Wattam

Joyful and strange, Wattam’s a hard game to explain, but not a difficult one to play. Once it wraps you in its welcoming arms you won’t want to let go. Until you end up kaboomed, that is. [Issue#171, p.90]

Refreshingly light-hearted, brief, and full of good vibes, Wattam is the kind of game that everyone can easily settle down with. It’s a magical experience centered on friendships and connection, finding out how each unique skill can help everybody out, despite all being different sizes, shapes, and colors. There’s a simple joy that comes from playing Wattam, a feeling that many other games just can’t match. Wattam is a delightful, fun, and uplifting game filled with laughter, teamwork, and all the things that make your heart feel warm and fuzzy.

I'm not sure if Takahashi will ever be able to top Katamari Damacy – for my money, it's one of the greatest video games ever made – but Wattam captures that sense of whimsy and magic in its own way. The care-free music and gosh-darn-huggable character designs make this a must-play for fans.

If you have even a sliver of child-like wonder left in your heart then playing Wattam is a must. Uncovering its exceptionally imaginative world as you interact with a diverse collection of oddities makes for one captivating and hilarious adventure.

Wattam flaunts the same absurd, childlike humor that Katamari Damacy did, setting the bases of its design in the logic of the playground, but this time Takahashi offers a different game - a miniature sandbox in which the rhythm is dictated by the player, with a fine story and dozens of lovely characters.

A wonderful soundtrack and a visual style which is simple but appealing finish setting the tone for Wattam. While it’s a simple, direct game, during my time with it, I almost constantly had a huge grin on my face. Takahashi's brand of weird works for me and even all these years after Katamari, that's still the case. If his style works for you, I think you'll have a great time with Wattam. It may not last you long but it's a time that will stay with you which is worth celebrating.

Spend a few hours winding down with its carefree sandbox or just listen to the ever catchy folksy music, and it’s just the antidote you need after a bad day, a bad year, or hell, a bad decade.

As a game, Wattam is a scatterbrained assembly of goofball logic and cumbersome mechanics. As an experience, it's an earnest expression of love, affinity, and forgiveness shared by all of its moving pieces. The product is a game that elicits joy without the videogame-y demand for precooked gratification. Wattam feels like a birthday party where all of your friends actually show up.

When it's all said and done, all laughed and cried, Wattam really is a game apart from the pack - a clear continuation of the creative mindset of its maker, given what he's done before now, but also quite, quite different. It follows its own playful logic, offering clear instructions and never giving into surrealness for the sake of it, and is absolutely a more meaningful experience than meets the eye.

Completely mental, colourful, funny and an entertaining multiplayer experience, Wattam constantly surprised me with its surreal characters and insane gameplay. It will not be everyone's cup of tea but I think a lot of people will appreciate it for what it is. A bright, cheery experience that will leave you confused, baffled but smiling and laughing at the same time.

Wattam communicates a poignant, refreshing, and all-too-necessary joy in the face of adversity.

Some significant technical issues manage to do little to hold back the charm and wit of Wattam. It's a game that's great fun for both kids and adults, with slapstick humor and a sweet message of understanding people, despite your differences, at its center. It's made with today's toxic climate in mind, boiling the world's issues into something that doesn't feel cloying, but instead feels positive and welcoming. That, to me, is an achievement.

Wattam is the Katamari successor you may not have known you needed. Keita Takahashi and the folks at Funomena have created a new kind of alternative game experience. If you long for the days when you used to collect toy figures and play sets, Wattam is a wonder to behold. It's joy, colorful and fun, in your hands and right in front of your face.

Wattam is unlike any other game when Keita Takahashi's unique sense of humor and world building come together, but don't expect everything to click all the time.

Its charming visuals and messages of compassion and cooperation make Wattam a great game to play with younger members of the family.

It isn't often that you play something that is so pure and unapologetically itself, but that's Wattam. I don't know if I'll ever play another game that makes me turn all of my friends into fruit so I can progress. It oozes passion, and it has an infectious enthusiasm that's present in each and every aspect of it. Wattam never takes itself too seriously, and that makes it easy to buy into its world and suspend your disbelief. While the gameplay is all over the place, Wattam is held together by themes of friendship and a cohesive soundtrack that actually leave you grinning long after you're done.

Wattam features a truly unique design and concept and happens to be much deeper than expected, but technical issues and a certain lack of creativity prevent the game from reaching its full potential.

It becomes, in the very best sense, an anarchic fetch quest played by Takahashi's whimsical rules. [Issue#341, p.114]

Wattam combines an original concept with a simple but iconic design; software limitations, however, are some technical issue of the software and repetitiveness, also caused by the almost nonexistent challenge.

Wattam is a game that simply wants to put a smile on your face. It doesn't last very long, it doesn't require much skill from the player, and it doesn't have a complex story to tell. That also means it doesn't overstay its welcome, and that almost anybody can pick it up and enjoy it.

Wattam takes the concepts of action and puzzling, and makes them its own. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting all of the wacky and strange characters that Funomena has conjured up. Starting with the lonely mayor and ending with an entire community of over 100 playable characters is a very satisfying progression. However, Wattam doesn’t provide the extra layer of gameplay that I found myself yearning for.

Wattam is a unique game that feels targeted to a younger audience. It’s fun with friends, but sometimes we wished it had a more "video-game-y" feeling to it.

In an industry still obsessed with lifelike visuals, gratuitous violence, and tear-jerking stories, Wattam is a welcome remedy. Though short-lived and bizarre is its design, it has a joyous cleansing effect that will have you grinning ear to ear.

Wattam is a pure, adorable joy. Keita Takahashi's signature idiosyncrasies shine through in this playful game about friendship and finding pleasure in the simple things. Interacting with the wacky cast of characters is great fun, and there's almost no pressure to march on with the story if you'd rather do your own thing. It's a shame the technical side of things lets the experience down somewhat, but when the game is at its ludicrous best, you probably won't care.

Wattam is not a great video game by any definition. However, it is a great, zero-stress experience that wants to show how great friendship can be. If you’re looking for a game to test your skills or provide you with a mature narrative that makes you think, Wattam ain’t it. However, if you’re having a bad day and just want to unwind by kabooming golden poops all over your screen, Wattam is more than happy to take you under its bowler.

Quotation forthcoming.

For maximum enjoyment, Wattam expects you to meander, to mosey, to stride. A frantic pace will only lay bare the shaky controls and the counter-intuitive camera setup. Take your time, the game insists. Speak to every new citizen, wear all of their hats, propel them skyward with your hat bombs. This way, the good times can dwell while the pockets of misery remain distant and hazy. For me, the off-putting voices and the clumsy controls work with the sparse conceit to create a world that’s oddly ill-fitting. The idyllic madness and the slow, sparse mechanics butt heads to make a game best approached with caution and care. Choose the world of Wattam at your most studious discretion, my friends.

Like Katamari Damacy, Wattam is a feast of visual gags and imagination. But Takahashi’s newest project ultimately doesn’t have the necessary depth of gameplay to transform itself into more than a silly yet loveable romp.

I can’t say that Wattam makes for anything other than a clever diversion, best for parents and young children or those besotted with cuteness. The game teeters over the line between childlike and childish.

Wattam’s fascination with connection could have been better served if had a stronger story to back it up. Perhaps it could have been a kid-friendly, significantly less convoluted version of Death Stranding if it fleshed out its narrative just a bit more in the right ways.

Wattam should be played, if for no other reason than to see a designer expressing ambivalence about his own ideas.