The NVA very much enjoyed its time at GameCity this year and we’ve come back with some wonderful new donations for the collection. Masaya Matsuura, creator of Parappa the Rapper, Vib Ribbon and Major Minor’s Majestic Marching Band among others, delivered two fantastic presentations. In his ‘Unforgettable’ BAFTA keynote speech, Matsuura-san discussed his thoughts on poly-personal production and showed some sneak-previews of his upcoming mobile games and treated the audience to three wonderful songs with live motion graphics. In his ‘Mr Matsuura’s Marvellous Marching Band’ session, ably assisted by Dewi Tanner, the maestro talked about his work, inspiration and influences and led the crowd in a mass kazoo rendition of ‘Hey Jude’. Na na na nana on sha!

If mass kazooing, previews of unreleased games and an insight into development methodology wasn’t enough, Matsuura-san notched up another couple of GameCity firsts: A standing ovation. And an encore. I wouldn’t want to be doing next year’s keynote, the stakes are pretty high.

Demonstrating his support for the NVA, Matsuura-san kindly donated a very rare copy of Tunin’Glue. Wondering what it is? Let Matsuura-san describe, ‘There’s no need for instruments to make a band! Just connect sound parts from all sorts of genres and put guitars and vocals to it. Now, you’re the composer!’

This game/music sequencer was created for the Apple Pippin was never released in Europe (like the Pippin) so we’re very honoured to have a copy in the collection. Like everybody who saw the keynote, the NVA is obviously very excited and inspired and we’re all busy experimenting with Logic and making plans to deliver the next NVA presentation as a series of vocoder songs.

In equal measures, fun, informative, enlightening, and inspiring, perhaps Matsuura-san said, or rather sang, it best. Unforgettable.