Noby Noby Boy – Free update brings new music, fart boy...

[jkwest]

http://o--o.jp

Publisher: NAMCO BANDAI Games
Developer: NAMCO BANDAI Games
Platform: Exclusive to the PLAYSTATION®3 Computer Entertainment System
Genre: Puzzle / Experimental
Players: Single-Player
Extras: Trophies, Custom Soundtrack, Video Recording with YouTube Upload, Screenshot Capture
Rating: ESRB “E” for Everyone

Released on the PlayStation Store: OUT NOW – $4.99 / €3.99 / £3.19 / ¥800

Gameplay Trailer

GOLD TROPHIES

[Show spoiler]Eat Your Words!
Eat the words NOBY NOBY BOY within the manual or in the staff credits.

SILVER TROPHIES

[Show spoiler]765
Report a length of exactly 765m to GIRL.

[Show spoiler]The Prince
Take the Prince for a ride.

[Show spoiler]Unproportional
Make BOY's body grow thicker while keeping his head small.

[Show spoiler]Combined Character
Create a combined character by eating an animal and a human or a fruit and a human.

BRONZE TROPHIES

[Show spoiler]10
Take 10 inhabitants for a ride.

[Show spoiler]20
Eat 20 inhabitants.

[Show spoiler]100
Stretch BOY to a length of 100m.

[Show spoiler]Bye-Bye BOY
Meet up with Bye-Bye BOY.

[Show spoiler]The BOY House
Rotate the roof of the BOY House.

[Show spoiler]The Space Squirrel
Find the Space Squirrel.

[Show spoiler]BOY Quiz Expert
Answer all questions correctly in the BOY Quiz.

[jkwest]

VIDEO

I just watched this and I have no idea what to expect from this one...

Made by the creator of Katamari games...and its coming to the PSN!!

I can't wait to find out more about it..

More info here...
http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3171839&p=37

"What do you do?"

That's the question I heard from four separate co-workers yesterday when they peeked into my office to see what I was playing. It's a valid question. Noby Noby Boy has stages, characters, and objects to interact with, but it's up to the player to decide how to have fun with them, resulting in something closer to a literal "sandbox" than the kind of game that word usually describes.

It's a hard game to explain without sounding silly. Picture a physics playground. You control a pink worm with feet named BOY, and move, eat objects to stretch your stomach, jump to any height you choose, and stretch lengthwise by pulling yourself in opposite directions, without any specific objectives. Then after you stretch BOY for a while, you can "report" how many meters you stretched to GIRL, causing her to stretch as well. But while BOY is a reasonably-sized character with an elastic torso, GIRL is a giant who starts life in Earth's orbit in space, and as everyone playing on PlayStation Network cumulatively reports stretching scores, GIRL grows bit by bit, eventually stretching herself from Earth to The Moon, Mars, Jupiter, etc. (and in the process unlocking these settings for all players).
Don't worry -- I'd think you were lying if you tried to explain it to me, too. But it's that level of weirdness that makes it fun. Noby Noby Boy isn't failing at trying to be normal; it's reveling in being different, much like the previous game from its creator Keita Takahashi, Katamari Damacy. Which puts it in comfortable territory as a downloadable PSN game.

The Way Things Work

As the game begins (this would be after the twitchy parrot shows up in the corner of the screen to signify whether you are online, and before you've stretched long enough to tie yourself into a knot), a yellow fairy that looks like a peanut introduces itself and asks you a series of questions. This quiz serves as the game's tutorial -- each question is about the controls, and you guess each answer by pressing buttons, tilting the camera, etc.

The first time I played, it was at about this point that I realized it was fun to simply move around, which is something I don't tend to notice about games that aren't Super Mario Galaxy or Mirror's Edge. As you may have guessed by looking at the character design, you move the left analog stick to control BOY's head and the right to bring up his rear, and before you stretch yourself out too far, this setup works extremely well -- move the two sticks in the same direction to walk quickly, move them in opposite directions to stretch like chewing gum, and snap the sticks back together to flip around and perform ad hoc stunts.

But if you looked at the screenshots, you probably also noticed that many of them show BOY with what looks like a long multicolored sock in place of his torso. As you pull his two ends away from each other, you can stretch his belly into different lengths, eventually making him so long that his body is more that two times the length of the map itself. This makes him difficult to control since you still just have control over his two ends, and the giant rope in the middle just follows the laws of physics. If you get too long, you can even snap into two parts. It's like Will Wright's metaphor for greed in The Sims -- the more ambitious you get, the harder the game becomes to control.

Fortunately, the game realizes this, so if at any point you fall off the edge or want to reset yourself, you can hold down a button and reappear out of the chimney of a house near the middle of the map. This house also serves as part of the game's interface -- if you want to move to a new map or quit, you enter the front door and select your option from there. Each world -- Earth, The Moon, etc. -- features a variety of map types, with different objects and creatures in them, and they are all randomly generated within these various themes, so on Earth you may come across a dog level, a dice level, or a sports level.
The other unique part of the game's interface is that -- using the game's camera controls -- you can zoom out your view so far that you get a view of the entire planet and GIRL out in the galaxy looking down on you as you play. From there you can see how close GIRL is to reaching the rest of the solar system, and check up on statistics like how much you personally have contributed to her progress, who contributes the most each day, and your rank amongst other players (shown in a marching line with an avatar representing every player in the order of how much they've contributed).

That same camera system also poses a few issues in the preview build I've been playing -- because the game uses the right analog stick for movement, the camera controls are split between button presses that move your view up/down or left/right, and options where you hold down buttons and tilt the PS3 controller in different directions. You end up with all the options you need, but it takes a while to acclimate yourself to all the intricacies. This is less of a problem than it would be if the game featured enemies or challenges you could fail at, and is something that may be improved before release, but it's currently less than ideal.

Finding the Fun

To return to the comment from the beginning of this story, the most common criticism of Noby Noby Boy around the office is that the game doesn't set enough goals for players -- it's less of a game, and more of a playground. Katamari was an unusual mechanic wrapped inside traditional objectives and time limits, while Noby Noby Boy is an unusual mechanic without any of those trappings. But I've been playing the game almost nonstop for the past few days, and have been trying to figure out why I keep playing. And I think it comes down to a feeling that there's always something new to discover.

This isn't a game that tells you everything about itself up front. It gives you a short quiz and then lets you loose. If you want to trip the guy riding his bicycle, or make BOY super long and thread him through buildings or the donut-shaped clouds in the sky, that's up to you. I've had fun seeing how large I could stretch (current record is just over 500 meters) and trying to tie myself into a knot. I've eaten my way through the epilepsy warning, spotted cameos from Mappy and the Prince from Katamari, written messages on the side of BOY, befriended characters so they surf on my back, and recorded video clips (the game has an option so you can send them to YouTube).
That's not to say I wouldn't prefer a few objectives here and there, or perhaps more frequent rewards for messing around and stretching to certain lengths -- and maybe I'll get some of those, since the game is still in development -- but I find the game holding my attention without all of that. I'm not alone either. I haven't figured out if it's despite the structure or because of it, but I've never had as many coworkers stop by to check out what I'm playing as I have with this game.

And that's probably a good sign for Namco Bandai, since they are relying on the community to make this concept work. They're planning a simultaneous worldwide release for early 2009, with the estimate that it will take the group of PSN players 1-2 weeks to stretch GIRL enough to reach The Moon. So those who buy the game the first day it's available will be able to participate in a gradual discovery of the solar system, planet by planet. And those who feel like letting others do the heavy lifting for them can buy it a year down the line and have everything unlocked for them right from the start.

[Monkey]

The developers will be sued for making kids fat.

[tommyboy81]

lol. It poops too.

[EvanX]

I thought for sure we had a thread on this.....

[Cyorg]

The graphics and sound effects remind me of the "hint or else" ads from Game Stop.

[Shin-Ra]

http://o--o.jp/ Official WEB WEB BOY Website.

Due January 29th in Asia.

In North America and Europe, Namco's only committing to 'Early 2009' but I think Keita Takahashi has previously commented that they're aiming for a simultaneous worldwide release. It makes sense with the Noby Noby Girl co-operative online content unlocking aspect.

[u_nick]

Nice update. Love the little dude that follows around your mouse on the site. Can't wait till more and more news rolls in on this title.

[zedd_117]

Greatest Thread name ever!

[jamclaur]

I can honestly say I have NO clue what that game is about from that video.

[joegs300]

This game is a cross between Viva Pinata, Snake, Pac-man and Spore. On crack.

[quexos]

It feels more like a Wii game. Hope they provide a demo since we Europeans are not allowed to access the PSN with pre-paid cards.

[highdef monster]

Originally Posted by jamclaur

I can honestly say I have NO clue what that game is about from that video.

I couldnt agree more
Maybe it something for preschool kids,who knows?

[dk3dknight]

When I saw my first screen shot I became extremely afraid..
thankfully not for my wallet..

Well Children hope you enjoy this one.

[Goodintentions]

this will be another one of those great games that noone plays ..
like psychonauts and beyond good and evil ..

[dk3dknight]

Originally Posted by Goodintentions

this will be another one of those great games that noone plays ..
like psychonauts and beyond good and evil ..

To me its going to be one of those terrible games that everyone plays and sets as the standards of quality...

Making people like me hit our heads continuously until our brains fly out of our heads.

[Shin-Ra]

I love the ESRB's online rating summary.

This is a puzzle game in which players control a large snake-like creature whose objective is to grow by gobbling up objects (e.g., mailboxes, small animals, houses, etc.). Players advance in the game by growing the creature as big as possible and then reporting its length to a character in space. Consumed objects sometimes pop out of the snake's rear end, making a comical "splat" sound.

http://www.esrb.org/ratings/synopsis...tificate=26261

[TauRus]

I can easily see "my snake is bigger" type of comments coming from the fans of this game

[Septimus Prime]

On the site, the release date is pegged for January 29.

[browinie]

I wonder if this'll get a BD release too, at cut price ala Siren: BC?