WOW Enters the World of Indie Games: Test Play Debut at BitSummit PUNCH

WOW Inc. (Headquarters: Shibuya, Tokyo; CEO: Yuji Takahashi; hereinafter 'WOW') will unveil a test play of its upcoming game, 'NOWHERE UMBRELLA', at BitSummit PUNCH, an indie game festival held at Miyako Messe in Kyoto starting May 22, 2026 (Friday).

High-rise building lights blanketed by the night, neon street signs, and headlights of passing cars. A single plastic umbrella dances through the fragments of the city that emerge from the darkness like stardust. It has no owner. It has no destination. It is the type of umbrella scattered at any street corner, destined to be forgotten once the rain stops. The player is compelled to watch over the fate of this umbrella as it is released into the shimmering fragments of the city after its owner departs.

Players navigate the night city controlling the plastic umbrella. It is not about competing for scores or solving mysteries. The only rule of 'NOWHERE UMBRELLA' is to advance by reading the fragments of the city spread across space while avoiding obstacles. The obstacles blocking the umbrella's path are motifs that symbolize the city—sequences of traffic light colors, window lighting patterns—that appear before the player in abstract forms. By interpreting the behavior of light and its relationship with the surroundings, the player mentally reconstructs the outlines of the obstacles and finds the gaps for the umbrella to pass through. The player’s own perception becomes the game interface.

The idea for this work is rooted in 'Tokyo Light Odyssey,' a 360° VR production by WOW released in 2016, the dawn of VR. 'Tokyo Light Odyssey' originated from an internal WOW project questioning new possibilities for motion graphics, presenting a new visual experience through 360° VR. Ten years later, the visual world created from familiar Tokyo landscapes and fragments—such as convenience store logos and station neon lights emerging from the darkness—has evolved into the playable form of 'NOWHERE UMBRELLA.'

For WOW, which has continuously explored the depths of visual experience through video and installations, the game format is a new territory of expression that deepens the act of 'viewing' into a more active experience. By designing graphical beauty not merely as an aesthetic but as a mechanism, they explore a unique game experience that only a visual design studio can provide, blending cognitive science and visual representation with game mechanics. At this BitSummit, the game currently in development will be debuted as a test play. The company looks forward to receiving feedback from attendees and meeting new supporters and collaborators. We invite you to experience at the venue what kind of visual experience WOW will present in this new field of indie games.