We’re about into lockdown and everyone is handling the current COVID-19 crisis better than others. In this case, the nightmare of homeschooling your kids is working out in the Philippines, as 14-year old Theo Ariel Rivas goes to show. A self-thought game developer in the 9th Grade he’s made a platformer PC game about battling the Coronavirus disease or COVID-19.

In the game, you play as one of your medical frontliners dressed up in a coat and mask battling the highly recognisable Coronavirus molecule with his frozen alcohol gun. The game is supposedly mirroring the challenges confronted today by frontliners in treating patients with COVID-19. I mean it probably isn’t in the literal sense but it’s a good way to showcase the battle stance all our doctors and nurses are taking at this time.

“Sa current situation, no one is taking advantage to make a game about it, to [be] the first to have that idea. So, I think that was also what inspired me to really make this game”

Theo Ariel Rivas

The game has been made for PC using the Unity game engine but he’s thinking about developing it for iOS and Android. This is definitely a more productive use of time instead of just playing the FF7 Remake and Animal Crossing all day. Oh yeah, that was me.

So is this the best game? No. But it’s not too bad and it’s an inspiration for not just everyone standing together against COVID-19 but for young aspiring game designers everywhere. If you have internet access and love playing games there’s really nothing stopping you from making a game on your own. A lot of game engines are free to use with the most popular being Unreal Engine and Unity. If the actual programming freaks you out, you can even check out our article ‘game engines that don’t require any coding’. Great job Theo! We hope to see more from you in the future.

All the images and video were taken from the original interview sourced from GMA News’ segment ‘Stand for Truth’. Watch the full interview here (in Tagalog).