Game Development In the Heart of Africa

Peace Corps Online writes "The Internet has been credited with 'flattening' the world economy, giving anyone anywhere with the requisite skills the opportunity to build a game or create an app on Facebook. Now the Mercury News reports on a new game for the iPhone called iWarrior. It was produced by two 26-year-old developers in Africa, Eyram Tawiah (a Ghanaian) and Wesley Kirinya (a Kenyan), who created every element of their game — the mechanics, the graphics, the music — overcoming considerable obstacles to develop their first product. The game is 'a feed 'em up game, not a shoot 'em up,' says Tawiah, where you 'defend your village by feeding and driving away the animals before they crash it and feed on your livestock and garden!' with threats including thundering elephants, mighty rhinos, swift cheetahs, and crafty hyenas. The developers' company, Leti, which means 'star' in the Ewe language, was nurtured by the philanthropic arm of San Francisco-based Meltwater Group, an Internet business services company, which in 2008 founded the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology in Accra, Ghana. 'We believe talent is everywhere,' says the Meltwater founder and CEO."

Comments

Promo BS

[dcollins]

"The game is 'a feed 'em up game, not a shoot 'em up' says Tawiah where you 'defend your village by feeding and driving away the animals before they crash it and feed on your livestock and garden!'"

Gotta call BS on this one. The gameplay is fundamentally the same as Galaga or Centipede; hostile stuff comes down the screen and you shoot it. On some levels here the backstory is "throw stones to frighten", on others it's "throw hay to distract", but the mechanics are identical. It's a shoot-em-up.