conchobhar
What's Shenmue?
What is Wattam?
Wattam is the latest game from Keita Takahashi (of Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy fame). In it, you play as the Mayor, a green cube with a moustache and bowler hat, as he tries to restore the world by befriending every object (which are all sentient) he comes across. It is completely ridiculous, and also a little touching.
Okay, but what is it?
Good question! Wattam is a game that defies easy categorization. I guess you could call it a kind of adventure game, since you make progress by talking to others and solving their problems. But that would dramatically undersell it.
See, every time the Mayor helps out an object— character, really— another one appears, and it isn't long before the area is bustling with new friends. This is where Wattam comes alive, because the real fun is not in fulfilling their requests but just playing around with them. You can exchange headwear; clamber atop of them and go for a ride; hold hands, form a circle and spin around; and make use of the Mayor's special ability to "kaboom"— reveal a bomb under his hat and send everyone flying (they all have a good laugh about it).
But the biggest thing is that you aren't actually limited to playing as the Mayor; you can take control of each and every single object in the game, many of which have unique properties or abilities. The tree can inhale others and spit them out, turning them into a new object entirely; the mouth can eat others and turn them into, um, poop; the ruler can measure the height of others; the camera can take pictures (and is actually this game's photo mode); and so on. Some of these abilities are needed to progress, but most of them aren't, and just there as something to play around with.
And that's really where the appeal of Wattam lies. As more and more characters appear, the game world becomes akin to a sort of virtual toybox, where you can just pick one and go around seeing what they can do or how they interact with others— just having fun exploring this game's zany rules. It's a bit like Noby Noby Boy in this sense, but with many many more verbs.
What's the most charming thing about this game?
There's an object viewer, where every single object-character is given a name, DOB, blood type and short bio. All of these blurbs are delightful, and a standout in a game that's already overflowing with charm. Here's three of my favourites:
- Harley the fork: "An object born of a desire to eat spaghetti cleanly. Though the fork's rivalry with chopsticks is a much later development, the fork is the clear winner amongst children under 5."
- Kevin the bucket: "When there is a great need for water to be carried from Point A to Point B, the bucket is born. Ergo, without water or eithers Points A and B, there can be no bucket. Presently, specialists are conducting research to determine where, exactly, the first Point A and Point B may have been."
- Maksim the toy pirate: "This toy is a representation of a pirate from back when humans were still very small. At the time, while boarding other ships pirates would attack by detaching and throwing their own heads. Over time, this practice evolved into the game of dodgeball."
Yeah! The story is pretty thin, but there's a pretty clear theme throughout about the importance of empathy, humanity and connections between people. The problems that the characters have stem from loneliness or misunderstandings, and resolution is always as simple as communication. It is relentlessly optimistic about the power of our connections, culminating in a big, heartwarming finale that really drives it home.
It's also interesting that the game is explicitly multicultural. In the opening area of the game, all the characters have anglo names and speak English; but in the second area, they're all Russian, down to their speech bubbles being in the Cyrillic alphabet. This continues into the third (Korean) and fourth (Japanese) areas, too. And this isn't just for flavour: in each area, the Mayor initially struggles to communicate with the locals, resorting to pantomime, and ultimately connecting by playing and having fun with them (by way of kabooming). Minor and cute though it may be, I can't think of many examples of video games that depict language barriers in a meaningful way.
Keita Takahashi has often said that one of his major inspirations for Wattam was his experience in moving to Vancouver: seeing people of many different cultures, speaking many different languages, and being amazed that everyone made it work. And I think you can really see that in the game.
What is this available on?
You can play Wattam on your PS4 or PC (currently exclusive to the Epic Games Store). Also, if you opt for the physical version, you get to own one of the three of the greatest covers of all time:
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