iWarrior, probably the first iPhone game coming out of Africa, made its grand entry into Apple's App Store yesterday, signifying the potential of African gamers to make their mark on the international stage. The game was created by Leti Games, a team of ambitious, talented and motivated young Africans who are determined to make great games for gamers worldwide to enjoy. Leti first came into the limelight when they released a video for bugzvilla, their demo game, on YouTube.
The Game
iWarrior is unique in many ways. The game simulates the challenges of life in an African safari setting. The goal of the player is to protect his village and farm from destruction against various wild animals. I've had a go at it and was impressed by its simplicity and intuitive game play. The game's sounds are great and a lot of effort has been put into making it as realistic as possible. White African and AppShopper have more extensive reviews.
You can download the game from itunes here and try it for yourself.
You can download the game from itunes here and try it for yourself.
Team
The brains behind Leti Games are Eyram Tawia of Ghana and Wesley Kirinya of Kenya. Both Eyram and Wesley have experience in making computer games.
They first worked together building a game for the CAN 2008 football tournament. Eyram and his pal Francis Dittoh, used their undergraduate final project, The Sword of Sygos, to win Ghana Think Foundation's invitational programming contest in 2006. Wesley, on the other hand, was hailed in 2007 when he came out with The Adventures of Nyangi. The two trailblazers probably got the idea to start a game company in 2008 when Wesley moved to Ghana to work for the biometric company, Genkey Africa Corp, while Eyram served as a teaching fellow at MEST, a fully funded hands-on training programme for young Ghanaian software entrepreneurs. What's striking about these two fellows is their unrelenting passion for technology and their quest to put Africa on the global gaming map. They are an inspiration for the numerous aspiring game makers and software entrepreneurs living in major cities across sub-Saharan Africa.
The way forward
The folks at Leti Games are optimistic about the success of their foray into Apple's App Store and are mindful of what this means for other African iPhone developers. They've also just finished with a J2ME version of iWarrior for Java-enabled phones called Kijiji. Leti is exploring the possibility of reaching a deal with a phone manufacturer to get Kijiji out there. "There are more great games in the pipeline", Eyram tells me with a smile.
