Analysis: How Katamari’s Scale Makes You High

[In this analysis piece taken from 'The Interactive Palette', a bi-weekly column on sister site GameSetWatch, game designer Gregory Weir (Majesty of Colors) pulls examples from Namco Bandai's Katamari Damacy to explore how games can convey increased power for player characters as they progress.]

The narrative of most video games is one of increasing power. The player begins the game weak and unskilled, and gradually gains experience and abilities over the course of gameplay.

Typically, games start off relatively easy and become more difficult, with the hardest part of the game being the end. In some games, like roleplaying games, this character growth is explicit, represented by increasing statistics. In others, such as many arcade games, there is only the player’s growing skill and experience.

Nowhere is the process of increasing character power made more concrete than in Namco’s Katamari Damacy. The game begins with the player character smaller than an apple, rolling up tiny object into his ball, or katamari. By the end of the game, the player character is pushing a ball bigger than a city and tearing up continents.

Pac-Man

Katamari Damacy has essentially the same gameplay as Namco’s most famous product, Pac-Man. The player overcomes navigational difficulties to collect a large number of mostly identical objects.

When a certain number of objects has been collected, play progresses to a different arena. Their settings and aesthetics are different, but the feeling of collecting “stuff” and the flow of an efficient path is shared between both games.

The biggest gameplay difference between the two games is how challenge is added. In Pac-Man, the player must avoid and neutralize malicious ghosts. If she is caught by the ghosts too many times, the game is over.

In Katamari Damacy, the player is constrained by a timer and the scale of her character. Collecting objects increases the size of the player’s ball, and the bigger the objects, the bigger the ball must be before the player can collect them.

It is the sense of scale, however, that truly sets the games apart. When playing Pac-Man, later levels mean faster and less vulnerable ghosts. The game is harder, but it is essentially the same experience.

With Katamari Damacy, on the other hand, there is an immediate and dramatic difference between the early game and the late game. Because the objects being collected are recognizable, the player can see the difference between collecting a toothpick and uprooting a skyscraper. The ball itself even handles differently; the larger it gets, the slower and more ponderous its motion becomes.

This dramatic sense of scale greatly enhances the player’s feeling of progression and accomplishment. By making the player feel increasingly powerful, the game heightens the emotional impact of advancement. The player’s excitement over her progress causes her to become more invested and immersed in the game.

Techniques

Katamari Damacy achieves its sense of scale in several ways. The first is by using clear objects of reference. Second, it provides continuity as the player’s ball grows. Finally, the player’s sensory experience changes with the game’s scale.

Katamari Damacy’s setting provides it with clear objects of reference that help the player quickly and easily gauge her size. The game is set in a stylized version of the modern world, populated with many objects, from dice to people to cars to houses. These simply-rendered objects immediately provide a cue as to the size of the player’s ball.

Imagine if the game were set in a fantasy world. The modern player does not have a firm grasp of how big a castle or dragon should be, so scale in this hypothetical Katamari Fantasy would be much more vague.

Likewise, if Katamari Damacy’s portrayal of its setting was more realistic, then there would be a wider variety of each type of object, and fewer objects scattered about. There would be several subtly different sizes of car and more variation of houses, while the ground would no longer be littered with neat rows of tulips or clusters of teddy bears.

Another valuable technique that Katamari Damacy uses is continuity of scale. Over the course of a single level, the player’s ball grows from a few centimeters to a few meters or more. Objects that were once so large that they didn’t register in the player’s attention gradually become small enough to absorb.

Because this process happens continuously, the player can say, “I recognize that tree; a few minutes ago, I was rolling among its roots.”

The developers could have made each size class a seperate level, with one level where the player is the size of an orange, and another where she controls a katamari the size of a beachball. In this case, the player would still have an intellectual awareness of growth, but she would lose the visceral feeling of gradual growth, and the retrospective ability to see the now-tiny place where the level started.

The third technique for highlighting scale is the change in sensation associated with the change in size. A small katamari is nimble but light, able to turn on a dime but liable to be bounced around by larger objects and unable to roll over obstacles with its momentum.

A large katamari is the opposite; it’s slow and massive. At its largest, a katamari is hard to turn and slow to accelerate, but once it gets going, it plows through or over everything in its path.

In addition to this tactile sensation, there are effective visual cues to size. Each size milestone is associated with a woosh and a zoom out. This presumably serves to mask certain graphical anomalies related to the disappearance of small items, but it also is a compelling message that the ball is indeed getting larger.

At the end of a level, when the katamari is as huge as it will get, the camera pulls out far, and the level is obscured by clouds or fog, highlighting the extreme size of the ball.

Applying Scale

Obviously, not every video game has a protagonist that grows extremely in size. The techniques for scale that Katamari Damacy uses cannot be directly applied.

However, as previously discussed, most games have a gradual increase in power over the course of a level or the entire game. This increase in power can be highlighted in the same way that Katamari highlights its increase in size.

Katamari Damacy contains objects that serve as size reference points. Other games can use similar reference points. A combat game where the protagonist becomes more skilled with a gun can have easily recognized enemy archetypes. At the beginning of the game, enemy footsoldiers can be a challenge; by the end, the player is skilled and equipped enough to handle special forces.

Half-Life does this well; headcrabs are initially a dangerous threat, but they eventually become tiny and simple-to-kill in comparison to the huge alien grunts.

Katamari Damacy’s continuity of scale can be adapted by enforcing a unity of setting on games. Players can be shown familiar landmarks, which they return to repeatedly through the game with increasing abilities. If the player is able to return to easier areas of the game, she will have a more concrete idea of how far she has progressed.

Finally, the progression of a character can be shown through the feel and look of the game. Controlling a more powerful protagonist should be a different experience.

Knytt Stories is an excellent example of this. The game begins with a slow, not-too-nimble protagonist, but as the character Juni gains abilities, she becomes faster, more agile, and simply feels more fluid. This is more than just the acquisition of a hookshot to bypass a barrier; a late-game Juni feels different from an early-game Juni.

By taking lessons from Katamari Damacy, developers can create game experiences that better portray the experience of gaining power that is essential to so many video games.

When a player feels herself becoming more experienced or capable, she will have a stronger emotional reaction to the game and will feel more invested in her actions. When a protagonist is powerful, it should feel powerful to control. It’s one thing to read that a character is level 20, and another for it to feel 20 times as strong as it used to be.

[Gregory Weir is a writer, game developer, and software programmer. He maintains Ludus Novus, a podcast and accompanying blog dedicated to the art of interaction. He can be reached at Gregory.Weir@gmail.com.]

Japanese Charts: Dissidia Still Leads As Post-Holiday Sales Slow

With the Japanese New Year gift-giving season now over, sales for the week have predictably slowed – analogous to the first weeks after Christmas in the West. There are again no new entries, with limited movement in the chart overall.

Square Enix’s Dissidia: Final Fantasy is once again the number one seller, with weekly sales of 49,000 units and lifetime sales-to-date of 819,000.

The budget re-release of Capcom’s Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, also on PSP, moves up to number two, with overall sales of the game in Japan now well on their way towards 3 million units.

Although overall sales are low, this has proven a good week for Sony. Fully half of the top 10 is composed of PlayStation titles, with White Knight Chronicles on PlayStation 3 holding steady at number six and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue: Spec III moving up four places to number 11.

Namco Bandai and Koei co-production Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 on PlayStation 2 also rises 11 places to number eight, with the PS3 version up five places to number 15.

TW	LW	Title	Publisher	Format	Weekly Sales
1	1	Dissidia: Final Fantasy	Square Enix	PSP	49,000
2	9	Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G	Capcom	PSP	34,000
3	2	Rhythm Tengoku Gold	Nintendo	DS	33,000
4	4	Wii Fit	Nintendo	Wii	30,000
5	7	Wagamama Fashion: Gals Mode	Nintendo	DS	29,000
6	6	Shirokishi Monogatari: Inishie no Kodou	Sony	PS3	26,000
7	11	Gran Turismo 5 Prologue: Spec III	Sony	PS3	25,000
8	19	Gundam Musou 2	Namco Bandai	PS2	25,000
9	3	Hoshi no Kirby: Ultra Super Deluxe	Nintendo	DS	23,000
10	8	Mario Kart Wii	Nintendo	Wii	22,000

Media Create Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Feature: ‘Practical Game Playtesting: A Wii-Based Case Study’

Despite the studio’s assumption that users would immediately pick up on tilting the Wii Remote to control their cars in the game, Sidhe found that its playtesting group, made up of mostly 9 to 14 year olds, were often confused by the tutorial animation provided for the controls.

The majority of players perceived this guide how to hold the controller from the top down, and so would control the car as if they were using the steering wheel of a pickup truck. As a result, their movements weren’t being picked up, and the players were frustrated with the inaccurate controls

“This went on for some time, and no matter how we adjusted the images or the animation, players were just not getting how to hold the Wiimote. This was getting to be a huge problem, because the game was effectively stuck in the water. Nobody could play it.

The solution to the problem was actually incredibly simple. Observing people reading the instructions, I realized that while they had the animation and the images, they had no frame of reference to them. Each person would see and interpret them differently.

Therefore, for the loading screen we put in a simple black and white image of a television screen, with the Wiimote in front of it. It was hoped that this image would act like a frame of reference for holding the Wiimote. And it worked! The next time we ran a playtesting session the players picked up the Wiimote and were able to instantly drive.”

To help users track their health in the game’s early stages, the studio made it so that the the color of the flame coming from the car would change in relation to its health. For example, when the color was a deep red, the car was not far from exploding.

Later stages, however, removed this indicator, hoping to provide more challenge to players as they’d have to be more aware of their car’s status:

“The first time we implemented this, players kept blowing up and, from their perspective, they had no idea why. The problem here was that players were becoming accustomed to the game informing them about their status, and when it no longer did this, instead of learning how to play the game without it, they just blew up.

The first thing we did to try and solve this was to simply remove it altogether — to force the player into learning how the UI worked. Unfortunately this approach completely backfired, with players simply blowing up all over the place. This was not a good turn of events.

So, the only thing left was to put everything back in and make sure it flashed up whenever the player’s health was low or when boost was available. This is actually an interesting situation, because it shows how much players rely on the game informing them about important states.”

You can read the full feature, which includes more examples of what issues Sidhe Interactive ran into while playtesting Speed Racer for Wii, and how the studio addressed those problems (no registration required, please feel free to link to this feature from other websites).

Video Games Harmful To Health, Claims Proposed Package Label

Many video games will carry a health warning label, if legislation proposed by Congressman Joe Baca (D-CA) succeeds.

Baca, along with co-sponsor Frank R. Wolf (R-VA), has proposed the Video Game Health Labeling Act of 2009 (HR 231), which would create a Consumer Product Safety Commission-enforced rule mandating a label on all games rated T for Teen or M for Mature by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board.

The label would read, “WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior.”

As of last year, T- and M-rated games comprised about a quarter of all titles rated by the ESRB.

“The video game industry has a responsibility to parents, families, and to consumers – to inform them of the potentially damaging content that is often found in their products,” said Baca, who boasted in a press release that he is “a lead advocate in Congress” on media content issues. “They have repeatedly failed to live up to this responsibility. Meanwhile research continues to show a proven link between playing violent games and increased aggression in young people. American families deserve to know the truth about these potentially dangerous products.”

Baca cites studies from the Pediatrics Journal, the University of Indiana, the University of Missouri, and Michigan State University, claiming “a neurological link between playing violent video games and aggressive behavior.”

The claim made by Baca and his proposed label has long been a subject of public contention, frequently leading to game-related legislation, most of which fails to pass or is eventually struck down.

Japanese Hardware: DS Well Ahead In Initial 2009 Data

 

Following the first weekly software chart of 2009 in Japan, hardware data for the region shows the Nintendo DS format is still comfortably ahead of its rivals. Combined sales of the DSi and DS Lite models were down by 14,000 units, but still dominated the market with a total of 230,678.

With Dissidia: Final Fantasy back at number one, the PSP saw a significant boost this week, up 38,000 units to 157,088. With sales falling by 15,000 units to 119,965, the Wii slipped back into third place, behind Sony’s portable.

Despite a large drop in second week sales for White Knight Chronicles, the PlayStation 3 saw an increase in sales of over 14,500 units to 60,654. By the narrowest of margins (the week’s data covers December 29th to January 4th), this just tipped the console’s 2008 total in Japan to over 1 million units sold. The PlayStation 3’s lifetime total in the country now stands at over 2.5 million units.

Although for the second week running there are no Xbox 360 titles in the software top 50, the console still saw an increase in sales, up 7,000 units to 19,964. PlayStation 2 sales also rose by 2,000 units to 10,404.

Overall in the top 50, there were 24 titles for the Nintendo DS, 14 for the Wii, seven for the PSP, four for the PlayStation 3, one for the PlayStation 2, and none for the Xbox 360.

Ask the Experts: Informational Interviews

 

GameCareerGuide.com, Gamasutra’s sister site for educational topics and career advice in game development, has just posted the latest in its biweekly advice column “Ask the Experts,” this time on informational interviews. 

Jill Duffy, columnist and site editor, explains what an informational interview is, how to get one with game developers, and what kinds of questions are appropriate to ask. The special extended edition of the column is available for free on GameCareerGuide, and an excerpt is provided below. 

(For more 101 advice and information about careers in game developer, see the Getting Started section on GameCareerGuide.)

Dear Experts,

Regarding the call in “Ask the Experts: Programmer Applicant’s Checklist” (July 23, 2007) for potential applicants to “request for an information interview,” how would you suggest doing this? Writing the HR department with a generic request, finding a specific employee? 

Thanks.
S. A.

Dear S. A.,

Yours is a very good question.

About a year ago at a conference, I was sitting near a fairly prominent game designer, waiting for a lecture to begin. A young man noticed him, approached him, and told him that he had aspirations to one day become a game designer himself. 

He asked would it be okay for him to call this game designer up and “pick his brain.” The designer said, “Well, what do you want to ask me?” The young man said, “I just would like to, you know, chat about designing video games for maybe 30 minutes or so.” I think he offered to buy him lunch.

The game designer politely but firmly said, “I’m sorry. No. If I spent the day chatting with every student who wanted to just talk to me, I would never get any work done.”

That scenario is an example of someone looking for an informational interview, though sadly, it took a few wrong turns. He didn’t quite understand what an informational interview is, and that fact was made prevalent in the way he went about asking for one. 

Still, I give the young man credit for trying. Remember, in anything that requires persistence (including getting a job in the game industry), you might have to hear “no” a hundred times before you hear “yes.” But, each time you hear “no,” be sure to pause and think about whether you need to tweak your approach, or perhaps your intended goal. …

[For the complete article, please see “Ask the Experts: Informational Interviews” on GameCareerGuide.com. You can also comment on the article and give a second opinion on the site's forum.]

GameStop Reports Record Holiday Sales, 22 Percent Growth

 

Declaring that it “rises above recession,” retailer GameStop reported record results for the nine-week holiday season, with sales up 22.3 percent year-over-year to $2.3 million.

Comparable store sales also increased 10.2 percent over the period, during which GameStop said it saw “outstanding” sales of new games. Its top sellers were Activision’s Call of Duty: World at War and Guitar Hero World Tour; Microsoft’s Gears of War 2, Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, and Nintendo’s Wii Fit.

GameStop said it also saw “robust” hardware sales led by the Wii and the Xbox 360, “dramatically increasing the installed base of new users,” and suggesting that the hardware boost would continue to further drive software sales over the coming year.

“As expected, the consumer saw great entertainment value in video games in one of the most challenging holiday shopping seasons ever,” says GameStop CEO Dan DeMatteo. “In fact, in the midst of a serious recession, our average transaction was higher this year than last.”

The company’s sales grew in every territory in which it operates stores, DeMatteo added, “a clear indication that the GameStop model works everywhere.”

COO J. Paul Raines also adds that gift card sales over the nine-week holiday period rose 15 percent year over year — and that the day after Christmas was the third-highest sales volume day in the company’s history. 

The company met its earnings forecast and raised its fiscal fourth quarter 2008 comparable store sales guidance slightly by a half a percent, and its earnings per share guidance by 15 to 18 percent over the previous year’s quarter.

NPD: Game Consoles More Popular Than Music Devices With Kids

 

A new study by The NPD Group suggests that video games are more popular with U.S. children than music devices.

According to its Kids & Digital Content III report, which polled 3,605 children ages 2-14 who use electronic devices, 85 percent of the kids said they use game consoles, while only 60 percent reported using portable digital audio players.

One-third said they watch videos such as movies and online video clips on laptops or other electronic devices, and 22 percent responded that they download ringtones on their cell phones.

Video game console usage has been increasing due to 9-14 year olds playing games more, and also due to more girls using consoles. 57 percent of girls said they play games in the 2008 survey, compared to 50 percent in 2006.

“Although the most dramatic increase in usage of these devices happens at about age 9, playing games appears to be an activity that first engages young kids with the digital world,” says The NPD Group analyst Anita Frazier.

“Our study finds that 82 percent of kids ages 2-to-5 play games on one or more of the devices surveyed.”

Japanese Charts: PS3’s White Knight Debuts On Top

 

Sony has enjoyed another number one hit in Japan, with PlayStation 3 exclusive White Knight Chroniclesbecoming the best selling title in one of the country’s busiest sales weeks. 

With the Japanese gift-giving period centering around New Year celebrations, the week ending December 28th saw significant sales across the board.

Developed by Dragon Quest VIII andProfessor Layton creator Level-5, role-playing game White Knight Chronicleshas long been seen as one of the PlayStation 3’s most important exclusives for the Japanese market. Recently confirmed for future release in the West, the game sold 206,954 units in its first week.

A total of five games in the top 10 sold over 100,000 units, although with New Year’s Eve just days away there were few other new entries.Dissidia: Final Fantasy for the PSP was the second-highest seller, with impressive second week sales of 176,385 units.

Animal Crossing: City Folk for Wii was at number three with 144,179 unit sales, with Kirby Super Star Ultra on Nintendo DS at number four with 140,934 units and Wagamama Fashion: Gals Mode on DS at number five with 105,225 unit sales.

Sega’s Phantasy Star Zero on DS was the only other new entry in the top ten, at number seven. Although the sales of 84,055 units are by no means poor, they are much below that of Phantasy Star Portable on PSP – which sold 342,000 units on its debut in August.

The only other new entry in the top 30 was the new Wii de Asobu (aka New Play Control!) version of Pikmin for the Wii. Debuting at number 18, the game is a re-release of the original GameCube title with new motion sensitive controls.

Overall in the top 50, there were 22 titles for the Nintendo DS, 14 for the Wii, six for the PSP, four each for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2, and none for the Xbox 360.

Thanks to the Japanese holidays, the chart results were reported a few days earlier than usual, with hardware figures for the week already available. This saw the Nintendo DSi easily maintaining its lead as the top-selling platform, even as sales fell slightly, by 9,000 units to 245,150.

The Wii overtook the PSP for second place, although it only increased its sales by 4,000 units to 134,958. Boosted last week by the release of hardware bundles for Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Sony’s portable saw its sales drop by 27,000 units to 118,765.

Despite the success of White Knight Chronicles sales of the PlayStation 3 increased by less than 7,000 units, to 45,989. Although well ahead of the Xbox 360, which was largely unchanged at 13,011 units, this was still less than the older DS Lite model of portable on 56,453.

TW	LW	Title	Publisher	Format	Weekly Sales
1	NE	Shirokishi Monogatari: Inishie no Kodou	Sony	PS3	206,954
2	NE	Dissidia: Final Fantasy	Square Enix	PSP	176,385
3	4	Machi e Ikouyo: Doubutsu no Mori	Nintendo	Wii	144,179
4	3	Hoshi no Kirby: Ultra Super Deluxe	Nintendo	DS	140,934
5	6	Wagamama Fashion: Gals Mode	Nintendo	DS	105,225
6	13	Rhythm Tengoku Gold	Nintendo	DS	84,515
7	NE	Phantasy Star Zero	Sega	DS	84,055
8	8	Pocket Monsters Platinum	The Pokemon Company	DS	78,653
9	17	Wii Fit	Nintendo	Wii	71,347
10	19	Mario Kart Wii	Nintendo	Wii	69,913

Media Create Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. 

Call Of Duty 4 Sees Over 14 Million Online Players

 

Bestseller Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has seen over 10 million unique online users on the Xbox 360 and over 4 million on the PS3, according to detailed online statistics revealed by Infinity Ward community manager Robert Bowling.

As of January 3, the game has seen 10,006,606 unique users on the Xbox 360, writes Bowling on his regular blog IAMfourzerotwo. 

Total game sales for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC versions had already hit 10 million as of June 2008, making Call of Duty 4 one of the most successful video games ever.

Detailed statistics for the PlayStation 3 version were not available, but Infinity Ward was able to estimate approximately 4,381,276 unique users on the PlayStation Network, pushing the multiplatform online console title to over 14 million players. The PC version of the game was not mentioned.

Other data revealed for the Xbox 360 version alone included the fact 7,111,508 people (71.1 percent) had completed the game’s F.N.G. mission -– more than the entire population of Hong Kong — although the figures also suggest that 28.9 percent of players never got past the first level.

A total of 5,654,643 people had beaten the game on any difficulty level (46.5 percent), which, as Bowling points out is more than the population of Finland. Only 283,632 people — 2.8 percent of players — had completed the Airplane section on Veteran difficultly.

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