Takahashi at last finds a game to love

Many thought we’d seen the last of him, but Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi has finally found a project to drag him out of the gaming doldrums – indie MMO Glitch.

The studio has announced via its blog that Takahashi has joined the studio. In fact, he and his family have even upped sticks and left Tokyo to move to Vancouver.

Keita Takahashi, the creator of Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy has always been a hero to everyone on the Glitch team,” Glitch’s Stewart Butterfield stated. His power of imagination and ability to realize something wholly unique and different stands out in the history of games.

A few months ago we were lucky enough to start talking to him. We played some Glitch together, batted ideas back and forth and found that we shared the same values — deep beliefs in curiosity, humor, absurdity, and above all a belief in the positive power of play.

It was like talking to an old friend and it did not take long before we decided that we had to work together. So, a little over a week ago Keita and his family packed up and moved from Tokyo to join the team at Tiny Speck in Vancouver.

Even though we’re starting to get used to the idea, it’s still a huge thrill and a significant honor to be able to say: we get to work with Keita Takahashi! Glitch’s awesomeness will continue to increase.”

Takahashi quit Katamari Damacy publisher Namco Bandai in 2010. At the time he appeared to be disillusioned with the games industry and had no interest in working on further Katamari titles – or indeed any games at all.

It is well documented that Takahashi only assumed developmental duties on the game’s sequel, We Love Katamari, because he was fearful of what might happen were the franchise to be taken over by another. However, We Love Katamari was the game in the series with which he was to be involved.

Fortunately Takahashi did release another title – PSN oddity Noby Noby Boy. Though critically fascinating, much like Katamari before it the game failed to find much commercial success.

A month after quitting Namco Takahashi formed a new studio called Uvula that he claimed would work mainly with music and video games”.