Andy Long Johannes Spaulding Buzz Tilford Katamari Damacy the Game

Andy Long Johannes Spaulding Buzz Tilford Katamari Damacy The game we are adapting is Katamari Damacy for the PlayStation 2. In the colorful universe of the game, the player takes on the role of the Prince who must roll a sticky ball called a katamari around various environments picking up objects to make their katamari as large as possible. At the end of each level the Prince's katamari is judged by The King of All Cosmos, who decides whether or not the katamari is worthy of being turned into a star. Katamari Damacy already has a multiplayer mode where The King has forgotten what the Prince looks like. The two players pick their characters from among the Prince and his Cousins, and compete to make the most impressive katamari. Our game competitive play follows from the same premise. Adaptation of Mechanics The two core mechanics of the PlayStation 2 Katamari Damacy are rolling the katamari around the environment and strategically picking up objects to grow the katamari. In our analog game we translated the in-game rolling of the katamari to rolling of dice. As the katamari would become larger and more cumbersome in the videogame, in our game the player has to contend with an ever growing number of dice they must handle. The picking up of objects in the original translates to the picking up of Stuff pieces, and placement onto a player's Katamari Board, in our adaptation. Growing a katamari increase a player's points and increases the number of dice the player will be rolling. Dice Engine vs. Points and Layers Each turn players roll dice depending on the Stuff pieces on their Katamari Board. These dice give the player Rolling Power which lets the player add more stuff to their board. Players have a choice of what Stuff pieces to buy and add to their board. The general conflict in this decision will be one of building and maintaining the Rolling Power of their katamari or buying Stuff that will set them up for a high score at the end of the game. Early on, building Rolling Power is more important, but even early on players are encouraged to think their choice by the appearance of special symbols that can provide a great point boost if a player uses them wisely. There is an additional mechanic that complicates the decision making process. Player must build their katamari up in layers to afford and place the highest scoring purple pieces. Blue pieces must be placed over blue or yellow pieces, and purple over purple or blue. Purple pieces cost the most Rolling Power and do the least for the players engine, but are necessary for scoring a large number of points. The different choices players must make in buying and placing Stuff pieces is the most engaging aspect of our adaptation. Machination 1 Dice Engine vs. Points with a Timer (EngineVPoints.xml) In this machinination the player is giver a semi-random amount of time to obtain 20 points. Each turn the player is given an amount of rolling power depending on the number of Rolling Booster pieces they have. The player buys most Rolling and Point Boosters with Rolling Power. While points do not slow the gain of Rolling Power in this machination, obtaining them does cost the player the opportunity to get more boosts. The main conflict of engine vs points is represented clearly. The semi-random timer represents the possibility of other players gaining or losing advantage. Our adaptation is competitive, but the only way to model that uncertainty was to use a semi-random element. Even though there will usually be 15 turns in this machination, it is not guaranteed. There is uncertainty in a mathematically optimal solution. Machination 2 KatamariBoard (KatamariBoard.xml) This machination models a simplified Katamari Board economy, which houses the pieces a player collects. The player begins with 19 hexes on their Katamari Board, and over the course of a gamethey will fill them up with Stuff pieces of different colors. The various converters simulate how players fill their boards in the analog game. Yellow pieces replace empty spaces, blue replaces yellow, and purple replaces blue. While being quite an abstract representation, it communicates how a Katamari Board changes over the course of a game. The following are samples of a Katamari Board over the course of a playtest game. Going Too Fast and Crashing In the Katamari Damacy video game, players can move too fast and crash, losing pieces of their katamari. We wanted to involve this in the game as a mechanic. In the first version of the game this took the form of a deck of 10 cards with 1 Crash Card in it. Every time a player bought Stuff they would draw a card from their deck. If it's a Crash Card they Crash which means losing their turn and the largest piece on their katamari, otherwise they discard it and buy Stuff pieces as normal. Players could reshuffle their discard pile into their deck by paying some Rolling Power. It was intended that this would act as a “push-your-luck” mechanic. It was not fun and felt arbitrary in play. After the first playtest we changed the mechanic so players Crash if they roll a certain number of '6's when generating Rolling Power on their turn. This allows Crashing to act as a braking engine, slowing down super effective dice engines. This meant that while players gain more dice, they also increase the chances they crash. We began with five 6's but Crashing happened only once that game. The third playtest we changed it to four or more 6's. Crashing was still quite rare, but every time a player rolled three 6's while generating rolling power, there was a wave of relief from avoiding disaster. Counting Dice We simplified how Rolling Power is counted after the first playtest. Initially, players were expected to count up the pips on the dice they were rolling. After rolling a dozen dice, this slowed down the game way too much for it to be enjoyable. Turns were going too slow. We decided to allow each die to generate 1 Rolling Power, and to modify the cost of the Stuff pieces to fall in line. We also decided to introduce types of dice that are associated with the colors of Stuff. Stuff pieces give players dice of their color. Yellow Dice are very effective, generating Rolling Power on a 3 or greater. Blue dice generate on a 4 or greater. Purple dice generate on a 5 or 6. The shifting effectiveness of the dice became integral to the choices players make when buying the different Stuff pieces to put on their katamari. Purple will give you more points, and more dice, but they will be less effective (but just as likely to contribute to a crash). This change really brought a lot of the game together. It made turns faster and players are entertained by recalculating their dice when it isn't their turn. Written Rules There were no written rules for the first play test. By the second we had most of the rules written, but not enough to give to someone to play without guidance. One person wrote the rules out and had them looked over by the other members of the team who cut out all the fat. After getting feedback from the in-section playtest, one of us rewrote some sections of the rules, and again they were reviewed by the other members of the team. Iteration Playtest 1 Playtest2 Playtest 3 (in section) and 4 ● Adding dice is slow in ● Game of 15 turns takes ● Some rules are unclear the late game 25-30 min with 2 ● Symbol combinations ● took 13 or so turns players are not strong that raw ● Symbol bonus ● Crashing almost never points attainable happens ● Almost Crashing is a ● Crashing feels arbitrary ● Yellow Dice are really rush! ● No player interaction good ● Dice often fall off table ● Symbols are ● Prototype Stuff pieces completely worthless if are ugly you have fewer than another player Response Response Response ● Crashing is tied to ● Symbols each grant ● Another Rules draft rolling 5 '6's players a point, just for ● Boosted the symbol ● Symbols bonus is now having them bonus to 7 points based on symbol ● Dice that fall off table ignoring Stuff color cause a crash (player with most of a ● Added in a Dice Tray kind gets 5 points) ● Changed Crashing to a ● New Dice colors with result of 4 or more '6's different success ● Fancy Stuff Pieces weights .

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