Keita Takahashi of Namco Bandai is not like your ordinary game designer; he believes modern games have lost the vital element of fun, and has made it his mission to bring it back. Takahashi’s first game, Katamari Damacy was an unexpected mass market success, as audiences gathered together to enjoy the junk collecting ways of the prince and his katamari as he attempts to recreate the solar system (after it was destroyed by the King of All Cosmos during a drunken bender). After working on the sequel, We Love Katamari, Takahashi grew tired of the concept and started work on Noby Noby Boy for the PlayStation 3.


Like Katamari Damacy, Noby Noby Boy is totally off the wall, unlike anything that has come before. Players control the Boy character, who can stretch at will, and eats things in a way that’s not dissimilar to a tapeworm. The Boy needs to eat and stretch, and then report his length to Girl, who is in the process of stretching from Earth to all of the planets in space, in order to connect them together and make everybody friends. Girl’s progress represents the current cumulative total of all lengths reported by Boy from all players of Noby Noby Boy.

Noby Noby Boy is designed to be a relaxing game. There is no success or failure (falling off the edge results in a respawn) and no time limits. Players are briefly introduced to the basic mechanics of the game, and then sent on their way. Boy is controlled with the analogue sticks; the left stick controlling his front end, and the right controlling his backside. By moving each end in opposite directions, Boy can be stretched out further. One has to be mindful of just how far Boy is being stretched; stretch him too thin and he’ll snap, but he can be reformed by using the respawn function. To make Boy grow larger, players can eat a variety of objects around a level. Eating can also be used to create new objects; simply eat one of each object you want to merge then poop them out with the R2 button.

Players are never really told what to do beyond creating length to report to Girl, so each randomly generated level in Noby Noby Boy is like a glorified playground. You can stretch Boy out as far as you want and get him all tangled up in the scenery, create all kinds of weird and wonderful creatures, or take the happy citizens of each world for a ride.


While many will celebrate Noby Noby Boy’s unique gameplay style and appearance, it also has a number of other impressive features. When the cumulative length of all players’ scores stretches Girl to a new planet, a new level is unlocked. While the levels are all pretty much the same square shaped land mass, new objects and animals are spawned. It’s a unique method of time release that should help keep the game fresh over the coming months. Noby Noby Boy is the first game on the PlayStation 3 to support direct capture and upload of footage to Youtube. By pressing the square button during gameplay, players can start capturing footage, and then edit it and upload it to the video portal when they are done. Hopefully we’ll see the feature expand to more new games in the coming months.

Noby Noby Boy is probably going to be the most bizarre game released on any format in 2009, but for just $AU6.95, it is well worth checking out. The relaxing nature, the impressive online integration and the general wackiness of the game should please even the most jaded of gamers.