Wattam

released on Dec 17, 2019

From the creator behind Noby Noby Boy and Katamari Damacy comes Wattam - Long ago, a huge explosion blasted the world of Wattam across the galaxy. Help the Mayor build stacks and chains with characters like Sushi, Flower, Cloud & Poop to create joyful, colorful explosions that will guide the diaspora of Wattam back home.


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cool little game built more to serve it's theme than to be fun. can't believe that the story was my favourite part about this. at the end of the day Keita Takahashi games scratch an itch that no other games scratch, and I can't help but enjoy said scratching.

also when they showed the little bastard from katamari at the end my brain exploded.

Pretty weird but chill game stuff like this is cool.

So... it's hard to know how to evaluate a game like this, and thus, I can't evaluate it in stars. The presentation is solid, if simple. The characters are cute, it can be funny, surprising, and wholesome at times, and the dynamic soundtrack is my favorite thing here! Despite enjoying a lot of the weirdness and charm, I couldn't fall in love with it like I did Katamari Damacy, with which Wattam shares developers, and I think most of that comes down to gameplay. The camera feels bad on PC, even at max sensitivity, sluggish and awkward. The primary hand-holding, friend-climbing, and hat-bombing systems all work great, but there's little structure to support these mechanics. Sometimes they're used to good effect, like forcing a doll to relax long enough to apply its facial features, but mostly feel wasted and boring when your goal is simply "bring three things to a house". The goals are so basic that it doesn't seem to qualify as a game, but that's the thing: I don't think that's what Wattam was going for. It's a toy chest, a bunch of wacky digital friends to mess around with. Perhaps my experience was hampered by my expectations and not playing multiplayer, but at the end of the day, this game was not for me.

But I mean it when I say, I am THRILLED that it exists, that there's a space for creators to be unabashedly silly, and a space for gamers to make their own fun. If that sounds like your kind of experience, hop in, hold hands, and Wattam!

Almost more of a collection of toys than a game, it's a cute and wonderful game that hits a spot in my heart and makes me tear up when I hear its theme. It's therapeutic, and silly, and nostalgic.

like katamari damacy and noby noby boy before it, wattam is foremost a vehicle for interaction.

well before super mario bros. existed, its makers learned the inherent fun of seeing your avatar react to the press of a button. they have since spent entire decades making games about how nothing could be more fun than pressing those buttons. keita takahashi has always pulled this trick: just as you don't jump in a mario game to avoid an obstacle — you do it simply because it is fun — every action in wattam is performed for the joy of doing something because you can.

if its priors sit at opposing ends of the playground vs. videogame spectrum (they don’t, btw), wattam fits closer to the middle. there is “game stuff” in here, sure, but it feels largely incidental. it is, broadly, a toy box wherein the smallest actions serve as their own reward. maybe you just wanna hold hands with your buddies or whatever. maybe you wanna eat the mayor. maybe you just want to poke and prod at some little dude to see what happens. who cares. do what you like. have fun. but by the time you are done, the totality of these actions will have filled the toy box beyond bursting point, and therein lies it’s greatest trick.

in most cases, the player will not feel as though they are consciously solving a puzzle or figuring out their next step. to engage with wattam in this way is to be a boring person with a boring attitude. but so long as one has maintained a brain unrotted by videogames and a heart not entirely sapped of whimsy, they will be constantly propelled through the force of their own curiosity.