These award-winning Filipino indie games are fruits of passion, process

MANILA, Philippines — It’s not just in esports that Filipinos have been bringing home trophies. Filipino game developers have started making waves in the game development marathon Game Jam Plus, an event that challenges developers all over the world to create a game from scratch in just 48 hours.

In the 2021 Game Jam Plus, local studio Psychic City Games won three awards — Best Game in Asia, Best Sound Design, and Game of the Year — for their narrative game “Meet Me on the Mountain”, while Sweet Banana’s ‘RiBeat!’ made it into the grand finals of the 2022 Game Jam Plus.

In the Philippine GameDev Expo held last month, Philstar.com was able to know more about these two globally recognized games.

Journeying through memories in ‘Meet Me on the Mountain’ 

“Meet Me on the Mountain” by Psychic City Games is a narrative game that follows a photographer named Julia who hopes to solve the riddle of her shattered memories and uncover the truth, no matter how painful it might be.

Besides their run in Game Jam Plus, the game was a finalist in GDAP's industry awards, “GameOn”, and was exhibited at the Electronic Sports and Gaming Summit as well as the Taipei Game Show, going through community voting and deliberations.

Org mates while studying in the University of the Philippines, Nissie Arcega and Andrei Fernandez joined Game Jam Plus not knowing how wide the reach of the event was. 

“We didn’t even know it was that big. May nagmessage lang sa group chat na nagtatanong sino daw gusto sumali, so sabi namin kami,” said Arcega, recalling how her and Fernandez’ journey started.

The game’s main idea came from Arcega, centering on photographs and memories as the event’s theme was about colors. The story had been the one constant since the game’s first conceptualization until its current version.

“Yung story lang actually yung na-retain from our first iteration of the game. Sobrang nag-iba na siya from what we had in Game Jam pero the story remained the same. One of the things we really wanted with this project was trying to figure out how to use video games as a medium to best tell a story about grief,” explained Arcega, whose personal experience with grief fueled the story.

She adds, “It comes really from this feeling that you want to remember someone who is no longer here, to revisit the past but having no way of doing so because, like from my experience, we don’t have any photos together.”

Though they were firm in retaining the story from the first interaction of the game to what they have now, Fernandez admits that it was hard finding a proper medium in incorporating the story.

“It was a process. We didn’t really know how we would tell the story and how we could incorporate the visuals we wanted. When we started the game, we were all still learning how to make games and how to translate the narrative into a game. The more we tried, the more we learned and one of the things we lived by is ‘Simple is better’. You don’t really need a lot of hard mechanics when telling a story,” admitted Fernandez. 

The game is currently undergoing development for the studio’s participation in the coming first Philippine Game Dev Pavilion at the Gamescom Asia in Singapore and in the SXSW Sydney Game Showcase 2023 in October.

Meet Me on the Mountain is currently available to wish-list on steam.

Jump to the [Ri]Beat!

Sweet Banana’s RiBeat! is a rhythm game that lets players follow the adventure of Muira as the frog jumps through different puzzles in the Amazon River. The game features different Brazilian elements, especially the enchanting frog amulet known as Muiraquita.

The game was a swan song for senior computer science students from the University of the Philippines Mindanao who participated in the 2022 Game Jam Plus.

It was team lead and lead programmer Franz Vilela who pitched the idea of a rhythm game.

“My love for rhythm games inspired me to pitch RiBeat!'s rhythmic game design to the team, which aligns perfectly with one of the themes of the game jam: ‘Easy to play, hard to master’. The game's narrative also fulfills the game jam’s ‘Tales of Us’ category, telling stories about Brazilian myths. Incorporating of Brazilian folklore, our team drew inspiration from a myth featuring an enchanting frog amulet known as Muiraquita. We found the idea of a frog deity hopping from block to block perfectly aligned with the core concept of our game, making it a fitting and engaging choice for our game’s mascot,” said Vilela.

He shared that the team had only one objective in mind: to develop a game they liked and have fun at, but RiBeat! broke into the top eight games of the Game Jam Plus Manila and moved on to the next round, which was the Asia finals.

He adds, “We pushed through the competition and had a lot more time to polish and develop RiBeat! We also passed the second stage of Game Jam Plus and eventually ended our run as a finalist in the Grand Finals, the final leg of Game Jam Plus which concluded last July.”

Besides their Game Jam Plus run, RiBeat! is nominated in the coming SEA Game Awards 2023 and are set to exhibit their games in events in the coming Malaysia Digital Content Festival (MYDCF) 2023 as well as in the SXSW Sydney Game Showcase 2023 in October.

Though Sweet Banana has no target release date yet, they do plan to release the game on Steam and other mobile platforms.

“As an aspiring game studio from Davao City, it is important for our team to continue our passion for developing games since the game development scene in Mindanao is close to non-existent. Although we may not have the resources nor are we well-known enough to kickstart our local game development scene just yet, our relentless dedication to game development represents a promising stride in the right direction. RiBeat! embodies Sweet Banana's passion project, a labor of love that we're currently pursuing during our free time. Rest assured; we are diligently striving to make it the best it can possibly be,” said Vilela.

iBeat! is currently available to wish-list on steam.