GameCityNights Episode 5: Play-Doh-Ground

GameCityNights Episode 5: Play-doh-ground

This month’s edition of the GameCityNights saga featured two very notable guests. Headliner Keita Takahashi (creator of Katamari) was in Nottingham to talk to GameCity and guests about his newest release for the iPhone and iPad, Noby Noby Boy, as well as shedding some light on his current project, designing a playground for Nottingham. The second guest, you ask? Why it’s everyone’s favourite childhood material, Play-Doh, important for reasons that will be revealed later on.

The question on everyones lips was “why is Noby Noby Boy listed in the productivity section of the App store?” Speaking through special guest Mister Dog (a hand puppet crafted by the GameCity staff) and his translator, Keita set about enlightening the masses.

The concept of ‘time’ was used to show the assembled crowd how Noby Noby Boy can be “used to make your job more enjoyable”. Boy is able to able to help with time management, with the transformation of Boy into a large clock on the face of the device that you are using. Keita then gave the example of using this as a way of explaining why you may be late (“the hands on my clock are floating around, and I couldn’t tell the time.”)

Important notes can be made on the body of Boy, as you may be able to see from the pictures that we took of the display screens. Boy can also be used as a whiteboard, as well as allowing you the ability to send email messages from within the application.

Noby Noby Boy also has a GPS function with Boy’s body stretching to show how far you have travelled. Keita illustrated this by making boy stretch all way from Japan to Nottingham to show his journey.

The last feature we were introduced to was “iPod Robo”, a robot controller who would appear on your screen to boogie to whatever music you were playing. But iPod Robo isn’t just an amusing animation to watch, the robo’s limbs have play/pause/skip buttons to allow you to change your music without having to close the screen.

With Keita’s talk over, it was seemingly time to move onto the infamous GameCity quiz. A set of questions so hard they could make your brain bleed. Fortunately for those prone to brain-bleeding, the quiz had been replaced (to some people’s disappointment). And this is where the Play-Doh makes its appearance.

The crowd was split into groups and presented with a tray of the multi-coloured magic material and tasked with creating an addition to Keita’s playground design. The best design would be chosen by a panel of judges - Keita Takahashi, Simon Humphreys (in charge of Woodthorpe Park, where the playground will be placed) and Martin Hollis (designer of Goldeneye 64).

While the teams raced against the clock to create masterpieces that would defy gravity and give health and safety officials everywhere a migraine, we took time out to speak to Keita, the results of which can be found here.

With time up, and the teams reconvened to showcase their efforts, it was time for the judging panel to make their decisions. With entries ranging from amazing to eye-boggling, the judges certainly had their work cut out. Even the bar staff got involved, designing a guitar playing cat model (and then jokingly threatening a mutiny when their entry was disqualified for not following the rules).

Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to get any pictures of the winning entry, but we look forward to seeing more information and designs for the park from Keita as they emerge.

For more information of the GameCityNights events, please visit the GameCity website.