My Favorite Designer of the Week

The title of 'My Favorite Designer of the Week' goes to Keita Takahashi.  Mr. Takahashi is the designer of the much loved Katamari Damacy franchise.  Katamari Damacy is a video game of enormosely adorable proportions and is by far my absolute favorite!

In official terms: it "is a third-person puzzle-action video game that is published and developed by Namco for the PlayStation 2 video game console (pictured right). It was first released in Japan, and then later in South Korea and North America. The game resulted from a school project from the Namco Digital Hollywood Game Laboratory, and was developed for less than $1 million. In designing Katamari Damacy, the development team aimed to maintain four key points: novelty, ease of understanding, enjoyment, and humor.

The game's plot concerns a diminutive prince on a mission to rebuild the stars, constellations and Moon, which were accidentally destroyed by his father, the King of All Cosmos. This is achieved by rolling a magical, highly adhesive ball called a katamari (pictured right) around various locations, collecting increasingly larger objects, ranging from thumbtacks to people to mountains, until the ball has grown large enough to become a star. Katamari Damacy's story, characters, and settings are bizarre and heavily stylized, rarely attempting any semblance of realism, though the brands and items used are based on those current in Japan during the game's production."

 Basically you play as one of the cousins (pictured left) and you roll up objects that are around Earth. Its very fun and family friendly. There are many missions that need to be accomplished as well as objects to collect like gifts.

Overall all the titles release in the Katamari collection have been amazingly fun. Mr. Takahashi is my designer of the week because the latest installment in the Katamari franchise came out on Tuesday, September 22, 2009. With this latest version it is a tribute to all the other versions of Katamari that have come out with remixed music and play schemes. It is highly recommended to anyone looking for a quick game full of challenges and fun!