Pinoy-made virtual reality game showcases Filipino mythology

Philippine folklore is home to some truly nightmarish monsters. The manananggal, tikbalang, and tiyanak are certainly horrific enough to give vampires and werewolves a run for their money. Which is why it’s a shame the world at large remains ignorant of these fiends.

There are, of course, individuals who are eager to change all that – and we can count the people at local game development studio Zeenoh among those who want to spread the darkness of Philippine horror across the planet.

Zeenoh was just one of the Philippine game development studios that exhibited their works at the Electronic Sports and Gaming Summit 2016. What made this company stand out – aside from its love of the macabre – was its enthusiastic adoption of virtual reality technology. Zeenoh’s latest game, “Nightfall: Eclipse,” is a VR experience that’ll put you face-to-face with some of Philippine folklore’s most frightening creatures.

New dimensions of terror

VR game “Nightfall: Eclipse” is actually an expansion to “Nightfall: Escape.”

“Nightfall: Escape” is a first-person survival horror game released on Steam on June 26, 2016. It tells the story of the journalist Ara Cruz, who visits a remote, rundown mansion to investigate a series of disappearances in the area. As most horror stories go, she gets more than she bargained for, and soon finds herself fighting for her life.

“Nightfall: Eclipse” serves as the prequel to the original game. As such, it sets up the stage for the events that occur in “Nightfall: Escape.” You won’t be playing Ara this time around. Instead, you get to pick from 3 characters, one of whom is another journalist named Rianne.

Zeenoh founder and CEO, Jhondie “JD” Abenaza was at the booth to discuss what’s new in “Nightfall: Eclipse.”

“We have upgraded the technology and the graphics to make the game a good fit for VR,” said Abenaza. “In a way, we’re showing the market that we have improved as a game studio. We focused on improving and polishing the engine, the framework, the assets, the textures. If you compare ‘Eclipse’ with ‘Escape,’ you can see the improvements.”

With a new game comes new monsters. But Philippine folklore is chockfull of ghouls, demons, and all sorts of other nasties that go bump in the night. So which ones made it into “Nightfall: Eclipse”?

“We’re very proud to include the tiyanak in our monster lineup,” said Abenaza. “It’s one of the most popular monsters. When we did a lot of crowd marketing around 3 years ago, the tiyanak kept coming up as the number one most-requested monster in a Filipino game.”





The game includes other monsters, but Abenaza wasn’t too keen on revealing what they are. It’s best for the players to find out for themselves – the shock factor is, after all, part and parcel of the horror experience.

Abenaza admitted to making tweaks to the creatures’ mythologies.

“If you played ‘Nightfall: Escape,’ you’ll notice that while it’s based on Philippine mythical creatures, we also made some unique changes to these creatures,” Abenaza said. “We invented new lore for them that is unique to ‘Nightfall.’ We did this because we wanted to prove that ‘Nightfall’ is not limited to just Philippine folklore. As a game studio, we are also capable of creating unique new mythologies.”





“Nightfall: Eclipse” has already been released on Steam as DLC to “Nightfall: Escape.” As it is a VR game, it is played using the Oculus Rift.

“ ‘Nightfall’ has proven a lot of firsts as a Philippine-made IP,” said Abenaza. “We will also be the first game studio to release a VR game in the Philippines.”

Abenaza hopes to eventually make the game available on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR.

Zeenoh wasn’t always a developer of PC or console games. In fact, it used to be a dedicated mobile game developer. It was in 2010 that they launched “Patintero Playtime,” a pioneer among early, locally made games. The company’s shift to hardcore, non-mobile games is evidence of its evolution as a game studio.

Visit Zeenoh’s official Facebook page for more information. — TJD, GMA News