Clint Hennesy Porras Cagang boldly took one of the biggest leaps of his life when he organized the first meetup of game developers and enthusiasts in a bid to elevate Cebu’s status as a creative hub in game development and design.
Cagang, a 23-year-old graduate of Digipen Institute of Technology Singapore, gathered 45 people last March 18 at the PhiloSophia Library Café in Mandaue City to form the group Cebu Game Dev.
“Unlike Manila, Cebu does not have a vibrant game development scene so I wanted to start the ball rolling for us here. Game developers and enthusiasts need to realize that they don’t have to go out of Cebu to do game development. We can do it here,” said Cagang, whose interest in the field started at 12 years old.
Cebu Game Dev’s primarily goal is to create a community that supports game development in Cebu. Workshops, conferences and game jams will be organized for this purpose.
Cagang said game development is not just about people putting their geek and nerd hats on and hole themselves up in a dark room to create games.
It’s also about building relationships with persons that share the same drive and interest, he said.
After he graduated from Digipen Singapore in 2014, Cagang came home to Cebu wondering what to do with his newly acquired expertise in game development.
But he did not see opportunities in Cebu so he left home again for Manila where he had a short stint with a technology company. He said the last two years was a period of “soul searching” until he found the courage to organize Cebu Game Dev.
And he is now on a roll in spearheading one event after another.
As the initiator and lead organizer of Cebu Game Dev, Cagang is once again opening the doors of the PhiloSophia Library Café for the first game jam in Cebu to be attended by 50 participants.
Dubbed the “Ludum Dare 38,” the event will have participants develop small, bite-sized games over a 72-hour period.
“The Ludum Dare is also an international event and all games published for the Ludum Dare are played by people all over the world,” he said.
The event is sponsored by Mandaue-based printing company ClintKAMMS Corp. and co-organized by Phialo Communications.
The young Cebuano sees game development not just as a form of escape from the real world but as representative of what the world is. Cagang has high hopes in Cebu’s potential as a game design hub.
“Rather than seeing Cebu as what it is, I invite everyone to see what Cebu can become. Game development is creativity put into action and we have the skills to do it here so let’s do it,” he said.