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