This post should really have some punny title about toying with monkeys. But, first of all, that just sounds wrong. And, second of all, how often do you get to utter the command form of “roll”?
Anyways, the release of Super Monkey Ball Adventure, and a timely monkey-in-a-ball-related purchase have gotten me thinking about the Monkey Ball franchise itself. I’m know I’m not the only one who looks at AiAi and wonders just what vending machine he rolled out of. Usually–logically–our toys are designed after our video game characters. So when did our video game characters start modelling themselves after our toys?
Is is a marketing ploy? Is it an easy way to give personality to a game that would otherwise be about rolling boring balls? And with such toy-like characters, why oh why isn’t Monkey Ball fulfilling its destiny and selling us more adorable merchandise?
Bonnie Ruberg is a sex, technology, and video games journalist who contributes regularly to publications like The Economist, Forbes, and The Village Voice. By day she's also a comparative literature PhD student at UC Berkeley, where she studies French, English, gender, sexuality, surrealism and perversion. You can reach her at [her first name and last name, all one big word] AT gmail DOT com.
September 4th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
The story I’ve read somewhere (Slashdot?) goes that the developers had a game where the player tilted a playfield to roll a ball to a goal. But they were trying to find some way to inject personality into the game.
The solution: put a monkey in the ball. The rest: history.
September 5th, 2006 at 8:05 am
And another question: How the heck do they breath in there? Ah, those magic monkies.
September 5th, 2006 at 8:26 am
Scott was just saying something about Japan as a “vending machine” culture (i.e. you can get anything from a vending machine). Why do we think that is?
September 5th, 2006 at 9:16 am
Who else wants their own monkey ball?
September 6th, 2006 at 7:37 am
I am so not coordinated enough to run around in a ball. Also, how do you do stairs?
September 8th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
“I am so not coordinated enough to run around in a ball.”
And that’s why it would be fun to see you try! :-)
“Also, how do you do stairs?”
Down is easy – it’s up that requires being clever.
September 10th, 2006 at 7:10 pm
Speaking of stupidly rolling down stairs, were you ever one of those kids who went sliding down stairs? You know, you lie down on your stomach, head first, and go weeee! Whenever I try and do it nowadays, it just really hurts my tummy…