Every Katamari Damacy clone misses what made it so great: the transition between zoom levels. "I started so small and now I've sucked up everything on the planet!" The transitions between zoom levels was so well done in the original game, and none of these clones even attempt it.
ChrisRR 44 minutes ago [-]
There's no single thing that made katamari great. It's the sum of its parts
It's the chaos, the music, the growth over a level, the characters, the visual design, the sound effects.
The sequels showed that when any one of them suffers then it makes for a less endearing game on the whole.
criddell 3 hours ago [-]
For me, it's the music. I'll have those songs in my head for days after playing.
Also, the items in the game are very artfully arranged.
This version (the part I played) just dumps everything on the floor and the music is lifeless.
PalmPilotProMax 3 hours ago [-]
The well-designed and -implemented zoom out (basically a "level up" dopamine hit) is just one crucial bit of Katamari Damacy's greatness.
The other two are:
1. The whimsically melancholic music
2. King of All Cosmos' majestic facial hair and crotch bulge
chubbnix 2 hours ago [-]
Re: point 2.) Personally, it’s his bolster pillow shaped head that always brings me back for more.
ectoloph 2 hours ago [-]
[dead]
tietjens 3 hours ago [-]
Also the wobble when you're off balance and have one object much bigger than the others off-centered.
jareklupinski 34 minutes ago [-]
ah i guess that could be rolled into the level select: scaling the ball progresses through the collections, making it a linear experience, but one that could be more.... curated :D
echelon 3 hours ago [-]
This!
You start off small picking up crumbs and trinkets.
You get larger and pick up sports equipment.
Then you start picking up people and they run away from you.
Then cars. Then buildings. Then cargo ships.
Then mountains. Weather systems.
Planets.
And the level designs are fun and intricate. The levels you're inside eventually become the objects you roll up.
You start inside a house at the size of a mouse. Then later you come and roll up that house and its whole neighborhood.
It feels like the horror movie "The Blob", except it's quirky and adorable when you start devouring the whole town.
All of these clones are flat and miss the incredibly good level design.
thaumasiotes 3 hours ago [-]
I enjoyed watching someone else play a Katamari game that ended with rolling around the planet picking up monuments. That was fun.
Later, I bought Katamari Damacy, and it doesn't have that aspect. You can't suck up everything on the planet. You can get moderately bigger and pick up objects the size of a car instead of objects the size of a paper clip.
What you're describing just isn't a strength of the original game; it was a strength of the sequels.
ndriscoll 2 hours ago [-]
In the original, the last zoom out in the final level was after 0.8 km, and you could roll up clouds (one of which comes with a god), tornados, rainbows, and eventually the landmass the game takes place on so it's just ocean.
ChrisRR 43 minutes ago [-]
What you mean is you only played the first level. The game gets bigger with each level
janingaming 3 hours ago [-]
What? I just played Katamari Damacy (Reroll, which afaik is an HD remaster but no new content) and the last levels absolutely have you rolling up things at planet scale
ChoGGi 2 hours ago [-]
You're correct, it's a remaster.
dwallin 12 minutes ago [-]
What I would give for this to take place in an actual model of the Met. I bet you could pass an agent the floor maps of the met, along with some photos of the interior and get a pretty good recreation.
vunderba 1 days ago [-]
Nice job~~ Some feedback:
• Provide a toggle for the music. It sounds like it was procedurally generated by Claude Code. I understand CC was trying to give it a "Damacy vibe", but it just doesn't have any of the charm. I can still sing the very memorable original's theme despite not having played it in over two decades.
• The camera has a bit too much elasticity when you haven't accreted much on the ball. For whatever reason, good camera controls give even SOTA LLMs a surprising amount of grief. Might be worth a bit of manual tuning.
frereubu 5 hours ago [-]
Agreed, this was fun. Some other feedback:
- The down key should move backwards
- I found the left / right keys don't just spin left / right, they move forward a bit, which I found quite frustrating at points.
frereubu 11 minutes ago [-]
Edit: Perhaps this mimics the gameplay in Katamari Damacy? I haven't played that, so if it directly mimics the original probably best to keep it that way.
thaumasiotes 3 hours ago [-]
> Nice job~~
I hope you'll forgive an unrelated tangent: what culture does your ~~ tag come from?
vunderba 4 minutes ago [-]
Its funny I've never really thought about it until now. I think I might have picked it up from living in Taiwan, several of my friends on LINE and PLURK would end their sentences in tildes.
ChoGGi 2 hours ago [-]
AOL I think? I noticed it happening a lot in September.
viraptor 4 hours ago [-]
On Firefox mobile, the controls are way too sensitive. I could barely aim at things. Also the joystick indicator stays in place even though you can press and drag from anywhere.
The loading is extremely slow - I'm not sure I need all the objects loaded before selecting the first level.
Also I'm not sure if some textures didn't load, but the first level is just... almost empty with random things on the floor? It doesn't have any interesting surroundings. https://photos.app.goo.gl/cEnu76hb5JeJ3DhP7 If it's not an artefact of my phone, a Katari clone needs way more polish/scenery.
supersimpleguy 1 hours ago [-]
Neat little distraction! Thanks for sharing. Sorry about the absolutely dreadful people in these comments that cannot let themselves have an iota of fun without screaming how angry they are about it.
sloga 23 minutes ago [-]
i loved katamari on xbox. >.>
feerfreeflight 4 hours ago [-]
Great work! Would love to see this extended to other museums and maybe architectural sites
codingdave 3 hours ago [-]
At this point, every web game I try starts with testing for one specific bug - if you right click while moving, does it screw up the movement so that you are still moving after you let up on WASD.
Yup. It does.
It is a cute idea. But the implementation is flawed.
And if the goal is to help people explore cultural artifacts, building a game that actually minimizes the importance of the artifacts, and literally just drives the player to squash them up into a great big ball might not be the best way to help people actually appreciate the items.
supersimpleguy 1 hours ago [-]
You must be a blast at parties.
> Every time I open a web game, I immediately see if this one bug that I can actively avoid exists. If the bug exists, I must tell everyone so they know how smart I am that I know about this bug that I can easily avoid yet cannot stop talking about.
That's you. That's what you sound like.
ChrisRR 41 minutes ago [-]
There's a million ways to already explore these artifacts. A silly game to mess about with them isn't a bad thing
Larrikin 1 hours ago [-]
Disappointed to find out there is still a Sackler wing from this game
stronglikedan 58 minutes ago [-]
I couldn't imagine letting such an insignificant thing negatively affect my feelings.
Rendered at 15:25:32 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
It's the chaos, the music, the growth over a level, the characters, the visual design, the sound effects.
The sequels showed that when any one of them suffers then it makes for a less endearing game on the whole.
Also, the items in the game are very artfully arranged.
This version (the part I played) just dumps everything on the floor and the music is lifeless.
The other two are:
1. The whimsically melancholic music 2. King of All Cosmos' majestic facial hair and crotch bulge
You start off small picking up crumbs and trinkets.
You get larger and pick up sports equipment.
Then you start picking up people and they run away from you.
Then cars. Then buildings. Then cargo ships.
Then mountains. Weather systems.
Planets.
And the level designs are fun and intricate. The levels you're inside eventually become the objects you roll up.
You start inside a house at the size of a mouse. Then later you come and roll up that house and its whole neighborhood.
It feels like the horror movie "The Blob", except it's quirky and adorable when you start devouring the whole town.
All of these clones are flat and miss the incredibly good level design.
Later, I bought Katamari Damacy, and it doesn't have that aspect. You can't suck up everything on the planet. You can get moderately bigger and pick up objects the size of a car instead of objects the size of a paper clip.
What you're describing just isn't a strength of the original game; it was a strength of the sequels.
• Provide a toggle for the music. It sounds like it was procedurally generated by Claude Code. I understand CC was trying to give it a "Damacy vibe", but it just doesn't have any of the charm. I can still sing the very memorable original's theme despite not having played it in over two decades.
• The camera has a bit too much elasticity when you haven't accreted much on the ball. For whatever reason, good camera controls give even SOTA LLMs a surprising amount of grief. Might be worth a bit of manual tuning.
- The down key should move backwards
- I found the left / right keys don't just spin left / right, they move forward a bit, which I found quite frustrating at points.
I hope you'll forgive an unrelated tangent: what culture does your ~~ tag come from?
The loading is extremely slow - I'm not sure I need all the objects loaded before selecting the first level.
Also I'm not sure if some textures didn't load, but the first level is just... almost empty with random things on the floor? It doesn't have any interesting surroundings. https://photos.app.goo.gl/cEnu76hb5JeJ3DhP7 If it's not an artefact of my phone, a Katari clone needs way more polish/scenery.
Yup. It does.
It is a cute idea. But the implementation is flawed.
And if the goal is to help people explore cultural artifacts, building a game that actually minimizes the importance of the artifacts, and literally just drives the player to squash them up into a great big ball might not be the best way to help people actually appreciate the items.
> Every time I open a web game, I immediately see if this one bug that I can actively avoid exists. If the bug exists, I must tell everyone so they know how smart I am that I know about this bug that I can easily avoid yet cannot stop talking about.
That's you. That's what you sound like.