Katamari Damacy

So what is Katamari Damacy? Only the single most awesomest video game ever. The basic concept is a little guy pushes a ball around that stuff sticks to. At first, only small stuff will stick, but as it snowballs, you can work your way up to rolling up pretty much anything: animals, people, monster octupii, skyscrapers, trees, etc.
The game is also very Japanese psychedelic in a yellow-submarine kind of way.

For us, it all started fall 2004 when some good friends invited us over to play the game for playstation 2 at their house. Ginna, who had been openly anti-video game system, was very skeptical. Still, she was willing to give it a try. We played and Ginna couldn’t get enough. I liked it too, but Ginna liked it the way I liked Mario Bros when I was about 10 yrs old. As we drove home, I suggested that we should consider getting a PS2. To my surprise Ginna was into it.

We set out to get one, but sony was just introducing the new “slim” models and since it was close to the holidays they were all sold out. We liked Katamari Damacy so much however, we bought the video game for Christmas even though we didn’t yet have a system. Fortunately, Kenny and Kelly still had an old system back in Utah that would still work if the moon was in the right position and you finessed the system just right, using appropriate positive affirmations.

We played Katamari as much as we could while we were in Utah for Christmas break. Kenny even stayed up all night one night playing it on the big screen TV in the basement, trying to beat the game.



Kenny let us take the PS2 and soon we were home and playing. It was great fun, especially during the winter when it was too cold and yucky to do much beside stay home. Also--those of you with kids will understand this--it was great to have something fun to do together after Max was in bed.

Katamari was so great it influenced us to buy a new TV so we could see it better. Luck was ours and while we were in the store looking for our TV, a new shipment of PS2s arrived. We bought one, only to have it stolen when our house was broken into a few months later.

Eventually, we bought another PS2 and we were back to our Katamari. A sequel had been released and everything was great. Still, as much fun as it is to play after Max is in bed, I’ve been waiting for Max to figure out how to play it with us.

Max + Katamari = Love
Recently, Max has really started to enjoy Katamari. He has figured out how to move the character around and he has a great understanding of the game’s objectives. Now, he is constantly requesting that we play Katamari or Na Na Na as he calls it. Ginna and Max like to play together from time to time and I join in too.

Saturday, we were at a birthday party for a girl from Max’s school. The party was at Gymboree. There were activities and games, but we struggled to get Max to participate. Max likes to do his own thing anyway, but I couldn’t figure out what he was doing. Then it dawned on me. Ginna took some pictures with her phone and I made a little slideshow using some music from Katamari. I think it’s pretty obvious what Max is up to.