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Keita Takahashi presents Tenya Wanya Teens (W Footage)


Exodusdoomsday

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http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2013/03/tenyawanyateens.jpg

Among the madness of this week’s GDC, the creator of Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy was not to be outdone. Keita Takahashi presented his new game Tenya Wanya Teens at a party held by The Wild Rumpus, a UK-based company that puts the social into social games, which commissioned the game along with indie-game site Venus Patrol.

 

The two-player game was played with two specially devised 16-button joystick controllers, which may or may not make their way into your home when the game is eventually released.

 

By all accounts, Tenya Wanya Teens is a riot of bizarre but innocuous fun: a game in which your bright and colourful sprite must brush his teeth, take a shower or pee on the command of a parrot, without ever humiliating himself in front of his girlfriend by undertaking the wrong action.

 

“I was asked to make a party game,” Takahashi told Famitsu at the event. “But actually the game I originally proposed was rejected. The original game had you putting fairy lights on a Christmas tree, using a motion controller that lights up. It would have looked beautiful in a party venue, but it was too costly to make.”

 

Uh, okay. So will Tenya Wanya Teens get a release outside of the party at GDC? Takahashi was noncommittal.

 

“Brandon from Venus Patrol, which is running this party, says he plans to release this game on Xbox 360 and stuff like that,” said Takahashi vaguely. Asked whether the 16-button controller might make such a console release cost-prohibitive, Takahashi replied, “Yes, that might be right. Maybe it will be on iPad? He seems keen to do something.”

 

“The unusual control scheme offers all sorts of opportunities to do something interesting. But the people here are such smooth-talkers, who knows whether anything will really come of it. I don’t mind either way. Maybe I’ll make an RPG instead.”

 

 

 

Tenya Wanya Teens is far from a typical game. Buttons appear to be colour-coded, but as the colours change, it becomes harder to remember which button corresponds to which action. Accidentally pee in front of the girl when you’re supposed to sing into a microphone and you’ll have to deal with the embarrassing consequences. Well, we’ve all been there, right?

 

But then again, Takahashi’s previous outings were just as unusual. Who could forget the unbridled joy of rolling up a whole town, bit by bit, in the long-lived and much-loved Katamari series, or racking up miles to Mars in ludicrous PS3/iOS title Noby Noby Boy?

 

Tenya Wanya Teens is the product of Uvula, the studio run by Takahashi and his wife Asuka Sakai, who made music for Katamari Damacy along with Ridge Racer 4 when they worked together at Namco Bandai. Sakai also released her own material as a solo artist.

 

Asked how Takahashi came up with the peculiar idea for Tenya Wanya Teens, he replied, “I was told a physical game would be good, so originally I was thinking along those lines. But… Where did the idea come from? Haha. I just noticed that two year old kids enjoy pushing buttons, even in an elevator or whatever. So I thought it might be fun to make a game based on pressing buttons.”

 

“Everyone’s used to playing games now and we all know what happens when you push a certain button. So why not have a situation where you don’t know what will happen? The game comes from not knowing what the buttons do, and that in itself is satisfying enough.”

 

Video Footage. I can not put the code on the post for some strange reason but i will give out the link to the youtube video so people can see.

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HQVq3se5D4]Tenya wanya Teens - YouTube[/ame]

 

 

I for one have to say i am glad that Keita is returning back to creating games again by starting his own company to have full freedom of his creative direction of what he wants to do rather than let Namco be controlling of his ideas. It should be good especially when the people behind the artwork and the music are sticking on for the ride.

 

Judging by the video footage it still retains the colorful and playful nature of Katamari and the weird button scheme of Noby Noby Boy. One thing is i really would like to see more games from the creator down the road. I hope fellow Katamari Fans spread the word about this game to those who do not know this game's existence and check on it's progress.

 

Edit: One thing i forgot to mention that was pointed out by another article was that Tenya Wanya means Topsy Turvy in Japanese, and sad to say there is not a release date set for this game and it could change down the road.

 

Sources-

 

Article: GDC 2013: Keita Takahashi presents Tenya Wanya Teens | News | Edge Online

 

Video by Charles Vestal's Youtube account(do not know him, but he had more footage of the game than Edge Online did).

Edited by Exodusdoomsday
Explanation of what Tenya Wanya Teens means, and release date
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