Narinig Mo Ba

What Is Narinig Mo Ba? A Sari-Sari Store Simulator Hiding a Horror Story. Behind the counter of an ordinary Filipino sari-sari store sits a story that only reveals itself to players willing to listen closely to every customer who walks in.

Where the Game Came From

A six-person student team called VC Studios built this project for Game Jam Los Baños 2026, with contributors doppie, yuriellll, oreocapybara, Krarneas, csr_eio, and karinasaurus submitting the entry just an hour before the deadline closed. Every sprite and background was hand-drawn in-house, with no generative AI involved anywhere in the art pipeline, and the sound design pulls from CC0 audio libraries. Once the jam wrapped, the team went back and polished the project into a proper release.

How the Store Runs

Each shift follows a simple pattern that new players pick up within minutes:

• A customer walks in and names what they need, sometimes as plainly as a stick of coffee
• The player scans the shelves and grabs the matching item
• The item gets carried to the counter for the exchange
• A short conversation plays out before the next customer arrives

Nothing about this loop feels complicated on paper, which is part of what makes the shift from calm to eerie so effective.

What the Post Jam Update Adds

The current build available differs quite a bit from the original submission:

• A long list of bug fixes cleans up issues that made the jam version finicky
• Interface and pacing adjustments smooth out the overall shift experience
• Downloadable executables now support three operating systems and multiple chip architectures
• A mobile-compatible version is being worked on for a future release

The Source of the Dread

There are no monsters jumping out from behind shelves here. Instead, offhand comments from regulars start circling back with new meaning once enough shifts have passed, and the store itself occasionally shows small changes that are easy to miss on a first look. The quiet of working a night shift alone does most of the heavy lifting long before anything overtly strange happens.

Getting the Most Out of a Playthrough

• Read full customer dialogue instead of clicking through it
• Keep a mental note of names, dates, or claims that get repeated more than once
• Glance around the shop between customers rather than only watching the counter
• Wear headphones since certain audio details are easy to miss on speakers
• Take shifts slowly rather than trying to serve customers as fast as possible

Where to Play Narinig Mo Ba and What to Expect

Narinig Mo Ba runs free through its itch.io page, either directly in a browser or through native downloads. A few practical points are worth knowing before starting a shift:

• The browser build works on any modern browser without installation, making it the fastest way to try the game
• Desktop builds cover Windows, Linux, and MacOS, with separate downloads for x86 and ARM 64-bit chips
• A mobile version is planned but not yet available, so browser or desktop remain the only ways to play for now
• The playtime sits closer to a single sitting story than a lengthy management game, so players looking for something they can finish in one session will find the pacing suits that
• Support for the developers is optional, since the full game costs nothing to play

Players who enjoy quiet, dialogue driven horror over jump scares, and who do not mind reading through conversations carefully, tend to get the most out of what this particular sari sari shift has to offer.