIRL to stretch through the various planets of our solar system as more points are submitted by everyone playing Noby Noby Boy.
This surreal sandbox PS3 game saw generally favorable reviews, but there was a clear division between those who absolutely loved the game for how crazy it is and those who hated it. For instance, Eurogamer said the game “inspires creativity, curiosity and simple, careless glee" while ArsTechnica said “Noby Noby Boy has no point, or fun".
In honor of the one year anniversary of Noby Noby Boy’s release on PSN comes Noby Noby Boy [$1.99] for the iPhone. So far reactions to the game seem extremely polarized, with people either absolutely loving the game, or not understanding why anyone would waste their time with it. In the iPhone version, you have access to a full toolbar of toys for you to play with. BOY can be stretched across maps utilizing the iPhone’s GPS, you can write and store memo’s using BOY’s body for a notepad, use BOY as a clock, and oodles of other crazy things ending in you submitting your BOY’s length to GIRL online.
Here is the first of a twelve part series of movies made showing the various features of Noby Noby Boy:
I’m not sure there’s much point in attempting to “review" this game, as Noby Noby Boy is just a collection of toys that you will either love, or not understand at all. If you’re among the group of people who were crazy about Noby Noby Boy for the PS3, chances are you will like the similar insane sandboy play of the iPhone game. If you’ve never heard of Noby Noby Boy, you can attempt to watch the previously mentioned series of videos to try to make some sense of it, but much like the thread on our forums I expect the reaction to this story is going to be similarly split between people who are excited the game exists and people who don’t know why we would bother posting about it.
App Store Link: Noby Noby Boy, $1.99
