Pretentious Game

Pretentious Game banner on Steam.

Pretentious Game is a 2012 casual platforming puzzle game developed by Filipino developer Bari Silvestre of Keybol Games. The game was originally created as an Adobe Flash game for the Ludum Dare game jam on the Newgrounds platform in 2012. It has since been expanded upon and was ported to iOS and Android in 2014, and was also published by BulkyPix on the Steam platform in 2014. The game is similar to Thomas Was Alone.

It is the first game developed by a Filipino developer to be released on Steam.

The game was inspired by the Flash platforming games I Saw Her Standing There and Midas. Silvestre discussed the games with a fellow developer on the now-defunct FGL Flash platform, when the latter remarked, "what a pretentious game".^[1]

Pretentious Game's first chapter was developed as an entry to Newgrounds' Ludum Dare 23 game jam on April 20 until 23, 2012. The theme of the jam was "Tiny World".^[2] The game was developed in under four hours, and Silvestre earned almost US$1,000 for releasing it on various Flash platforms.^[1]

The game was later expanded into five chapters when it was developed into a full game. Silvestre partnered with international publisher BulkyPix to release a retail Windows version on Steam on May 21, 2014, making Pretentious Game the first game by a Filipino developer to be released on Steam.

Pretentious Game was released on Steam in May 2014. However, its publisher, BulkyPix, made errors uploading the game which resulted in empty folders being distributed to Steam users.^[3] The game was unplayable until a month later on June 22, 2014.

Pretentious Game participated in events like the Casual Connect Seattle 2012 and the Tokyo Game Show 2013 Awards.^[4]

The game was submitted as an entry to the Casual Connect 2013 event that was held from July 30 until August 1, 2013, at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square in San Francisco, California. It was nominated for the Best in Storytelling category and won the Director Choice Award.^[5]

During the Philippine Game Development Festival 2013, the game won in the Browser-based category.

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  Pretentious Game in Casual Connect 2013.
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  Bari Silvestre with the Director's Choice Award on Casual Connect 2013.

1. Pretentious Game Post Mortem. May 1, 2012 at 8:00 AM. keybol. Ludumdare website. Retrieved on 2024-08-05.
2. Ludum Dare 23. Circa April 2012. Newgrounds team. Newgrounds. Retrieved on 2024-08-05.
3. Executable not working. May, 2014 at 7:16 AM (PHT). Zeitgeist. Pretentious Game Steam forum. Retrieved on 2024-08-05.
4. Pampanga-made "indie" game gets global attention. May 4, 2014. Chloe Cabrera. Newsbytes.PH. Retrieved on 2024-08-05.
5. Spotlight: Keybol Games. September 19, 2013. ggjmanila. Manila Game Jam blog. Retrieved on 2024-08-05.