WOW will unveil the first test play of its new game currently in development, “NOWHERE UMBRELLA,” at BitSummit PUNCH, the indie game festival held at Kyoto’s Miyako Messe from May 22. Lights from high-rise buildings wrapped in the veil of night, neon signs on the streets, headlights of passing cars. A single vinyl umbrella drifts through fragments of the city that shimmer like stardust emerging from the darkness. It has no owner. No destination. It is the kind of umbrella abandoned on any street corner, forgotten once the rain stops. Released into the glittering fragments of the city after its owner walks away, its drifting figure compels the player to follow where it goes. Players control a vinyl umbrella as it moves through the nighttime city. There is no scoring, no puzzles to solve. The only rule of “NOWHERE UMBRELLA” is to read the fragments of the city unfolding in space and navigate forward while avoiding obstacles. The obstacles that block the umbrella’s path are motifs symbolizing the city—traffic light color sequences, glowing window patterns of buildings—appearing in abstracted forms. Players mentally reconstruct the contours of these obstacles by interpreting the behavior of light and its relationship with the surroundings, discovering the gaps through which the umbrella can pass. The player’s perception itself becomes the interface of the game. The concept for this title originates from WOW’s 360° video work “Tokyo Light Odyssey,” released in 2016, the first year of VR. Born from an internal WOW project exploring new possibilities in motion graphics, the piece presented a new form of visual expression through 360° VR imagery. The visual world created from familiar fragments of Tokyo—convenience store signs, station neon lights—floating in darkness has evolved over ten years into the playable form of “NOWHERE UMBRELLA.” For WOW, which has long explored the depths of visual experience through film and installation, the medium of games represents a new expressive domain—one that transforms the act of “viewing” into a more active experience. By designing the beauty of graphics not merely as visual aesthetics but as part of the game’s mechanism, WOW seeks to create a game experience unique to a visual design studio, fusing cognitive science and visual expression with game mechanics. At this year’s BitSummit, the in-development game will be shown for the first time as a test play. We look forward to receiving feedback from visitors and meeting new supporters and collaborators. We invite you to experience firsthand the kind of visual world WOW will present in the new realm of indie games.

BitSummit PUNCH Overview Dates: May 22 (Fri) – 24 (Sun), 2026 May 22 is Business Day (industry professionals only) Time: 10:00 – 17:00 Venue: Miyako Messe, 1F Exhibition Hall 2 Address: 9-1 Okazaki Seishōjichō, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto WOW Booth: 3F A-07 About BitSummit BitSummit is one of Japan’s largest indie game festivals, held annually in Kyoto. It was launched in late 2012 with the mission of “bringing Japan’s most interesting indie games to the world.” The first event in 2013 was a small industry-only gathering with around 200 attendees, but by BitSummit the 13th (2025), total attendance reached a record 58,065 visitors, continuing its growth as a major indie game festival. ▶BitSummit