For the Win

Eighteen-year-old Nathaniel Carpio has been having chicken inasal with his best friend Elena Dizon at their favourite sidewalk grillery for four years now, and he likes that things are always the same. But then, on a particularly bad day, Lena whips out a silly six-peso coin to comfort him, and—with the moment holding nothing and everything at the same time—Nat realizes that he's fallen in love with her.

It only makes sense that when Tala Tales Games—local developer of their favourite real-time strategy game Mitolohiya—offers college scholarships to a select few, the two of them should go for it, right? Nat certainly thinks so—there’s nothing better than spending the rest of his life with Lena doing something they both love.

But just when Nat’s game plan is coming along nicely, in pops a new challenger—Rafael Antonio, the world-renowned Filipino voice actor for the hero Apolaki in Mitolohiya. Now, star-struck Lena spends all her time bonding with her online idol, and Nat starts to feel more and more like a boring Non-Playable Character with zero chance against the Big Final Boss.

With the scholarship program underway and his future hanging in the balance, Nat embarks on an epic quest to compete with the celebrity in a real-world PvP match he’s not ready for. But in the midst of life’s frustrating glitches, epic wipeouts, and disastrous rage-quitting, is winning over his best friend the right strategy after all before it’s Game Over?