Live the Life of a Jeepney Driver in This Viral Game by Two Old Classmates
Get behind the wheel in this Filipino-developed game.
(SPOT.ph) People will often play video games to escape reality, but two friends into game development are more interested in doing the opposite. The result of this wonderment with real life is Jeepney Simulator, which is exactly how it sounds—and the online gaming community is loving every bit of it.
Jeepney Simulator launched on July 17 on Steam, with this as the game's synopsis: “Embrace your inner jeepney driver! Pick up passengers, calculate change, and weave through traffic in this Filipino-made driving game. Feed your family, customize your jeepneys, and unlock more rides! Don't forget to bring your towel!”
The team behind the game, Spacezero Interactive, a two-man team consisting of early 20-somethings, wasn’t joking when they told SPOT.ph they wanted to show off "jeepney culture" in the country. Don't be fooled by the simple graphic rendering. Throughout the game, city traffic plagues the streets, a very Filipino sound-trip blasts through muffled speakers, and stubborn passengers call to "para po" in the most random places.
Every few blocks will either have a gas station or a money exchanger to swap cash for coins. You can also choose between a Manycab or a Tamaraw jeepney and customize its speed, fuel efficiency, and fuel capacity.
Life doesn’t stop on the road, either. You go home to a family whom you support with your hard-earned income. To keep things interesting, several unexpected events can also happen to the player where they must choose one of many decisions, with varying consequences. Some decisions require things such as money, while most of them have rewards or consequences that could lead to the player losing the game. Your kid Timmy might fail his exam, your wife Jennica might arrive late from work. How you react to events is crucial to the story.
It will only cost P199—P149 if purchased on or before July 25—to download and play this Steam game. It's a small price to pay to support locally-made games, especially one that is created by students for the pure fun of it.
How Jeepney Simulator was born
Created in February 2023, Jeepney Simulator is the brainchild of 21-year-old Joshua Renzie and 20-year-old Alvin Vann from Davao City. Together, they form the two-man team of Spacezero Interactive.
“Spacezero Interactive isn't an actual company yet,” Renzie told SPOT.ph. “We're simply two friends making games together.”
Renzie and Vann were on a jeepney ride when they came up with the idea of making a game in the uniquely local perspective of a jeepney driver. As soon as Renzie got home, he went on to work on the prototype of Jeepney Simulator, only to have his game files lost in an application crash a month into development.
“I started over again, wanting to make it even better this time,” Renzie said, who dropped out of university when COVID-19 hit. “Since I don't have school, I pretty much work on it the whole day, only stopping to eat and sleep. I'm surprised that I can dedicate so many hours for something, but I'd say it's because I genuinely find game development interesting. I hesitate to call it work because for me, it's just what I do.”
“Alvin also does a surprising amount of work for someone who's in college. It's almost like he's a full-time employee. I don't know how he does it, but it's probably because it's his passion as well.”
You’ll have likely seen or heard of Jeepney Simulator at least once in the past few months. This is because the two were smart about online marketing, tapping existing communities to try the game out. “We felt that having an audience for the game was pivotal to its success,” Renzie said. They would religiously post Jeepney Simulator on IT Facebook pages and the r/Philippines subreddit—anything to get people’s attention.
Today, Spacezero Interactive has over 50,000 followers on TikTok. The community support for Jeepney Simulator is so palpable that Spacezero Interactive has even managed to host (and post) a voiceover competition for funny “para po” variations to include in the game (see: “Kuya, stop the car”).
@spacezerointeractive We posted on our last video that we were gonna be selecting the best and most creative voice lines from the community! This is just a short showcase of the best ones we found, you can check out our FB page to view the list of Winners! #fyp #foryou #viral #pinoygames #indie #jeepney #jeepneysimulator ♬ original sound - Jeepney Simulator
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What's next for Jeepney Simulator?
There’s a lot to be excited about for the future of Jeepney Simulator—if people are willing to pay the price. Renzie and Vann are currently working on the game without any kind of financing, but making a living out of the game is a challenge both of them are equally committed to try.
“We're currently in early access as we wanted to include the community in the development of the game, only pricing it relative to the amount of content it currently has to offer, with more content and updates planned for the future until the eventual 1.0 release,” Renzie said.
If everything goes to plan, a finalized version of Jeepney Simulator will include more daily events, more customization options for vehicles, a final story campaign, a jeepney-passenger rating system, and police patrols.
“As a drop-out, the chance of making my own games as my own boss seems like an impossible dream, but Jeepney Simulator just might make this dream come true," Renzie said.
"If I can make a living and support myself by making games, there's nothing else in the world I would rather do.”
Jeepney Simulator is now available for download on Steam.
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