Bari Silvestre: from Philippine factory worker to world-famous indie developer

Everyone loves a good rags-to-riches story, and Filipino developer Bari Silvestre, the man behind Keybol Games, has a great one.

Silvestre began his career in the game’s industry while working in South Korea pressing LCD screens into shape for Samsung. He spent his time combing through Google for games people wanted walkthroughs for, and then filling the gaps he saw. It was during this time that he realized the money-making potential of internet walkthroughs, and decided he needed a new way to dramatically increase traffic through his sites.

He decided that the quickest method was to embed walkthroughs in the games themselves, something Silvestre had noticed some flash developers doing already. Realizing the potential of this model, he began to make his own games. Silvestre is self-taught, so his initial attempts were quite basic, as you can see here. Despite their simplicity, the games provided the traffic Silvestre had wanted and helped put him on the way to becoming a full-time developer.

See: An indie game developer’s guide to game development…sort of

In 2010, Silvestre discovered flashgamelicense.com (now known as FGL.com) and realized that developing games for their own sake, rather than just to boost traffic to his walkthroughs, was an option for him. FGL.com helped Silvestre connect with publishers like Armor Games and Kongregate, who opened new doors for Silvestre and other indie developers.

That same year, Silvestre decided to leave South Korea and return to the Philippines, where he founded the one-man studio Keybol Games. Within the studio’s first year, Silvestre published his first game as a full-time developer: a browser-based adventure game called Belial: Chapter 1. Belial was originally supposed to be a platformer, but due to his lack of experience Silvestre decided to settle for making it a point-and-click adventure, a genre more suited to his abilities at the time.

Silvestre may not have been the most technologically-adept developer, but he was prolific, and to-date has nearly 100 games to his name. Silvestre jokes that he is known in the industry as someone who can make several games per day.

Keybol’s gaming catalog features everything from superhero physics puzzles in Vanguards, to the relentless bouncing of Ballsy Bird. Not all of Keybol’s games were great and Silvestre himself admits that “a lot were dumb,” but they paid the bills and gave him the practice he needed to hone his development skills.

See: Bari Silvestre made me think “what’s my excuse?”

Silvestre relied on flash games to make money, because flash sponsorship allowed him to “focus on the gameplay and not worry about the science behind monetization and visibility.” Throughout this time, Silvestre hoped to achieve his dream of having a game that went viral and hit the big time.

In 2012 Silvestre’s dream was realized when Keybol’s Prententious Game caught the attention of the gaming community, and Silvestre quickly rocketed to international fame. Pretentious Game’s unique charm, excellent scoring, and innovative use of gameplay, color, and shape made it an instant indie favorite.