Video Gaming To Promote African History And Culture
By Victor Williamson Jan. 4, 2013
Many of my friends have an idea to create a video game. Not being a big gamer myself, I initially brushed the idea aside, but am now reconsidering. Gaming attracts a large user base and African presence is minimal at best[10]. What I realize now is that my lack of interest has to do less with dislike of gaming and more with dislike of video game content. The blood, violence and mature content depicted in popular video games such as Mortal Combat and Grand Auto Theft ring to the same tune as any violent, sex-laden Hollywood movie or lyrically explicit and offensive rap song[1]. None of which appeal to me. Video games are not limited to such content and African-centric content that promotes African heritage may be fun, addictive and user-friendly, while promoting learning, education and awareness. This is no small challenge, but doable with a little dedication and hard work[2]. A successful example is Fuluya online games.

Africa MMORPG, 2006
One of the more ambitious attempts to create an authentic African game was in 2006 by John Sarpong, grandson of an Ashanti Ghanaian King[7]. Africa is an Massively Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) set in 13th century Africa decked with painted warriors, tribal dance, drum masquerades, African fauna, mythical creatures, and travels through Ancient Egypt, the Sahara and Timbuktu; it promotes the beauty of Africa. The trailer wets the appetite, but unfortunately the game is not finished and its status is unclear. Some forums[3][4] highlight the failure and suggest that the project is over ambitious and suffers from lack of funds, resources and expertise. This is good aside to again highlight the need for wisdom in planning and organization when embarking on African-centric projects.

Kenyan game designer Wesley Kiriinya with Ghanian Leti Games Ltd have created iWarrior iPhone game[5]. I have played it myself and its strength is its simplicity. A catchy, nifty aiming game with an African back-drop in an African village and African fauna on the attack or vying for village resources such as farmland. Wesley is working hard to establish an African presence in the gaming industry[6] and the opportunities seem endless. Ghanaian Kablo Nyomi has created Oware 3D Android game to help bridge the digital divide and to promote afro-centric technologies[13].

Maliyo Games, Nigeria
Maliyo is a Nigerian gaming company that draws from everyday and shared Nigerian and African experiences to create fun and crafty video games for a global audience[8]. The art is pretty good and the games look quite exciting to play. Take, for example, games with names such as Okada Ride, Mosquito Smasher, The Tribes, or Kidnapped and it's easy to reminisce and get excited about playing.

I also want to make mention of the first, and "what seems like only", African-American video game developer, Jerry Lawson, a pioneer of arcade and game development, console development and computers in general[9]. Jerry serves as a model to African-American game developers today. Specifically, to be hands-on, take initiative, build and innovate. I am being facetious when I say "only" African-American game developer, but I want to highlight that African-Americans will need their own company to better foster talent and encourage African-American themed art and gaming, and to avoid losing identity while immersed in mainstream and popular culture.

Afroes has a similar vision as mine, to use digital media, specifically games, to educate and empower African Youth, and to promote African heritage. The founder, Anne Shongwe, got the idea from her son's video game interest[11]. They have done development in Flash and Android, and have partnered with the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund. Anne is leveraging thirteen years of experience with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) during which time she traveled throughout Africa and interacted with African people. Afroes received the Meffys award for social responsibility and development in 2012[12]. One suggestion I have for Afroes is to create blacker characters, i.e. with more African features. The characters in Haki, while resembling blacks, would greatly benefit from a darker skin tone, popular African hairstyle, and native attire.

Uplift, Inc. has created a nice iPhone app to educate on African-American inventors. The invention list is small, but informational, and the black characters, Myles & Ayesha  are well done. Uplift has a Youth AppLab program where minority teens in DC learn to build games on iPhone, Android, and Xbox to name a few. They also learn math, science, programming and robotics to promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) among African-American youth.

African VGames
Krio'o Games, Cameroon, Home
Chopup, Nigeria, Home
Diamond Storm Entertainment, African-American princess, Home
Leti Games, Ghana-based story telling, Home
Nex Gen, Kenya-based, Home
Kuluya, Nigerian Gaming Company Kuluya Valued at $2M, Link
Nerjyzed Entertainment, HBCU football Louisiana-based Black, Home
Tabula Digita, K-12 learning games, Home
Kola Studios, Uganda, Home
Celestial, South Africa- Toxic Bunny, Wiki home
Brown Skin Games, Bro-Skin, Home
Urban Video Game Academy (UVGA), African-American mentoring, Home
Eye of Solomon (EOS), Woman African-American owned, Home

Gaming Ideas
1) Wonderword/ puzzle of African-American/Yoruba/Pan-African History and Culture (word search/crossword/hang man)
2) Necessary elements: speed, bonuses, rewards, social integration
3) Word search: Timed word searches w/ sound and graphics (art and animation) based on the theme of each puzzle 
4) Names: Ebonics Speed Word, Ebonics Word Search, Wordz From Da Hood (taken), Da Word, Da Black Word, Da Good Word, Wordz N African-American Culture, Wordz n' Black Culture, WORDZ N DA ..., Our Wordz, Wordz Like a Mug, These Wordz, Dem Wordz, DeEz WoRDz, Deez Wordz Search, Dem Wordz, Word Up, Wordz Search, Da Wordz Search, Search Da Wordz, Da Wordz, Wordz Searchz, Word Searchz, Worda Searchz, Wonda Wordz, Killa Wordz, Word Searchz, Word Up Searchz, Our Wordz Search, Our Word Searchz, What A Word, Mad Wordz, Our Wordz (e.g. What's easiest to say metric), Wordz Excite! (e.g. What breaks a smile metric), Colored Wordz, Ebony
5) Design: Scrollable lists of sub-headed themes (i.e. no digging); a couple "success" sounds per theme; VFX on "success" along theme
6) Sound: Theme-able praises, s.a. "Got 'em", "You're on fire", based on how fast you're finding words
7) Scoring: How fast, How many (?). Think of ways to be able to continually increase score, because there's a limit to timed searches. Perhaps a game that keeps going from puzzle to puzzle for the same theme, only stopping if time is over extended for current puzzle. Difficultly for each game can be extended by increasing the # of words, for e.g., with the same time limit for each puzzle, say start with 4 words -> 6 -> 8, reducing time limits, or a combination of both.
8) Perks to increase speed: "Magic Wands" "Super Clicks" "Multi Swipes" "Freebies" (?) "Purchases", perhaps initially obtained through level acquisition and speed bonuses w/out using the tricks to avoid "infinite" capabilities. 
9) Unpredictability: Different word combinations, different sequences of puzzle "degree of difficulty" progression, different puzzle shapes (e.g. ascii art), random themes, slide in from different directions, animations, sounds
10) Only real indicator of gameplay success: Are we having fun yet? As opposed to other pedagogic considerations.
11) Technical notes: Many features may only work on a given device or platform due to screen size, response times, etc.
12) Target Platforms: HTML, iOS (iPad & iPhone), Android, Windows Phone (?)
13) Themes: Music, Arts, Hip Hop, History, Literature, Slavery, Science, Entertainment, Civil Rights, Language, Religion, Heritage, Ebonics, Gospel, Ancient Africa, Village, Inner City, Black Lives Matter, The Hood, Clothing, Food, etc. etc.; (might just be one African-American theme at the end of the day, each puzzle can select a random theme, so tag each word). Doesn't have to be explicit, head word can be searched too.
14) In-App Purchases: Explicit (?); Categories; Lifelines; Themes (character, art, music, animation), e.g. Gospel Diva, Baller, Rap Chizzle/Jizzle, Buffalo Soldier, etc.
15) Word collage, i.e. organically grown lists, each with a list of "key" or "tag" words which should also reflect black culture
16) Why someone would want to reach higher levels: Speed, difficulty, Scoring, Prizes, Capabilities
17) Capabilities: Reshuffle, Letter Hints, Bonus time, Points, Cash, Zoom in/out, Spin/Flip, Constant finger drag
18) Difficulty value: # of words, arrangements of words, time alloted
19) Languages: No reason it can't be multi-lingual by design. For e.g. reuse art, but change voice over acting should be feasible.
20) Stories: No reason that the character themes and/or game play can't also tell a story, e.g. simple ~5 second fully encapsulated "story" concepts. However, larger over arching stories will be difficult due timing/resource constraints. Everything needs to be loosely coupled and patchable.
21) Boggle searching should be a go, i.e. weaving, stepping words (with caveat that no word self intersects, or should it? :))
22) Make "Word collages" available (editable?) online for targeted creoles.
23) Creoles: Hatian Creole, Papiamento, Palenquero, Patwa, 
24) Have one scholar to serve as the authority on each Creole. 
25) Initially look for creoles/languages that are being supported at the University level, research, dictionaries, lexicons, grammars, etc. to preserve quality of the word lists, and reduce the work overhead for me.
26) May work better if the headers are themselves single words, such as "Will Smith" "History" "Scientists" "Oprah" "Slang" "Gospel", etc. and could give more points for getting the head word. 
27) Stick with Ebonics and Yoruba first release. Be disciplined about this! Quality over quantity, esp. starting out. 
28) Transition effects: Tetris style disappearing of word lines
29) Usability: One/two/chunk words at a time on a continuously dropping puzzle (now more similar to Subway Surf), or one puzzle one word w/ difficulty dictated by puzzle size, word position, adjacent letters, etc. (this provides complete isolation between words, further reducing the complexity of word relationships). Somehow I feel that more puzzles with smaller sizes increases the rate of game play and makes it funner, i.e. increased transitions, VFX and other movement keep the game exciting. One could spend 5+ minutes on a normal word search puzzle. Need instant gratification.
30) Topics: Pre-selected before each game, can be user specified or selected at random, w/ granularity say 1000 words, which suggests that game should be never ending, just until all the words are done, which is basically never ending. So should we limit all topics to people names, i.e. black people from history. Then perhaps create a simple drawing depicting each. Will Smith, Mary J Blidge, Lil' Wayne, Georeg Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, Harriet Tubman, etc. All organized hierarchically by area/topic/specilization/etc.  
31) Scavenge for photos of relevant personalities online, then convert to a contour portrait drawing, then outline the contours as ASCII art for each selected individual. Can these be converted to 3D models? 
32) End: Make the game last forever, no death, crashes, timeouts, etc. Score's based on total # of words found and rate of words found.
33) Get something out early before adding in all that functionality/categories/VFX/Animation. This allows you to get reception and feedback to see how to improve, but like someone said on quora, prioritize good art.
34) Simple swipes/gestures: Up (change puzzle), Down (change word), Left (spin/rearrange letters), Right (change person/category). These are ambiguous so you probably want Counterclockwise (shuffle letters), Clockwise (skip)
35) Use every possible outlet that you have to promote your product, start out with Ebonics, and the add Yoruba if the release shows promise, sense those are the only ones that I can do myself.
36) Cube of letters?
37) Background: Needs to have fine grain details and coloring, see Black Kid TV comments. Hair style background avatar, hair animates during transitions, as if it's reacting to the transition animation itself. Can select face, color tone and hair style. Idea, leave out the complex character animation for the game.
38) Funding Models: Donation based (traditionally successful in black communities)


References