Kenyan mobile game becomes #1 in the US

Nairobi-based Mekan Games’ The President last week topped the Android Casual Games Chart in the United States, soared to #2 on the Top Free Android Apps chart, and reached #2 on the iOS Role-Playing Games chart.

It is described by Carry1st, Africa’s leading mobile games publisher, as a watershed moment for the African mobile gaming industry.

The game was created and launched from the CrazyHubs Cape Town accelerator programme, co-hosted by Carry1st and CrazyLabs, a top casual and hyper-casual mobile games developer and publisher.

The accelerator, which kicked off in November 2021, was a gaming programme designed to teach the next generation of aspiring programmers, developers, designers and artists the fundamentals of designing and developing hyper-casual mobile games.

The President has had 229k downloads on Android and 285k downloads on iOS since launching in February. This success highlights the vast potential of African gaming talent and the continent’s presence on the global gaming stage.

Here is a breakdown of The President’s success in the United States:

Android

iOS

Mekan Games, a mobile game studio specialising in hypercasual games, is one of the first members of the 2021 CrazyLabs Cape Town accelerator cohort to celebrate chart-topping success.

“The President becoming the number one casual game in the US on Android is an exciting feat for Mekan Games and the African game dev community,” says Cordel Robbin-Coker, co-founder and CEO of Carry1st. “The fact that this game was launched out of CrazyHubs Cape Town, Carry1st’s accelerator program, makes it even more special for me. This program provides aspiring developers with the skills and resources to build great games and reach millions of users globally.”

Evans Kiragu, founder and CEO of Mekan Games, says: “Before joining the CrazyHubs Cape Town programme, our journey in hypercasual was down to 82 different games, concepts and prototypes. We had come close to publishing some of these games with different publishers around the world, but for one reason or another, we did not hit all the target KPIs. As we enrolled in the program, we were in search of that missing link, the spice.

“It was CrazyHubs Cape Town, and the knowledge, support and platform it gave us, that made it possible for us to ideate and create what would be our 83rd attempt at a hypercasual HIT game. The President showed immense potential from the first marketability tests we did. We knew we had a successful game in our hands from the start. With Carry1st and Crazy Labs, we also knew we had the right partners beside us.

“The African continent is saturated with latent gaming potential.”