Noby Noby Boy

I wrote this piece on Noby Noby Boy about a year ago. I decided to post it as is without further editing or reviewing so I could be done with it. It's probably far too clunky as it is but whatever. I tried writing looser with less of a focus on traditional form and it probably betrays a few of my influences. Ah well.

Noby Noby Boy is possibly the perfect video game. Maybe I shouldn't say that. Maybe I should just say it is possibly my favourite video game. Noby Noby Boy was released a week after another unusual title it sometimes gets compared too, Flower.

In Flower, you play a flower petal floating around in the breeze. You're generally just floating around barren fields, restoring life to them. You can soar high in the sky and speed back down to the earth or float gently wherever you want. It's a very pretty game and it received a ton of praise.

While Flower yearns to be a freeing experience unlike any other, it is still very much a "video game", complete with stages, objectives, barriers and even a game over situation. Noby Noby Boy understands video games so much better than other video games and it shows this by sticking within those typical tropes.

Noby Noby Boy has stages. Stages are choosing a planet, then a randomized block of land appears. Don't like it? Randomize it again, maybe choose a new planet. Whatever you want.

It has the ever-present barriers that haunt all video games. Some games ignore the barrier, believing that anyone who hits that can just deal with it, despite it being a possible immersion breaker (a fair thought). Some give you infinite land that distracts from the fact you are basically stuck on a treadmill going nowhere. Some games have fun with barriers and do something unexpected with an out of bounds area. In Noby Noby Boy, you get a finite block of land. Anything that falls off plummets "down" until it suddenly lands back onto the block of land. Flying upwards takes you to a screen where you can choose new planets or quit.

The only objective is to stretch.

You stretch by controlling the head and butt of your Noby Noby Boy. The left stick controls your head, the right stick controls your butt. Push the two at different directions and you will get a bit of stretch going on, but this method is a bit slow since your tiny legs aren't very strong and you have very little leverage. Wrap yourself around a tree or in and out of a building and you will find it much easier to do this. You can also eat stuff and create bulges in your body, like a snake. Use these bulges to anchor parts of your body to the ground so you can do even crazier stuff.

This wouldn't be very fulfilling beyond concept if it didn't feel great. In some ways, manipulating your body to do some wild stuff becomes an incredibly fun but obtuse skill test reminiscent of a QWOP.

However much you stretch gets added to Girl's total length. Girl is a giant Noby Noby that stretches from planet to planet. Everyone playing Noby Noby Boy contributes to this. When she reaches a new planet, a new planet design is unlocked. It doesn't matter if she reaches a new planet or not really.

You can't die or reach any sort of fail state in Noby Noby Boy.

So basically, you stretch your goofy body around an environment interacting with stuff. Sometimes you eat things. Sometimes you change colors. Sometimes a skeleton with a gigantic cleft chin will hop on your body. Sometimes sharks will do it as well. Sometimes there are giant robots who wreak havoc because they have spinning hammer arms that flip them everywhere (they are one of my favourites).

Flower takes the idea of freedom and relaxation far too seriously and thinks it must subvert normal video game structure by being a normal video game with an "art house" exterior.

Art house doesn't necessarily mean anything wrong, but it is generally indicative of a certain mindset or focus of principles that is problematic. In this case, I mean that Flower is very focused on showcasing its aesthetic in a manner that reveals how self-conscious it is.

Noby Noby Boy is a video game. There is no shame in this. Don't let people trick you into thinking a video game must be one thing and can't be another without some form of "innovation" or "subversion" or whatever they wish to call a gimmick.

Sometimes people become enraptured with an idea so much they start obsessing over something that isn't really present.

I shouldn't be so mean to Flower, I actually do like it. I just don't think it accomplishes much of what it set out to do, but man does it ever try. It reaches for a noble goal but contradicts itself by building its base on the safety of familiar systems. It only ever works when you ignore everything and float around.

                                 



I'm going to admit something here that is a bit strange. I love Noby Noby Boy more than most things in any other medium. I've also probably only played an hour since I first discovered it.

There are few things I like more than watching how people interact with Noby Noby Boy. I dream of a day that Rockstar obsessively mines it for ideas and finally makes a GTA that isn't the misguided monolith it has become. Maybe make it a romantic comedy in the vein of a Johnnie To film.

Keita Takahashi is basically the designer I'd want to be, but never could be. I care too much about game feel and systems and the like to make something so simple and beautiful. My creative ideas revolve around conflict and violence in some form.

He left video games for awhile because he wanted to create playgrounds for children. His playground designs are incredible, which makes sense since he's basically been figuring out how to make the entire world a playground already. That's one hell of an idea.

If you are interested in reading more about Takahashi and his work, take a look at this interview with Paul Arzt at Indiecade.