keita takahashi

Designer, Funomena.

Keita Takahashi is a game designer who began his career at Namco, where he developed the quirky hit Katamari Damacy (2004). His other games include We Love Katamari (2005), and Noby Noby Boy (2009), and the PC and VR experience Luna (2017). He is currently looking beyond video game design in his work to other forms of play.

On getting into the game industry:

There were not any interesting projects for me when I was working at Namco. So I just had to make my own project because I didn’t want to join a boring project. Maybe that sounds selfish, but my project became Katamari Damacy, two and a half years later.

On games that have inspired him:

A game called Densen was a cancelled release for PS2 in Japan. Densen means “power line” in English. Players could move by holding onto a hanger that was hung on a power line as if it were a zip line. I have never played this game because it was cancelled, but I can imagine it would be very fun if I were able to do that in the real world. That made me realize that magic is hidden in our ordinary life, and I don’t need any enemies and battles to make a video game.

On coming up with ideas:

I can’t explain exactly how I get an idea, but my ideas for video games usually come from daily life. And if it is a very nice idea, I can imagine the whole of the game play from start to end when I get an idea. It hardly happens, though!