PasaHero turns the Filipino commute into a whimsical game

The PasaHero project began as Gabriel Del Rosario’s thesis at Ateneo de Manila University, where he wanted to make a game about travelling around the Philippines and delivering packages. He eventually realized that he did not have enough personal experience with the kind of travelling he wanted to portray to make the idea work.

“I initially set out to just make a game about travelling in the Philippines,” Del Rosario said. “It was frustrating working on the initial thesis ideas of travelling/exploring because I simply didn’t have enough lived experiences to make something compelling or educational.”

Then he remembered the familiar phrase: “Papasok kang estudyante, lalabas kang mandirigma.”

Del Rosario is the founder of Kwek Kwek Studios, the team developing PasaHero. Franz Leonard Atanacio works on game design and takes on other roles when needed, while Johann handles the business side of the studio and also works on design. Arti Vergara leads game design and studio culture, and Riv handles art operations.

The game turns the Filipino commute into a 3D platformer, with the player trying to get to school while dealing with public transportation, traffic, weather and the other problems that come with getting from one place to another.

The choice of platforming comes from Del Rosario’s interest in games such as the classic Super Mario 64. He liked how those games were easy to pick up but still gave players room to improve their movement and discover things for themselves.

“There was a satisfaction in those games that gave the right balance of fun exploration and satisfying movement,” Del Rosario said.

The goal was to give PasaHero the same accessibility while leaving room for players to master its movement and discover its secrets. The difference is the setting. Instead of the fantastical playgrounds common in classic platformers, PasaHero uses an exaggerated version of the Philippines that still needs to feel grounded enough for players to recognize.

“The setting of the game is an exaggerated reflection of commuting locations in the Philippines but it can’t go overboard with its more whimsical or fantasy elements otherwise it would detract the immersion of the player,” Del Rosario said.

“The parking lot in front of Shakey’s Katipunan branch has become a point of discussions and jokes in the Ateneo community. It is because of how difficult it is to navigate when it is filled with cars. People treat it as a maze, but imagine if you can platform over those cars without the owners suing you for property damage.”, added Atanasio about an inspiration for the game.

“A lot of the time the main question I would ask myself is ‘What are commuters already doing?’ and this would serve as my guide on ideas that can work in the game,” Del Rosario said.

Choosing between walking and taking a vehicle, deciding which route to take and managing limited money are all decisions commuters already make. PasaHero turns those decisions into mechanics, with time pressure adding another layer to otherwise routine choices.

Atanacio sees commuting itself as a game.

“If you think about it, commuting itself is a game already,” he said. “You have an objective, multiple means to reach that objective which has their own pros and cons, and limited resources to achieve that objective.”

A train can be faster and cheaper, while a bus might take you directly to your destination. The player has to decide which tradeoff is worth making.

“Do you prefer the faster and cheaper option, or the more convenient option?” Atanacio said. “We can’t have both because the Philippine transportation system sucks.”

That is also why the protagonist is a student on a budget. Del Rosario said the perspective comes from his own experience, since that was the situation he was in for most of his time as a student.

The developers also found that the student perspective makes the game’s scarcity more tangible. There are too few public utility vehicles and too many commuters, forcing players to make decisions about limited resources.

Some playtesters have suggested that the character could simply take Grab or Angkas when things get difficult.

“That would defeat the whole purpose of the game,” Del Rosario said. “This is a game of inconvenience. The pasahero is just a participant that relies on this public transportation system.”

Atanacio also sees the student character as a broadly relatable starting point.

“Everyone has experienced being a student on a budget at least one time in their lives,” he said. “Because of this, it will be relatable to the majority of people playing the game.”

The current playable demo does not yet put much pressure on players to manage their pamasahe, but the team intends for later levels to make budget management more important.

One of the more important ideas behind PasaHero is that commuting is not just about riding a vehicle.

Del Rosario remembers commuting along Commonwealth Avenue at around 5 a.m., when he saw people moving around the highway and jumping onto public utility vehicles. He also remembers an elderly commuter falling while trying to get onto a jeepney. People immediately checked on him before he simply got back up and continued his journey.

“This was the moment that made me heavily dislike how we do commuting and it’s the image that pops in my head when I think about PasaHero,” Del Rosario said.

He remembers the experience as both familiar and frustrating, which is also how he sees the game’s approach to commuting.

“It’s relatable and funny because for commuters it’s familiar and it makes people feel heard but at the same time it’s frustrating that it is relevant and that this is life,” he said.

The team is particularly interested in the experience of the “Supercommuter,” referring to people who travel from outside major urban areas into cities for work or school. Their journeys can involve several vehicles, long queues and difficult walking conditions before they even reach their destination.

“Things like multimodal travel, long queue lines, hostile walking conditions and so on are the many things a Supercommuter faces,” Del Rosario said.

The developers are currently looking at Metro Manila, Metro Cebu and Metro Davao, as well as the rural areas surrounding them. The game is not intended to reproduce any one place exactly, but the vehicles are immediately recognizable: jeepneys, tricycles, habal-habal and other forms of Philippine transportation.

“The goal is to make the setting in PasaHero recognizable as the Philippines but to not be an accurate 1 to 1 representation of any particular place or setting,” Del Rosario said.

The game also exaggerates some of the realities of commuting to make them work as platforming mechanics.

Strong winds can push the player around. Flooding can create new routes using improvised platforms. Traffic becomes an obstacle that has to be watched and avoided.

The team introduces these challenges individually before combining them. A player first learns how to deal with wind, for example, before having to deal with wind and traffic at the same time.

“To make each obstacle in front of the player manageable, it first needs to be introduced and then it can be amped up,” Del Rosario said.

The developers have considered adding more unpredictable elements, including vehicle breakdowns and accidents, but they still need to make sure those systems do not turn the game into something unfair.

“For example, a rainy level where entire roads are flooded would be a nice reference to recent issues regarding Philippine transportation,” Del Rosario said. “However, it also removes the option of riding vehicles as traversing by foot would always be a better option.”

The platforming itself remains one of the team’s biggest challenges. It has to be simple enough for new players while still giving experienced players something to master.

“The platforming took, and is still taking, the longest for me and the team to get right,” Del Rosario said. “It needed to be easy to pick up but fun to master.”

The traffic system has presented another technical problem because the game needs to handle multiple vehicles and pedestrians at once.

Del Rosario points to games such as Until Then and Hari ng Lagim as examples of Filipino developers telling local stories through different genres. He believes the growth of independent development has helped create more space for those ideas.

“I find that there has always been an interest in making games that are Filipino,” he said. “There has always been that interest and passion to make something Filipino.”

PasaHero takes a less traditional route. There is no mythology or historical setting. The Filipino identity comes from something considerably more ordinary.

The game is built around a familiar experience rather than a particular period or tradition. For Del Rosario, that makes it easier for people to relate to even if they come from different backgrounds.

“Even when comparing PasaHero to other platformers, you can see that the setting is ordinary and can’t compare in terms of whimsy or fantasy with others,” he said. “Yet that’s what makes it so relatable and understandable for other people.”

“Our diversity, and culture is varied and mixed in so many wonderful ways that it’s difficult to find the one modern thing that we can all share,” Del Rosario said. “At least with commuting/travelling, it is universal.”

That has also helped the game connect with international players.

When the team exhibited PasaHero at GDS 2026, international visitors were able to understand the game’s basic experience even without knowing the context behind every vehicle or location.

“They grasped what the game was trying to do with the platforming and the setting,” Del Rosario said. “Some of them even relate to the hectic struggle happening to the character.”

The developers found that international players often responded to the mood of the game before understanding all of its cultural references.

“People play the game and see that it’s warm and find it cute then slowly they see the themes of commuting and messy hectic roads to travel,” Del Rosario said.

That approach has helped the team think about how to introduce Filipino experiences to audiences who are unfamiliar with them. Del Rosario said one consultant they met at GDS 2026 gave them a useful principle: when the recognizability of something is low, creators can work with what they are able to evoke and let audiences build an understanding from there.

Getting to school is the game’s central objective because it is the commuting experience Del Rosario knows best.

The current scoring system is based primarily on time. A timer tracks how long a player takes to reach class, rewarding those who can make the journey quickly. The budget system currently plays a smaller role, although it is intended to become more important in later levels.

The developers have also compiled their own commuting experiences on the team’s Discord server and use those alongside research into how other people commute.

The pressure of being late to school also shapes the game’s pacing.

“Calm and slow at the start, chaotic and fast at the end,” Del Rosario said.

For him, the biggest time pressure often comes from getting to the public utility vehicle that will take him toward his destination. Reaching that first major vehicle can determine whether he is already going to be late.

“In this sense, the closer you get to your goal, the more resistance will be met,” he said.

The game will eventually expand beyond its current rural environment into more urban and varied areas. The team also wants to introduce crowds of other passengers, forcing players to navigate around groups of people rather than simply vehicles and environmental obstacles.

That focus on the pedestrian experience has already affected how some playtesters think about commuting.

Del Rosario remembers that some Ateneo playtesters initially questioned why a commuter game had so much platforming.

“Most people hear commuter game and think of the vehicles,” he said. “Yet people should realize that a really large part of it is the pedestrian experience.”

The time between vehicles, dealing with weather and navigating messy traffic are all part of the commute.

One playtester told the team that playing PasaHero made her realize how much walking is actually involved in commuting and how hectic and tiring it can be. Another asked why the protagonist did not simply live near the university.

Another person in the room had the answer: they could not afford it.

For Del Rosario, those conversations are part of what the game is trying to create.

“I want players to enjoy travelling but to also come to terms with how chaotic and messy the public transportation is,” he said.

He hopes Filipino players can laugh at the situations they recognize while also thinking about how much of their lives are spent getting from one place to another.

“The hope is that they also walk away with this bittersweet feeling that this is really how commuting has been for a long time,” Del Rosario said.

The developers also hope the game can connect with people who have never experienced Philippine public transportation.

Del Rosario said he was surprised that some Filipino playtesters were interested in the game specifically because they wanted to learn more about Filipino commuting. The experience at GDS 2026 reinforced the idea that the game’s premise can work beyond its local setting.

“As some of our mentors would say, ‘the experience of travelling is international,’” he said.

That does not mean removing the Filipino details. The vehicles, roads, traffic patterns and other elements remain central to the game’s identity. Instead, the developers are using the broader experience of travelling as a way into those details.

The same principle shapes what Del Rosario wants players to take away from the game.

“I hope that it leads them to reflect on their own commuting experience,” he said. “That it makes them think about how much their own lives are spent in-transit. How much of their lives have been limited by what is accessible for commuting.”

“Reflection and thinking about the times they’ve spent commuting themselves and how it lines up with the game,” he said. “Hopefully, they also laugh and have a good time seeing these times. Like they feel heard.”

Kwek Kwek Studios is already considering what could come next. The team is looking into multiplayer and even international travel for PasaHero. It is also working on another project called Sari Sari Skies, which is built around children racing kites and using Filipino words as power-ups.

“Games may not fix anything directly but it certainly can help make the world feel a lot lighter,” he said. “Use games as your tool to spread fun and to teach. Don’t stop, keep trying and find what it is that you find fun and what you want others to experience!”