Game for a Good Cause With 'Wild Warriors' App

If you fancy saving the planet while distracting yourself with a new puzzle-slash-RPG game, check out Wild Warriors from Kaydabi, a start-upwards founded by 2 University of Southern California grads via the USC Incubator program.

PCMag met upwardly with co-founders Kameni Ngahdeu and Kwabena Osei-Larbi at Grand Central Market in downtown L.A., a tech industry hangout due to its proximity to the Bradbury Building, as seen in Blade Runner. Kaydabi, like many young showtime-ups does not yet have a physical headquarters; it uses co-working spaces when necessary. The two co-founders are based in 50.A., but Kaydabi's team of freelance engineers, developers, and designers are equally far flung every bit Brazil, Pakistan, Romania, and Slovakia.

Ngahdeu and Osei-Larbi both hail from Africa; Ngahdeu from Cameroon and Osei-Larbi from Ghana. Their company name, Kaydabi, is derived from the Ghanaian saying: "to acquire from your past in club to build a better tomorrow." Ngahdeu graduated from USC in 2022 with degrees in Human Biology and Entrepreneurship. Kwabena Osei-Larbi studied International Relations and Business organization Law, graduating a year before his co-founder.

While living as roommates their inferior year, they started talking nearly games, and their potential to be fun and mission-driven. Both had likewise joined a progressive fraternity on campus that focused on training future leaders in highly diverse environments, in terms of fields of study, ethnicity, gender, and national allegiances.

"It gave united states of america a nifty foundation to build the company itself," said Osei-Larbi. "Considering, in the beginning yr, in the fraternity, we were put into a lot of challenging situations—in a expert way—that really honed our leadership skills and taught u.s. a lot nearly true entrepreneurship to sustain through failure or improvise at curt notice."

"Then a Paris-based friend of ours from the fraternity recommended we check out the USC Incubator," added Ngahdeu. "We met Professor Paul Orlando, an astonishing person by the way, and he told us we needed a lot more than office space, which was why we'd contacted them originally. He said, 'Let'southward talk near your business get-go.' The USC Incubator really grounded us as we built out Kaydabi."

It was time for a demo of game play. Ngahdeu grabbed his Samsung Milky way S6, Osei-Larbi had his iPhone 6s (refreshing to encounter a game that launched on Android and iOS simultaneously) and took united states of america through the higher levels, where the force per unit area mounts.

"Imagine monsters have invaded the globe with a plan to capture the world's about endangered animals and have them dorsum to their planet to build their ain galactic zoo. Your job is to protect your animal friends," Osei-Larbi explained.

So the "monsters" are symbolic forces that seek to destroy the global habitat? Both founders nodded. "Aye, everything from poaching to deforestation—all the causes of endangerment," said Ngahdeu.

Built in Unity, the game is a fast-paced, level-based puzzle with role play action for deeper identification. The aesthetic is a curious mashup of vivid and deeply saturated colors, a nod to their Africa roots, yet with huge Manga-fashion optics on the appealing-looking animals (including a particularly charming parrot). But it'south the mission behind the game that gives Kaydabi's Wild Warriors its strength.

"We know you can find thousands of puzzle and RPG mobile games on the app store," the founders pointed out. "But nosotros accept a differentiation in the power to create real modify in the earth. Dotted throughout the levels are random factoids about the different animals, as well as links to find out more, and we've partnered with some stellar organizations to raise money for endangered species."

Kaydabi common cold-called and did presentations to the world'due south largest wildlife conservation organizations about their game. Many responded positively and they've now fix agreements (they drew these up themselves, keeping overhead costs low) with several, including the African Wildlife Foundation, Sea Turtle Conservancy, and Earth Parrot Trust.

"The game is free to play, with optional in-app purchases," Ngahdeu pointed out. "Ten percent of our revenues get to the various organizations and we give them regular reports on the game'due south performance."

The game also includes a through-line of democratic consensus edifice where players vote for the animals they'd similar to back up. Funds from the 10 percent revenue pool are distributed along these lines, as well.

So what'due south next? Without overstating the case, Ngahdeu and Osei-Larbi have been witness to many of the world's iniquities and are adamant to issue alter. Ngahdeu had a particularly challenging road to the U.s.a. from Africa, coming to L.A. as a teenager with a younger sibling, simply after his female parent had established home and immigration status for them hither. Osei-Larbi, although born on the US Virgin Islands to Ghanaian parents, lived in Nigeria and then Syrian arab republic before the deadly ceremonious war broke out. Both announced older than their years.

But there's also an engaging levity, and a fluency with global digital networked culture, together with the power of games, that runs throughout Kaydabi. It's still early days; Wild Warriors was in an open up beta terminal summer but only officially launched Oct 2022. Neither co-founder has been able to surrender their day chore yet. Osei-Larbi works in business development for a leading culling legal services provider, and Ngahdeu handles supply and operations for an environmentally friendly farm-to-table blossom commitment start-up.

They're non releasing numbers for Wild Warriors notwithstanding, and still in seeking investment way, yet the momentum is clear. The visitor was recently voted ane of the Top 50 Los Angeles-Based start-ups To Watch in 2022 by Built in L.A, while the co-founders were named among the Tiptop 20 Almost Successful Young Entrepreneurs of 2022 by Fifty.A. Business Journal.

"Games have a existent impact and an ability to reach and entertain millions of people via mobile devices," said Osei-Larbi. "Meanwhile charities accept a difficult time in getting support and involvement, particularly from our generation. At Kaydabi, we want to close that gap, and tap into this huge passion that people have to make a difference and exercise something practiced. Our focus today is endangered species, but we are already working to adapt our model, business plan and connections to address other important issues adjacent."

Wild Warriors is available to download on the App Shop and Google Play.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/news/14381/game-for-a-good-cause-with-wild-warriors-app

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