Keita Takahashi created one of the most beloved cult video games ever

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

Jesse Thorn

Society & Culture

4.5 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Video game creator Keita Takahashi joins us to talk about how he got into designing video games and how he pitched the idea for his popular game Katamari Damacy to the folks at Namco. He also talks with us about his new game, to a T, which comes out soon. A version of this interview originally ran in April of 2024.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for NPR, and the following message come from Yarl and Pamela Mone, thanking the people who make public radio great every day and also those who listen.
0:11.5	Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of Maximum Fun.org and is distributed by NPR.
0:31.4	Hey! Hey! by NPR. It's Bullseye. I'm Jesse Thorne.
0:33.5	It's almost as simple as Pong or maybe Pac-Man.
0:36.9	A ball rolls around.
0:39.0	Anything smaller than the ball sticks to the ball.
0:42.3	And it gets bigger and bigger.
0:44.1	Anything bigger than the ball is an obstacle, a roadblock.
0:48.3	You've got to get the ball big enough to stick to that biggest thing,
0:53.0	and then you move on to the next level.
0:56.4	If that game came out in 2025, I guess it would be like a hit mobile game.
1:01.6	One of those apps your kid accidentally drops $50 on to get star points.
1:07.7	It wouldn't really have like a story or anything.
1:12.3	It would just be called ball roll deluxe or something. And whoever made it would become a multi-millionaire. Done. But
1:18.9	the actual name of the game is Katamari Damasi. It came out a little more than 20 years ago
1:25.6	on PlayStation. At first, it was kind of a so-so success.
1:30.5	And then it became a big one, and now it's an all-time classic.
1:35.7	And because it came out on a big gaming console in 2004,
1:40.8	it does have a story.
1:42.9	And the story is a whopper.
1:45.3	The King of the Cosmos, who is a fancy godlike royalty guy, has thrown the universe into chaos.
1:55.2	He has destroyed all the stars, really made a mess of things.
	...

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