We’ve all been wondering what the next update to Angry Birds Seasons will be. Today, we’ve got answer — and it confirms that China is taking over the world. After the ChinaJoy conference in Shanghai, Rovio announced via Twitter that the next Seasons update will be Chinese themed and include merchandising tie-ins such as the Angry Birds mooncakes.
The Angry Birds Seasons Moon Festival update is now available. Check out the announcement here for more info and to leave comments.
The Angry Birds Seasons “Moon Festival” (it’s unclear if this is the official name) update coincides with the Chinese Mid-Autumn festival which celebrates the largest moon of the year. Traditionally, this event is accompanied by the eating of mooncakes, hence the product tie-in. Rovio says the update will come in early September, with China getting the world exclusive early release (we don’t know long this exclusivity will last). This year the lunar festival falls on September 12th, so we should see it before then.
China is Rovio’s second largest market, so this is a push by Rovio to increase that market share and likely head off pirating. Rovio expects to surpass 100 million downloads in China this year. This will obviously help them achieve that number while simultaneously increase their exposure in China. Per the press release Rovio stated that it is also beefing up its operations staffing in China and is adding strategic partners to its Angry Birds China team. PPW will be handling the licensing while Madhouse — China’s leading mobile advertising network — will help, “expand virtual and real world connections and reach via prime time mobile advertising concepts.”
A big thanks to @ladycrumb in the forum for tipping us off to this.
…and without further adiou, Angry Birds Mooncakes…
YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow that seems like it wil be sooooooo much fun! I live near China, so does that mean that I get it early too? Also I’ve been really confused because all the worlds have been opened even though I have only finished poached eggs. Can someone tell me why?
Thanks!
PS I love angry birds
Not sure if you’ll have early access or not. Also, not sure why the worlds are open. As you know, they typically don’t open until you pass all the previous levels with at least one star.
It is supposed to do that!
I am looking forward to this- just in time for my birthday :). I can’t wait to see what some of the scenes look like. Now, off to Google “what are mooncakes?”
cool!!!
Small typo : Rovio excepts to surpass <- expects
Great news, but I guess this won't be a one level per day update if there's a few days exclusive for China. I'm kinda addicted to the one level per day format ;)
Thanks, fixed. Yeah, probably not one level per day, but who knows.
Moon Festival eh? Cool! A great birthday present for me! Perfect timing!
same here. lol
I know what I’ll be doing fall semester rather than studying….shhhhhhhhh…
Same here :)
Asians represent! W00t! They pretty much have to do something for lunar new year now. It’ll be the year of the dragon! The coolest year!!!
While I thought the press release was a bit cold and calculating in terms of ‘capturing the market’ I really like the idea of the Moon Festival episode and hope we see more non-US/European holidays and season in the future. It would also be pretty neat to get the ‘cities’ theme that Rovio talked about some time ago.
Anyway, can’t wait for this. Hope the China exclusive isn’t too long so I can get it near my birthday!
Sounds cool. Love Angry Birds but recently I’ve been wondering why Rovio is making such wide stretches with Seasons. I mean, the game is called SEASONS, not any event, holiday, or festival that occurs during the seasons. But I guess without that the game would be over quickly with not a lot of room for expansion, so I’m cool with it.
Well, they’ve really only had one season – Summer – and all the rest have been holidays or other celebrated events or occasions. Which is great, because there’s only four seasons but lots of ways people celebrate them and that means the angry birds will just keep coming and coming.
Seasons is my favorite of the three AB games and I’m happy if it continues for a long time to come.
You know, your comment reminded me of a short article I recently wrote that I never published. I’ve published it, but am not promoting on the homepage so you can really only find if you have the direct link. I’d be curious to know what you guys think of the idea, so feel free to comment with your ideas, thoughts, or anything else. I know it would take a lot of work and many people would hate being reliant on wi-fi or a data connection. That said, I think there is something to it.
I like it. I think it would be cool to have a new level each day, I’m of the belief that it could be done with a variable array and a conditional logic subroutine within the program. Far better, IMO, than to tie everyone to a data connection.
It would however, be quite a bit of work to have that many levels ready to go in one program.
Yeah, no doubt. I thought about that as well. 365 level is A LOT. It was just an idea I had that I wanted to share. Thanks for taking the time.
Hey Bird Leader,
I love your ideas for the “new game”. I’d buy it right away. I am more addicted to the daily levels that Season’s Greedings introduced and Summer Pignic continued rather than 15 new levels of Mine and Dine. Don’t get me wrong, I love 15 new levels at a time but I find myself blasting through all 15 as fast as I can not allowing myself to “savor” each level like I do when I only have one new one to play (and master).
Given some of your deeper thoughts of what Rovio could do with 365, which would have to be 366 for leap year, like you said, it would allow them to have all kinds of surprises, like celebrating famous birthdays and the likes. I think they could get lots of supporting monies from companies trying to promote, movies, TV shows, candy bars…whatever.
Great idea. I have no doubt that Rovio employs someone that reads every bit of this site. Hopefully they will pitch the idea together we can spawn a new, more addicting, Angry Birds 366!
Thanks for the comment. I agree it would be cool, but as TruckDriver pointed out 365 levels is A LOT. I agree, it would take a lot of work, but it would be so awesome and there is so much that they could do with it. If they could secure the levels without requiring wi-fi or a data connection that would be even better. I doubt this will ever come to pass, but maybe the idea will work it’s way into something else that will have all us fans chomping at the bit.
Why would Rovio have to design all 365 levels at once? Couldn’t new levels be released in monthly batches or even updated daily by a new way to update the levels through an “in app” wifi / data update method?
I’m not sure if Apple would allow this type of app update, but it would be nice.
The monthly batch idea is a good one. Also, the “WiFi” style is exactly like Summer Pignic: No AppStore update required, but new levels downloaded by the app. Although I think full fledged updates may be more convenient for Android users (based on the SP problems).
I like this idea a lot. I really enjoy the one level a day gameplay and was extremely pleased and surprised with the special level in Summer Pignic on the day of the Shuttle launch. It would be great to have this sort of thing every day.
I love your idea, Bird Leader. But someone has to tell Rovio or there is no way it’s going to happen.
which special level, lady crumb?
She is referring to level #17 of Summer Pignic. It was a spaced themed level to commemorate NASA and the last Space Shuttle mission.
Aah! That’s why that levels was so different! It was actually little hard, when I had to play on the Moon!
I realize this is an old post, but I only just saw it today. I read your article and wish that this would happen. I thinks it a GREAT idea…seeing as this was last July I think… I guess nothing ever came of it? I think you should submit your idea as you never know and Im sure they could figure out the details about the wifi/data all though I dont think its that big of a deal, if you have wifi, great… if you dont get it, lol!!! I mean most people have access to wifi these days…please let us know if anything ever came or comes of it ;-)
Wow…I cant believe they are doing a Moon festival theme. Luckily, I can relate with it because I was raised in China! 中秋快乐！
I think I’m going to need to find someone to translate this site. Anyone? Anyone?
According to Yahoo! Babelfish it translates as: Mid-Autumn Festival is joyful.
It means Happy Moon Festival. You are very close.
Not me, I don’t speak Chinese :-) Besides, no translation, even a computer based one, is ever perfectly accurate…
well, i live near china(i’m korean) and i am learning chinese even though i am nine years old. maybe i could do that when i am older.
It means Happy Moon Festival.
Thanks all. Just to clarify, I meant translate the ENTIRE site, which would be a big (yet worthwhile) project.
I can translate any Chinese words to English!:D
I wonder what the pigs will look like?
didn’t u see the pic @ the top?
Not sure that pic was there when this comment was left.
I think its cool to be getting a new episode of Seasons, but as wanda noted above, “what are mooncakes?”
Well, I went to Google, then Wikipedia, to find out. Its a pastry filled with lotus seed paste and sometimes the yolks of salted duck eggs.
I gotta tell ya, I’m OK with the lotus seed paste, but for the other, I would probably reject it on principle as an American citizen.
Hopefully the update will come with some bug fixes like the ad-free ad glitch I told Rovio about.
Now, what are “salted ducks” exactly? I can obviously Google that, but I’m intentionally foregoing that for the gratification of finding out here.
Beats me, it was just mentioned in the Wiki article without any further elaboration. And I’ll tell you this: I’m not really certain I want an explanation for it, since, as the old saying goes, there are some things Man is not meant to know.
Oh man, I’m reliving bad memories of Philippine balut. Trust me, you probably wouldn’t like the particulars of this horror either.
As a general question, I’d dearly like to know why those food items so blandly referred to as “delicacies” are among the nastiest tasting foods on Earth?
Haha, so true.
I honestly cannot believe that I know this answer to this without googling it. . .
Salted duck eggs are cured eggs (duck, usually, but sometimes they use chicken). They are either cured in brine or in clay/charcoal. After the curing process, they are boiled.
I’ve never had them, but I would imagine that they wouldn’t be too very different from pickled eggs. I imagine they sound kind of icky to many people, but every culture eats foods that people from other cultures might find odd. I think of lutefisk that is popular in Norway and among Norwegians in the Midwest US). Lutefisk is cod cured in lye (they used to bury it in the ground during the curing process). Having lived in Minnesota, and currently in a long term relationship with someone of Norwegian heritage, I’ve been around it more times than I cam count. Gefilte fish, a Jewish food, is very similar.
Latinos often cure cod by heavily salting it and letting it dehydrate. This is called bacalao. If you are ever near a Latino market, if you see a big stack of dried (and stinky) fish–that’s it.
All of these foods, I assume, have one thing in common. They were originally made as a way to preserve food when people lacked refrigeration.
Ok, sorry for the little moment of geek. . . Back to Angry Birds.
well, in china, there are mosquito eye soup too.
that sounds awful, but critics say it is delicious.
even queen elizabeth II in the UK tried it.
No there’s not! I’m even Chinese and I didn’t hear of it!
Well, there are many types of flavor and types of Mooncakes…Besides that lotus seed paste, fruit flavor Mooncakes and cool Jelly Mooncakes may also find as to suit the taste of the American, not just only a baked pastry with monotonous Lotus seed paste and the salted duck egg….
Coffee, Tiramisu , Sweet Cheese, Chocolate and more….
Ok, now this is getting better. And making me hungry too.
Hehe, grate you’re say it. Next time come Malaysia when Chinese Mid-Autumn festival seasons, the Mooncakes here is unique and the flavor may suit to you… :)
as i see it they dont care about PC version
I don’t think that is the case at all. Updating the PC version might be quite a bit more work than other platforms. There are just SO many different configuration options that it makes testing much more difficult and time consuming. I really hope we see an update soon though.
Angry Birds Mooncakes
Oh no. Moon Festival. Is this really necessary?
I hoped for new Halloween levels or for a New Year update.
Could still be, but this is just the next season.
wait why a chineese theme if seasons is for SEASONS?
p.s sorry for yelling.
Well, pretty much all of the episodes in seasons are not seasons. “Seasons” is more representative of the time of year an event takes place. If the everything was so literal the world would be a strange place. Can you imagine an Xbox 360 that was an actual sphere?
Why not? From just my quick readings on the celebration, it looks like the Moon Festival is a far bigger deal in China than Halloween in the US is. (Also, I think some are interpreting the word ‘season’ in the game name far too literally…)
One of the things I like about Seasons is that every season is different. Another Halloween episode is not nearly so interesting as a totally new celebration.
Because this Moon Festival is a seasonal celebration in China, it looks interesting, and why not?
I can’t wait for this update!!!
But I need to ask you a question Bird Leader, I tried to view the forums but it wouldn’t let me. It kept giving me error messages. Do you have any advice for me? I would like to go on the forums. Is your site compatible with the iPhone 4? I would think so, but I’m not sure. Thanks!
Hrm, I wonder if the site was having issues. I just checked on all my iOS devices and the forum seems to be loading fine. Could you try again?
I tried again and it didn’t work, but then instead of putting my email where it said email I put BombBirdShawn (my username) and then it worked.
Oh, I’m new here and I just want to say, this is an awesome site, good job!
Here’s the legend story about the Chinese Mid Autumn Festive, you’ll be touch after read this story.
A long time ago, 10 hot-blazing suns lies on the sky. The suns burnt the land, dried the river and toasted the plant, and civilians keep suffered of the existence of the 10 suns. One day, a marksman called Hou Yi stand up to rescue the land. He aimed the suns and shooting down the 9 suns(but why He didn’t shooting down all the 10 suns? The answer exactly is, no sun, no lives and the beautiful Earth from theory of the Science!). Hou Yi was them adore by the civilians. After that, he married with a beautiful lady called Chang Er.
One day, Hou Yi met a God named Queen Mother of West(Xi Wang Mu in Chinese name), and Xi Wang Mu gave a packed of the pills, which can live longer and looks younger after take. Back to home, Hou Yi was then delivered the pills to Chang Er, however this precious things is being founded by the Hou Yi’s apprentice, Fong Mong.
After three days, Hou Yi had to hunting far away. As after the leave of the Hou Yi, Fong Mong managed to broke into the Hou Yi and Chang Er’s house, and tried to steal away the pills. Chang Er is being horrify. At critical moment, she accident swallow all the pills. Her body was floated and fly away from the house, toward the moon. Chang Er was very sad by fall away and missing her husband, Hou Yi.
When Hou Yi backed from hunting, he found that Chang Er was disappeared and he extremely feeled distraught. At night, he saw the moon have the shadow of the lady, liked the shape of the Chang Er. Hou Yi is worship his loving Chang Er with some fruit and dessert. [END]
That’s the right story!
Where is the movie?
They have stated they are working on one, but I’m sure it’s a long way out still.
Speaking of a movie, that brings up a question: do you think that this new level might introduce another bird for the arsenal?
I hope it will!
I live in China,Hong Kong.I have the early acess!And@BirdLeader,It’s Mid Autumn Festival!
But Not Moon festival!
Got it. I got Moon Festival from the press release. We’ll see what they call it.
I think a new season episode would be autumn, IF
I think it’s going to be a regular 15-level set. If it is or not, I’m going to be distracted by playing Angry Birds on my Android. ^_^
Which level is the golden egg on?
This update is not out yet. Are you referring to the Golden Beachball in Angry Birds Rio?
can’t wait for this update.
koolio happy moon festival
i wanna know if the angry birds seasons is on computer
Not yet. If you check download.angrybirds.com it says it’s, “Coming Soon”.
yyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What happened to the mystery game?
You referring to this one? If so, it’s still a mystery.
Yup thats the one. Haha thanks.:)
Woooohoooo I’m so excieted!!!!!!!!!