Mary Claire Kidenda (TUK Nairobi, Kenya), Mr. Emman Kianga (TUK Nairobi, Kenya), Paulette Odongo & Bradley Mauncho
Video game development at the Technical University of Kenya
Project
This project has been developed by final year Interactive Media Design students at the Technical University of Kenya for showcasing at documenta fifteen in Kassel, Germany. The project presents two games namely Hawker 101 and Brikicho developed from two different concepts drawn from Kenyan culture. They are made in an effort to virtualize an attempt to share the experience of Kenyan culture utilizing mobile gaming technology as a platform.
Concept 1:
Hawker 101 draws inspiration from the culture observed specifically among informal street vendors (hawkers) and their day-to-day efforts to make a living while avoiding collision with the authorities. Their encounters with the law, entrepreneurial spirit and grit are virtualized and gamified in the game Hawker 101.
Concept 2:
The second video game is inspired by a children’s game called “Brikicho” which is also what we have named the game. It was created in a bid to virtualize the outdoor game experience and make space for it in the increasingly popular virtual gaming space. Brikicho reimagines and repackages the thrill of playing the original Brikicho into a fun, virtual experience with a twist.
Process
The project has been in development since late last year. We since have gone through the cycle of game development pre production where we covered ideation and exploration. In this phase we set out to visit and study our environments and target audiences. We developed video game concepts and game stories that would inform the activities, rewards and punishment systems of the games.In this phase we were part of the board game workshop hosted by Augsburg University of applied sciences which was a very refreshing and eye opening experience. We are glad that one of our concepts was adopted and reimagined by the board games group to create a board game version of the same concept.
We have since kept working through the production phase and have managed to model game characters, virtual environments and now we are winding up the coding, testing and development phase of our first versions of the games. We hope to be done later next month and to have playable first iterations of our concepts.
Project Facilitators Dr. Mary Claire Kidenda (Academic Team Leader), Mr. Emman Kianga (Facilitator)
Participating Students Ms. Paulette Odongo (Brikicho), Mr. Bradley Mauncho (Hawker 101)