Collapse Google Search Results With This Katamari Minigame
You google something every day, but when was the last time you liked it? All these links and images are looking at you, waiting for you to click on them: everything is the same as always. But perhaps you shouldn’t click on them. Maybe you should destroy them instead. Or at least roll them up into a katamari ball like in that PS2 or Switch game.
For those who missed the craze, Katamari is a series of video games with a simple goal: you take control of a sticky “katamari” ball that you roll around the environment. Everything your ball touches sticks to it. And the goal is to collect as many random items that litter the ground as possible. The first game, Katamari Damacy, was released on PS2 in 2004. You play as the “Prince” who is tasked by your father, the King of all space, to restore all the stars, constellations and even the moon that he destroyed. Conveniently, you can collect debris with a katamari, increasing it in size until it is large enough to become a new celestial body.
Collapse Google search results
Katamari is now coming into Google search, joining a number of other Easter eggs the search engine has added over the years . While there are many games in the Katamari series, Google’s efforts certainly don’t deserve to be counted among them. This is not a full game: when you search for “Katamari” you will see an animated jumping katamari icon on the right side of the screen. Click on it and the katamari will become fully visible, accompanied by a popup asking you to use the keyboard arrows to control it. As you move it across the screen, katamari picks up all search items, including text, links, and images.
That’s about it. You cannot make a star out of your collections, and you will not receive praise from the King of the Universal Cosmos. But it’s a fun mini-game in its own right.
Lucas Bullen, lead software engineer on the project, told Kotaku that Google launched the game a few days ago to bring nostalgia to users: ” Katamari is a nostalgic game for a lot of us and has a lot of fans,” Bullen told Kotaku via email. . “The recognizable game mechanic of the items attached to the rolling Katamari is so fun and unique that we wanted it to interact with the search page and give fans the opportunity to play Katamari in more than just games.”
Bullen also noted the availability of Easter eggs for other games such as Star Fox and The Last of Us. For example, when you type Make a barrel , the entire search page is flipped upside down. When you search for The Last of Us , a mushroom icon appears; when clicked, it spreads cordyceps fungus all over the search page. Sounds like a katamari cleaning job.
If you want to play Katamari for real, a remake of the first game in the series, Katamari Damacy REROLL , is available on the following platforms: