GDCE: 'Feature: Game Design Mash-Up'

In our further coverage of GDC Europe in London, Iain Simons reports back on the Game Design Mash-Up where the challenge was to design a game for 'granny' - an older female casual gamer. The gauntlet was picked up by a panel of game designers including Nick James of Bizarre Creations and Namco's Keita Takahashi. In this extract, Katamari Damacy creator, Takahashi explains his idea for a cat controller: "I thought really hard about this one, I haven't thought this hard since I was coming up with the idea for Katamari Damacy. I decided that I wanted to get old ladies playing games and bring a little of the sunshine that they end up losing when they stay indoors all the time back into their lives." The focus of his talk began with the controller, and he explained that current hardware designs are inorganic and difficult to understand. He introduced the design of his new controller specifically tailored for the Granny, and a picture of a cat appeared on the screen to great amusement. He explained, "the shape of the cat and the heat waves that it gives out really gets the old ladies going as they get quite cold. They like the cat shape. The cat is designed to be rested on the old ladies' knees." You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject (no registration required, please feel free to link to the article from external websites).