Lydia Matata, GPJ Kenya
Salim Busuru works on an illustration for KADE: Ule Mtoi Mrui at his apartment in Nairobi, which also serves as his studio.
NAIROBI, KENYA ─ You are a small boy, dressed in a red T-shirt and green shorts, and you’re armed with a slingshot.
There is a shiny new bicycle on display at the general goods store in your village. But you are too lazy to work on the family farm and earn some money, as your mother advised.
You ignore the “Keep Out” sign at Mr. Njuguna’s neighboring farm. You scare his hens with your slingshot and steal their eggs. For every egg sold at the general store, you are closer to buying the bike.
But there are a few obstacles: a big, gray guard dog, large roosters ready to protect the hens and the rotund Mr. Njuguna himself.
Can you get the eggs without being caught?
This is the plot of a mobile game called KADE: Ule Mtoi Mrui. “Ule mtoi mrui,” in Sheng, a street language derived from Swahili and other tongues, means “the naughty child.” The setting in the game is typical of a rural Kenyan village, and players take the role of a Kenyan village boy.
KADE is part of Kenya’s growing gaming industry, striving to create products to which Kenyans can easily relate.
“We wanted to make a game that is truly local and authentic to where we are from,” says Salim Busuru, who developed KADE: Ule Mtoi Mrui with his brother, Evans Busuru.
Salim Busuru, the cofounder and creative director of Urbandesignkings, designed the game while Evans Busuru, a partner in the business, worked on the programming.
Salim Busuru says the game’s scenario is based on an incident that occurred when he was a boy in rural western Kenya.
“I was hunting birds with a group of friends when one of them killed a chicken with his slingshot,” he says. “It was insane, because a chicken is a high-value item in that part of the country. We had to hide the dead chicken and run.”
The game’s theme music was produced locally, giving the game an authentic African feel, Salim Busuru says.
He and other Kenyan developers are tapping into a growing mobile market in the country. Mobile penetration was up to 88.1 percent as of September 2015, according to the Communications Authority of Kenya. The number of mobile subscriptions was almost 38 million, up from almost 33 million in September 2014.
By 2020, there will be 525 million smartphone connections in sub-Saharan Africa, according to GSMA Intelligence, the data arm of GSMA, which coordinates efforts between mobile operators globally.
Even so, mobile game design is relatively new in Kenya, Evans Busuru says.
“There was no mentor to teach or guide me, so I had to learn everything on the Internet,” he says.
Salim and Evans have produced two other games: Chicken Run and Operation: Mlinzi, both based on local experiences.
Echaminya Mbarani, another local developer, created Ale the Luhya, a game that features Ale, a young man who tries to catch as many chickens as he can before his time runs out. To get more time, he must find a cross in a field.
Mbarani says he based the game on a common joke among Kenyans that members of his Luhya group love food, particularly chicken. The cross in the game sends a religious message, he says.
Kelvin Kimathi, who works for an IT firm in Nairobi, says KADE: Ule Mtoi Mrui strikes a nostalgic note for him.
“Having grown up in Kenya, particularly up-country, the game is very familiar to me,” he says. “I was once the child who was chased by a dog while messing around with my grandmother’s chickens.”
But as much as Kimathi and others say they enjoy the games, the developers have yet to translate that interest into cash.
There were more than 1,000 downloads each for KADE and Ale the Luhya just after each game was launched, but those numbers stagnated due to a lack of advertising, Evans Busuru and Mbarani say.
Evans Busuru and Mbarani have other jobs.
Cukia Kimani, a developers need to understand how to create programs for more than just entertainment.
“There are gaming apps that are less risky in terms of investment, such as educational games,” Kimani said in a Skype interview. “I believe that games can educate a child better than any other medium, especially now with the push for one tablet or computer for every child. Developers can also make games for advertisers or take contract work from overseas. People want to do it, but they just think it is not possible.”
Kimani organized a game-development meet-up in Nairobi last year to help developers understand their career options, share games and get tips so they can improve.
For Evans and Salim Busuru, just knowing that there’s a market for Kenyan games is encouraging.
“I created a website called Chekichezo to promote such a community. My idea is a one-stop shop or just a place where Kenyans can appreciate their own games,” Evans Busuru says.
