I sort of randomly found this drama on Netflix. I have seen many Thai BL series before, but not one from the Philippines (and later found out this was the first one?).

This may be a story of contemporary young kids all over the worlds, who are often seen as being “addicted” to games and live in a virtual world. But it was done in beautiful way, without being judgemental about virtual interactions.. I may not be familiar with the gaming activities of the young, but this drama sure opened my eyes.

The first few episodes were just light entertainment to me. A young man, Gavriel, falls in love with his gaming rival, Cairo, who happens to be a popular guy, but also hard-to-get. Then there was the ex-girlfriend, Pearl, who is now just friends with Gavriel, who tried to do matchmaking between these two guys. The relationship slowly grew stronger with the usual ups and downs, and then we get to see more deeper matters emerging related to family relationships. Gavriel was orphaned as a kid and still could not get over his loss of his grandmother, while Cairo had a hospitalized father who later on died. Then we get to know about Cairo's guilt and sadness, not only because he lost his father but it all had to do with his sexuality being exposed to his family.

Kokoy de Santos and Elijah Canlas really did a great job in this drama. I read that their appearance was just right in time after the Thai BL 2gether went booming around the world. I would love to see more of them in the future.

What I found really interesting was the way the drama was shown to us. You get to see the actors/actresses interact most of the time through video calls, chat rooms, email, facebook and instagram (although they were given different names). This was so much close to the way we now interact with each other. You see creative videos made, emoticons, smileys and texts throughout the drama, including how one invites another for a virtual party.

One important thing that we cannot ignore is that the whole story took place during the early months of the pandemic and lockdown in the Philippines. That was the underlying theme of this drama. Everyone had to maintain physical distancing and interact online. We can read messages and updates on Covid-19 in the Philippines, every time they open their social media platforms. There were only four scenes in the drama series which took place outdoors (I hope I did the right count).

I browsed through the internet and found out that the film shooting was actually all done online. Most scenes were shot through the actors/actresses’ smartphones and in their own respective homes. Cairo’s brother and father were in fact Elijah’s real brother and father. I could not have imagined before that one would produce a drama series in this manner.

I highly recommend people to watch this drama. A light refreshment, but definitely not superficial. Gameboys clearly illustrates how relationships are built in this era of the Internet, and how the pandemic also reinforces us to interact virtually, and yet by no means are these relationships shallow.