Piko-inspired mobile game ‘Hop Pico Piko’ goes live at GameCon

You can now hop your way through the streets of Quezon City in Digify Inc.'s new piko-inspired game, "Hop Pico Piko."

Digify Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of GMA New Media, formally launched the mobile game app on Saturday during the first day of GameCon at SM Megamall.

Downloading the game is a must for GameCon guests who are collecting stamps for their "passports." The Digify team also demonstrated to gamers how to play the game, and gave away prizes to those who played in their booth.

The game went live after nearly three years of conceptualizing and developing it until they were able to create a "frustrating but fun" app that is also nostalgic and educational.

"When we were conceptualizing...we were thinking those old kalye games wala nang naglalaro ngayon. Kids are always at home, on their phones, on their iPads. Parang 'di nila alam yung kulturang Pinoy na ganun. So we wanted to bring that back, but in a way that they would understand. So we brought it in a mobile game," said Binky Belardo, Vice President for Marketing and Content.

"Hop Pico Piko" is an endless hopping game that familiarizes users with the streets of various barangays in Quezon City.

Users' objective is to go through each street by tapping only on active tiles. The next levels are unlocked by claiming all the streets.

While the game is limited to barangays in Quezon City for now, Digify hopes to expand, not just the rest of Metro Manila, but all over the world.

"We intend to expand. The big dream, anywhere in the world meron kaming streets. Let's start with Quezon City first," Belardo said.

The dream isn't that impossible because according to Belardo, the few downloads the game has includes users from other countries such as Italy, Canada, China, Singapore, among others.

Belardo said that the app has the makings of a big hit, and that it won't be the only game under the Pinoy kalye games series.

"I think it has the makings of becoming a really big hit, or at least we hope so," she said.

"This is just the first in a series of kalye games that we intend on developing. Baka magkaroon ng patintero in the future," she added. —ALG, GMA News