The brain behind Noby Noby Boy and the Katamari Damacy games has struck out on his own, in order to “broaden his horizons.”
Following his departure from Namco early last month, Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi has started up a new company called Uvula, with his wife, composer Asuka Sakai.
Uvula – which refers to a part of the mouth that helps us speak, and more specifically, the dangly bit at the back of the throat – is not a development studio in the traditional sense, and seems instead to be an opportunity for the pair to get involved in a whole bunch of different creative endeavors. Unsurprisingly, Uvula will mainly concern itself with videogames and music, although its current project is the design of a playground in Nottingham, England.
The creation of Uvula isn’t too much of a surprise, as only a few months ago, Takahashi said that he wanted to try things besides making videogames. He has expressed a certain amount of disillusionment with the videogame industry recently, saying after this year’s E3 that he thought the future of games looked “dull,” and that there wasn’t a lot of room for his voice any more.
Considering that Takahashi is the man who made the bizarre Noby Noby Boy while working for a major Japanese publisher, it’s going to be fascinating to see what he does when it’s just him, his wife and their ideas.
Source: Gamasutra
