美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Wattam' Is Keita Takahashi's Latest Video Game Of Radical Joy

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

The point of most video games is to defeat your competition. But a new game out today called Wattam has a different intention, aiming to bring people together. It's the creation of a renowned¹ video game designer, Keita Takahashi. And we have a report this morning from NPR's Vincent Acovino.

VINCENT ACOVINO, BYLINE²: The year 2004 was not unusual for video games. The bestselling games of that year were full of familiar titles like Grand Theft Auto³, Madden and Pokemon. But one game that year was unlike any other.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KATAMARI ON THE ROCKS")

UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: (Vocalizing).

ACOVINO: That game was Katamari Damacy. It's about a god named the King of All Cosmos⁴ who, while drunk, accidentally destroys the stars in the sky. His son, The Prince, is left to clean up the mess by rolling up objects on Earth into big, sticky balls that grow so large they become stars.

Robin⁵ Hunicke is the co-founder of Funomena, the studio that developed Wattam. But she's long been a fan of Takahashi's work. Back in 2004, she helped exhibit Katamari at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco for a workshop on experimental games. Keita Takahashi gave a presentation that blew her away.

ROBIN HUNICKE: He showed the gameplay. But then he went all the way to the credit screen where you can roll up all the countries on Earth. And so you're making a katamari of all of us. And Keita said, in a very heartfelt way, that he had been really destroyed by the idea that we were going to just keep fighting and killing⁶ each other.

ACOVINO: Katamari Damacy was a surprise commercial hit in North America. It was also a critical success and is one of 14 video games that helped establish a new category of art in the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection. Keita Takahashi's games are funny and absurd at the surface but kind and earnest at their core. Although Takahashi originally studied to be a sculptor⁷, he became upset when his classmates were throwing out their work after getting grades on their projects.

KEITA TAKAHASHI: I was very shocked about that. We have environment crisis. I don't want make more garbage.

ACOVINO: Takahashi aimed to make work that was useful and made people laugh. It's an ethos that has carried over to all of his projects, including his latest game, Wattam.

HARRY⁸ DELORME: It's full of very strange things - a character that's a mouth that eats other characters and excretes them as poop.

ACOVINO: That's Harry DeLorme, who helped curate a mid-career survey of Takahashi's work at the Telfair Museums in Savannah, Ga. He says that Wattam is funny, but it's also a game about joy and kindness.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

DELORME: It starts off with a character who is utterly⁹ alone.

ACOVINO: A green cube with a mouth, a mustache and a top hat sits on top of a rock. It's crying but then starts to walk around.

DELORME: Gradually, he starts discovering that there are indeed other beings around.

ACOVINO: More and more characters join Wattam's world. They interact together in simple and joyful¹⁰ ways - climbing on top of one another, spinning in circles, holding hands.

(LAUGHTER)

ACOVINO: Takahashi said he came up with the idea for Wattam when he moved to Vancouver and was living in a place with a diverse population.

TAKAHASHI: We still have some issue or problem or conflict in this world because of the - like, a different perspective or different religion or different skin color. I believe differences make a good, deep culture.

ACOVINO: A good, deep culture, one where people are brought together by playing games.

TAKAHASHI: Somehow people get over the differences by having fun.

ACOVINO: Vincent Acovino, NPR News.

1 renowned   

adj.著名的，有名望的，声誉鹊起的

参考例句：

• He is one of the world's renowned writers.他是世界上知名的作家之一。
• She is renowned for her advocacy of human rights.她以提倡人权而闻名。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 auto   

n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车

参考例句：

• Don't park your auto here.别把你的汽车停在这儿。
• The auto industry has brought many people to Detroit.汽车工业把许多人吸引到了底特律。

4 cosmos   

n.宇宙；秩序，和谐

参考例句：

• Our world is but a small part of the cosmos.我们的世界仅仅是宇宙的一小部分而已。
• Is there any other intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos?在宇宙的其他星球上还存在别的有智慧的生物吗？

5 robin   

n.知更鸟，红襟鸟

参考例句：

• The robin is the messenger of spring.知更鸟是报春的使者。
• We knew spring was coming as we had seen a robin.我们看见了一只知更鸟，知道春天要到了。

6 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

7 sculptor   

n.雕刻家，雕刻家

参考例句：

• A sculptor forms her material.雕塑家把材料塑造成雕塑品。
• The sculptor rounded the clay into a sphere.那位雕塑家把黏土做成了一个球状。

8 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

9 utterly   

adv.完全地，绝对地

参考例句：

• Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
• I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。

10 joyful   

adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的

参考例句：

• She was joyful of her good result of the scientific experiments.她为自己的科学实验取得好成果而高兴。
• They were singing and dancing to celebrate this joyful occasion.他们唱着、跳着庆祝这令人欢乐的时刻。