Nov 25, 2020

BAYANI - Fighting Game - Ranida Games

Greetings everyone!

The autumn sale is finally coming and again, Bayani is going to be on SALE! We are offering the game at 40% OFF this coming Steam Autumn Sale! So if you haven't got a copy of the game yet or if you wish to buy the game for your family or friends, then this is the perfect opportunity to do so!

And another thing, the Steam Awards 2020 is just around the corner! There's a whole lot of crazy beautiful games out there, all deserving to receive an award and of course that includes Bayani!

Everyone, I would like to ask your support and nominate Bayani for the Labor of Love Award.

Why Labor of Love? To those who are not aware, let me tell you a story on how Bayani started... ːsteamhappyː

Its all started back in September 2015, an indie movie about one of the Philippine's national heroes, Heneral Luna, was met with critical acclaim. Following the film's release, a social media post went viral as a group of students asked one of the actors why he never got up from his chair during the entire film. The hero he was portraying was Apolinario Mabini, hailed as the brains of the revolution and someone who suffered from polio which was incurable at the time.

This brought upon a sad realization that the younger generation had little awareness with the country’s history and national heroes. Around this time, a tribute art concept where the country’s national heroes was re-imagined as classic fighting game characters also went viral in social media.

We partnered with the artist to make this concept into a reality. Following this, development for BAYANI started with the aim of educating the younger generation about our history by associating them with the characters in the game.

We polished a demo and showcased the game for the 1st time at the E-Sports and Gaming Summit (ESGS) 2016 with only 2 playable characters. The reception was really good. People loved the idea of the game as a medium to introduce history. Not only that, we also got valuable feedback from pro-fighting game players.

The most valuable feedback we got - "This is not a fighting game", then promptly stood up and left!

This was a huge eye opener for us. Fighting games are more than just having 2 characters that beat each other up! It is much deeper than that, and, apparently, we had no idea.

Fortunately, reception was good enough that the game was featured on National TV! This was when we figured out that, despite our inexperience, the idea behind the game had potential. None of us are pro-fighting game level players and none of us knew the deep intricacies of fighting games.

However, this didn’t deter us one bit. We just have to put our heads together and turn this game into a proper fighting game—something that would satisfy the casual players like us but still deep enough for the pros.

Our studio is small and we don’t have the budget to afford pro actors for motion capture so we did everything ourselves using the available tools that we have :D

Each of us was assigned to create moves for a specific character. I volunteered to create Tonio's move coz... he's big and I love the character. We performed the moves on video which was then used by our animator as a reference. He just needs to make it look better haha!

2017—After spending months of ON and OFF development, we have a new demo of BAYANI ready for the public. Development was never continuous because we still needed to do client projects—we still gotta keep the lights on after all.

We were really excited to get feedback from the community and to see how this new version of the game feels for them. We wanted to see if we were on the right track. So at ESGS 2017 we showcased the game again and this time the feedback from the pros was that "we are getting there" ^_^

If 2016 was a proof concept, 2017 was when we were trying to find our identity as a game. The pros said it themselves, we were getting there! This means that we are on the right track. Even then the game still felt clunky and still looked like a mish-mash of different ideas, but we were slowly getting a foothold. We were getting there; we just need to put in the extra effort to get there.

We were also lucky enough to get the support of a local mall to allow us to showcase our game for free on different locations which gave us a chance to showcase the game to even more people.

Early 2017 we were talking about how it would be nice if BAYANI has an anime style intro. It was just a thought that crossed our mind back then—a dream, really, since most of us love anime but we don't know how to do it.

Early 2018 the idea came up again. This time, however, I did some searching and, as it turns out, we actually have a local animation company owned by Filipinos who specialize in japanese animation! I contacted them and they were willing to help us!

Another thing worth mentioning is that Slapshock, a popular Filipino band also shared interest in the game and allowed us to use their song BANDERA as the main theme song of the game!

During this time, another fortunate coincidence happened. Ryan “Filipino Champ” Ramirez was in the country because of a Fighting Game event that was hosted here. We reached out to him via Twitter and asked him if it was possible to meet up with him.

We literally had no plans when we approached him. We just wanted him to see our game. He’s a legend when it comes to Fighting games and when it comes to pro-fighting game players, he’s one of the top people in the scene. He is also a Filipino like us, so we just thought that maybe it’s worth a shot!

After that, something amazing happened. Not only did he like the game; he saw potential in it and he agreed to become our brand ambassador and pro-consultant. He was officially on board the development team. This was it! We thought that what we lacked in fighting game experience, he can more than make up for it

Now while all of these anime, music, and consultant stuff were happening, our team was hard at work in improving the game. Coming from our 2017 demo, we revamped the entire gameplay and started again from scratch. Thanks to all the feedback from the community, we now have a clear direction for BAYANI.

If 2016 was a proof-of-concept and 2017 was finding our identity, 2018 was the year where we made BAYANI our own. From this point on, we now have a clear vision in mind. We learned so much about fighting games thanks to the overflowing support from the community and from Ryan himself that this time, we had a plan and we wanted to showcase our ideas to the public

ESGS 2018 was met with critical acclaim. We were a small company; we barely even have 15 employees and our office is just one long table where all of us worked. Despite this handicap, our booth was overflowing with people who wanted to play the game. There was a line of people wanting to try the game.

Of course, the pro-fighting gamers wanted to try it out too and, to be honest, we were waiting for their comments this year as well. A lot of them played and a lot of them stayed to analyze the game.

“This feels like a real fighting game,” one of them said.

And just like that, all of it was worth it—all of the effort; all of the blood, sweat, and tears that we put into BAYANI for the past 3 years. It was validation of our hard work. We are now building a proper fighting game— a game deep enough for the pros and Fun and enjoyable for casual players like us.

With the help of everyone and support of the community, we were able to continue on improving the game. It was June 2019 when we finally decided to release the game on Early Access, it was our first game on Steam and it was a fighting game. Since our game represents the Filipino history and national heroes, we decided to release Bayani during the Philippine independence day, June 12, 2019.

It was also 2019 when we had the opportunity to showcase Bayani in different countries, the biggest of all is during EVO2019 through MIX - Media Indie Exchange. THANK YOU GUYS!

I met lots of really good people at EVO, they give really good suggestions on how we can improve the game... but most of all, when Filipinos living in the US saw the game they are very surprise and happy. They are like so happy, congratulating, thanking even giving me a hug! Because they are very happy with the representation. Bayani is representing the Filipino culture, not only in the Philippines but to the whole world... They are thanking me because they felt connected with the game and are really happy for the representation.

Bayani is a game born because we wanted to help the Filipinos to not forget our history, to have another medium to remind them of it and to represent the Filipino culture on a global stage. Bayani is a collaboration of many Filipinos of different specialties. Bayani is a project of passion, not only for love of gaming but for the love of the country, our history and culture.

We are just a small team with a big dream, and we are fighting to realize it. Help us bring Bayani to completion, nominate us for the the Labor of Love Award, who knows? Maybe getting nominated will help us bring in sales that can help us in developing the game further.

For those who read the longest Steam Event post I ever made in my entire life, thank you for the patience!

Happy gaming!

-Ben