San Francisco / Tokyo – Mar 17, 2011 - Japanese game design legend Masaya Matsuura and OneBigGame (http://onebiggame.com), the non-profit publisher of videogames, today announce that for the following four weeks beginning March 17th, net earnings from their latest iPhone and iPad music game WINtA will directly benefit the Save the Children charity teams active in Japan, helping children affected by the devastating earthquake and tsunami in the country.

Matsuura-san calls for iPhone and iPad game consumers around the world to help his country and download the free WINtA game (http://itunes.com/app/winta) and start purchasing songs.  The net amount received from each track by NanaOn-Sha will be distributed via OneBigGame to directly support Save the Children in setting up a network of child friendly spaces for children in the worst affected areas of Japan. Staffed by trained volunteers and furnished with toys and games, these spaces are safe havens for children to play and socialise with peers their own age, helping them recover from the trauma of the disaster they have just experienced.

Save the Children is a leading expert in this field, operating child friendly spaces in major disaster zones around the world, including the 2010 earthquakes in Haiti, Italy and the floods in Pakistan.

OneBigGame already has a long term partnership with Save the Children and normally redirects 80 per cent of all its net earnings towards Starlight Children’s Foundation and Save the Children to support their global on-going campaigns.  However in light of the recent events in Japan, OneBigGame are proud to make a special case by re-routing donated funds generated by WINtA to support Save the Children’s relief efforts in the affected regions, with immediate effect.

Tomonori Watanabe, Director of Communications at Save the Children Japan: “I profoundly appreciate this new effort through the game WINtA by which people all over the world are able to join in the charity. We are determined to send your heartfelt messages to children affected in the disaster. Thank you so much!”

Douglas Rouse, Save the Children, said: “We are extremely thankful for One Big Game and Masaya Matsuura’s inventive offer to help us in our appeal to raise £1 million for children in Japan. We hope that this game may offer a new digital way for people to donate to help our aid relief and bring back a bit of normality for families suffering from the disaster.”

Here’s our changelist for this version:

- Four new tracks added, great new songs by Vampire Weekend!
Changelist for version 1.0.1:
- Play different track on summary screen now places user in personal library.
- Artist Information for “DR” has been entered.
- Icon was displayed as low-resolution on iPhone 4.
- Button color issues have been fixed in the menu.
- Added Japanese localization.
- Fixed a grammar error in tutorial.
- Fixed a crash when viewing songs following clearing image cache twice.
- Updated credits.
- Updated intro sequence.
- Fixed track updating (now works automatically).
- Highscore button no longer vanishes when a track is deleted.
- Buy Now button no longer becomes unresponsive if user attempts to buy song while IAP is restricted.
- Embedded songs now update correctly.
- No tracks to delete! text alignment fixed.
- If store is empty a “no new tracks available” message is displayed.
- Spinner stops animating when IAP is disabled.
- Gameplay now starts after transition is fixed.
- Track lists now have an appropriate title.
- Store “sort by” options now function correctly.
- If “Song” and “Artist” are hit at the same time, only one menu opens.
- Track description is fixed.

WIRED Magazine, January Cover

WIRED Magazine, Article

WINtA is a free download in Apple’s AppStore and at the moment you can download two tracks for free. If you buy any of the other tracks you will be helping OneBigGame’s charity partners Starlight Foundation and Save the Children. Don’t forget to keep your eye on our in-app store and this blog regularly as many new cool tracks will be released this year!

LINK: www.wired.it

Happy Holidays from the entire WINtA team!

Make sure to try your best on those leaderboards and put in a decent score. If you want an introduction to the game, just check out the built-in tutorial, which teaches you the basics of playing the game. When you are familiar with the game, head over to the store and explore some of the amazing new tracks by artists such as Little Fish (Am I Crazy), DR (Disco King & I Heart Rollerskates) and Gan Juan (Rising Up).

The most important aspect of the game is; for each song you buy, money is being donated to the charity organizations supported by OneBigGame!

Update: It looks like we’re off to a good start, the first gamers are already enjoying the songs!

SAN FRANCISCO – Dec. 13, 2010 – OneBigGame, the non-profit publisher of videogames, has released a free-to-play music app called WINtA on the App Store, available for iPhone and iPod touch. The WINtA App brings a fresh, new approach to rhythm games by actively involving players in a song’s music and lyrics, keeping them engaged while taking full advantage of the Multi Touch capabilities of iPhone and iPod touch.

The WINtA App embodies the spirit of OneBigGame’s initiative; game designers working together to make great apps and to support important charities. The app showcases the talents of Dutch developer Triangle Studios while the design was led by Masaya Matsuura, creator of the famous PaRappa the Rapper series and widely recognized as the father of the music game genre, as well as his Tokyo-based NanaOn-Sha studio. OneBigGame also partnered with ngmoco, a premier creator and publisher of freemium apps and games, to bring WINtA to the ngmoco Plus+ network.

“We are thrilled to release the WINtA App on the App Store,” said Martin de Ronde, director of OneBigGame. “The app showcases the talents and hard work of Triangle Studios, NanaOn-Sha and ngmoco, all in the spirit of charity.”

“Working with the OneBigGame initiative is something I am personally very excited about,” said Masaya Matsuura of NanaOn-Sha. “The WINtA App, created in the spirit of collaboration between musicians and designers, delivers a compelling gameplay experience rooted in the tradition of the rhythm games of old. I hope everybody loves it!”

“The process of collaborating on an app with NanaOn-Sha and OneBigGame has been an amazing experience for our team at Triangle Studios,” commented Remco de Rooij, CEO of Triangle Studios. “The WINtA App is the model of what a music rhythm game should be, delivering a fresh and fun experience with each new track.”

“ngmoco is proud to support OneBigGame’s charitable efforts, and expose the app to as many users as we can through the Plus+ network,” commented Simon Jeffery, chief publishing officer, ngmoco.

At launch, WINtA will include a free music track donated by Matsuura. Additional tracks from artists big and small will be available through In App Purchase.  OneBigGame will donate a portion of music track sales to Save the Children and Starlight Children’s Foundation.

The WINtA App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore.

For more information on OneBigGame’s charity initiative, please visit http://onebiggame.com

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About OneBigGame
OneBigGame aims to raise funds to help solve problems afflicting children around the world. The nature of these problems can be diverse, but the kind of projects OneBigGame supports will always revolve around a structural improvement in children’s lives, expanding their opportunities in life. OneBigGame raises funds by publishing games kindly donated pro bono by established names in game development, in conjunction with support from the development community as a whole. The games will be published on the dedicated games portal OneBigGame.org, as well as through a variety of PC and console download channels. OneBigGame always aims to donate a minimum of 80 percent of all donations to its charity partners Save the Children and Starlight Children’s foundation. To learn more about OneBigGame, please visit www.onebiggame.org.

About ngmoco
ngmoco is a wholly owned subsidiary of DeNA Co., Ltd, the world’s leading social mobile gaming company. Headquartered in San Francisco and with studios in New York and Portland, ngmoco creates and publishes games for the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Android in collaboration with the best and brightest game makers in the world. To witness the lives and minds of the ngmoco team at work on the future of social mobile gaming, visit http://www.ngmoco.com.

About NanaOn-Sha
Like a fresh breeze spreading originality and fun, NanaOn-Sha has employed music, images, and games as a means to bring smiles to the world since 1993. Beginning with uniquely original games such as PaRappa the Rapper (for PlayStation 1, 1996) and more recently with the hit series Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop (for Nintendo DS, 2005 – 2010), NanaOn-Sha have extended their project realm further; including the creation, development, and production of music for the Robot Pet AIBO and CG animations for educational TV shows broadcasted nationwide. Dealing with such a broad variety of products, NanaOn-Sha is currently looking to expand its international activity as part of their continued exploration of originality. To learn more about NanaOn-Sha, please visit www.NanaOn-Sha.com .

About Triangle Studios
Triangle Studios was established in 2006, the company develops applications and games for Nintendo DS, Wii, iPhone and Playstation 3. In the past two years, Triangle Studios has received a Dutch Game Award for the title Stratego: Next Edtion (DS) and an award for best startup company of 2009. For more information, visit www.triangle-studios.com or contact winta@triangle-studios.com / T: +31 588 200 204

About charity partner Save the Children
Save the Children is the world’s independent children’s charity and is working hard to ensure children get proper healthcare, food, education and protection. Save the Children fights for children’s rights and delivers immediate and lasting improvement to children’s lives worldwide by demanding justice for the poorest and most vulnerable children. Save the Children works in 120 countries; saving lives in emergencies, campaigning for children’s rights, and improving their futures through long-term development. To learn more about Save the Children, please visit www.savethechildren.org.uk.

About charity partner Starlight Children’s Foundation
For more than 25 years, Starlight Children’s Foundation has been dedicated to helping seriously ill children and their families cope with their pain, fear and isolation through entertainment, education and family activities. Starlight’s programs have been proven to distract children from their pain, help them better understand and manage their illnesses, and connect families facing similar challenges so that no one feels alone. Through a network of chapters and offices, Starlight provides ongoing support to children, parents and siblings in all U.S. states and Canadian provinces with an array of outpatient, hospital-based and Web offerings. Programs are also delivered internationally through affiliates in Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom. To learn more about Starlight Children’s Foundation, please visit www.starlight.org.

Roundabout the same time, I met up with Remco de Rooij and Timen Rienstra from Triangle Studios, during a talk I gave on OneBigGame at their school in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands. They had just left school and set up their own game development company and approached me after my talk to offer their services. They were working on DS games and also had their own Wii game in development. They mentioned some iOS development as well, gave me their cards and asked me to contact them should I ever need their help.

Later that year, when I spoke to Matsuura-san about his OneBigGame project, he mentioned the idea of re-inventing the music rhythm genre he invented with Parappa. His idea was to create a new music game on iPhone and he wanted to show it to me at GDC 2008. He also mentioned he needed help from a developer skilled in iPhone development in order to realize the game. Cue Triangle Studios, whom I asked to join me for the meeting in San Francisco after having introduced them to each other during TGS the year before.

In the corners of the Moscone building, our meeting began and Matsuura-san showed us a prototype of a game he called WINtA. As with most innovations, the first time you see it, you don’t fully understand it yet, precisely because it’s new and diffferent. Slowly my brain adapted tot the mechanics and I understood the fundamental principles of the game. Simple, elegant and much more intuitive a music rhythm game than any other I played so far. I was excited,  but also realized there was so much to do still.

And so Triangle Studios, NanaOn-Sha and OneBigGAme embarked upon a creative journey, every minute of which I have fully enjoyed. During this journey, Matsuura-san’s basic prototype evolved into a working demo. This process was truly collaborative and poly-cultural as Triangle kept adding ingredients to Matsuura-san’s basic recipe, which Matsuura-san kept on improving after being pleasantly surprised by the change in taste. The creative collaboration worked really well and ultimately led to a game that is not only a great game in its own right, but could be a new way for people to experience their music (through bizarre interactive videoclips) as well as for artists and vj artists to showcase their work. And because the basic version is free, hundreds of thousands of people will be able to get a taste of the project any day now.

And so the journey has come to an end. A journey which I will never forget. Matsuura-san’s amazingly creative vision, Triangle rising to the occasion and growing as a professional developer, great partners like Nimrod, ngmoco and Sculpin helping out with music licensing, distribution/publishing and QA respectively to make sure the game would be of the highest quality and all this in OUR SPARE TIME. That this game has been created in downtime, spare time, weekends and fully pro bono during its development is simply amazing. And for this, Masaya, Dewi, Remco, Timen, Eric, Tim, Stefan, Willem, I want to thank you. It’s been a pleasure working with you all and I hope the game is as successful as our collaboration.

That we may generate great funds for our charity project, but also that many people around the world may simply enjoy a great gem of a game that will hopefully reinvigorate one of my favorite genres: music games.

Martin de Ronde – director, OneBigGame