What do you do when you’re bored? hm?
If you’re Gen Z or a younger millennial, your answer is probably to scroll social media or watch something.
While that’s not bad (cough, debatable, cough) I feel you could add another dimension to things (one that does not lead to phone addiction).
According to a research paper published on Frontiers in 2016, roughly 27.9% of young adults are addicted to their cell phones. This means that these people could not voluntarily be apart from their devices, and when they had to, they experienced symptoms that experts termed “withdrawal-like”.
When your mummy told you to stop pressing your phone so much, maybe she was right, dear.
Phones are great (you’re probably even reading this on yours), but like every sci-fi movie you’ve ever seen, it looks like they’re starting to take over the world; 52% of teens sit in long periods of silence on their smartphones while hanging out with friends, and 20% of people would go without shoes for a week rather than take a break from their phones.
So what can you do?
Obviously, the answer is to throw your device away, become a monk, and then start living on a mountain.
Too extreme? Don’t worry, there’s still hope for you.
Just start taking intentional breaks from your smartphone.
I know you’re probably asking, “What should we now be doing”, and to that I say, “Thank you very much for that question.”
This is where Kenechukwu Ogbuagu – aka, KC – comes in.
Kenechukwu Ogbuagu, Founder NIBCARD Games
KC is a Nigerian tabletop game designer, manufacturer and enthusiast, who has pretty much made it his business to change the world, one game at a time. He is the founder of NIBCARD Games, an award-winning tabletop game company.
Award-winning o, in case you didn’t hear the first time.
As the exceedingly well-connected social butterfly that I am, I had the chance to speak with him at his games cafe in Abuja. The back wall of the space was covered with all sorts of games and reminded me of how a mother displays her best crockery for guests to know she’s a big Madam (capital letter M, thanks).
KC was soft-spoken and had a gentle, relaxed manner, like he was weighing each word carefully before he spoke it, which made his story even more interesting.
During our winding chat, he revealed that he founded NIBCARD officially in 2016 but made his first game in 2013 – boredom, he said – and since then, KC has gone on to win grants and awards from international bodies like the International Organization for Migration, and The Diana James Award for excellence in gaming. Then, in 2019, he quit his lucrative job and set up his game cafe in Abuja.
Speaking with him was like slowly peeling an onion (and not because some bits made me teary). He started out careful and measured, but as he spoke about games – his one true love – and NIBCARD – the product of that love – it was like unravelling the passion and determination that drove him to where he is now.
NIBCARD Games Cafe, Abuja
As you can see, that’s a man doing serious things.
KC has made board games like Our School Competition – where players have to come up with a word that fits certain criteria before other players do – Wise up! – a game that captures the quintessential Nigerian experience – and many more (38 more, to be exact).
The conversation was long, and a good time was definitely had, but here’s the gist of it because I know you like amebo…
KC - Well, I have the NIBCARD Twitter account. My lifestyle is not really “personal” anymore, especially because of what we’re trying to build, so my social media is mostly work. But what’s on my WhatsApp bio is “Creative Director and founder of NIBCARD games” and a bunch of emojis. But I hope one day I get to separate my work from my personal life. Oh, there’s also “designer” there.
KC - To be very simple, it was boredom that started everything NIBCARD. I was schooling at the University of Calabar, in 2013, during the 6-month ASUU strike, and my friend and I were very bored, but we couldn’t travel because we didn’t know when the strike would be called off.
So my friend and I did different things, from weightlifting to swimming and even volunteering. One day I told him let’s go to a video game centre and he didn’t like it, so I told him I was going to make a very long and boring game for him to play since he didn’t seem to be interested in any of the usual “fun” activities.
He was a bookworm medical student anyway, and looking back, the game wasn’t even long or boring. I played it with other people in the student lodge back then and we had fun. The game was greatly based on Monopoly and Ludo, and it was essentially about living in Nigeria. I even forgot about the game till 2016, and I never knew something would come out of it. It was all done on a cardboard sheet I carried from 2013 to 2016.
Fun fact, NIBCARD actually means Nigerian Board Card, Roleplay and Dice
KC - In 2015 I started volunteering at this British organisation in Nigeria, Voluntary Service Overseas, and we were stationed in Lagos. They brought youth from the UK, Kenya etc, and we lived together in Ikorodu.
We enjoyed it o. They were so welcoming there. Commissioners knew we were there, and even the governor of Lagos at the time, as it was international. I was the team leader for three months, and we supported children in and out of school, from building for them, teaching them, working with NYSC, and stuff like that. We even gave emotional and health support and we’d connect them to hospitals and stuff.
After volunteering for 5 years, they eventually hired me as a project officer then I moved to program officer.
So, during this, the International volunteers brought board games, because we’d have social events, and they were games I’d never seen in Nigeria, so I shared the old game that I made in 2013 with them and they were astonished. Normally, when I tell people I’ve made a game, they don’t really take it seriously or care, but when I told these people, they were shocked and impressed, especially because of how much time and resources it takes to come up with a good board game.
So, they played it, and they loved it and asked me to make a revised version with some suggestions and reviews they made and that was that.
VSO allowed me to learn and travel internationally, and I mostly volunteered in education projects because I’m passionate about learning and teaching, and a big part of learning is the “play method” and this does not necessarily have to be games, it can be excursions or practicals… just any way to feed people knowledge that involves multiple experiences.
That was an eye-opener for me because it showed me that there was a whole industry around this games thing, and being in Lagos, which was more developed, allowed me to meet people and start getting my games printed out and in colour.
I later quit my job – that was paying close to half a million monthly – to focus fully on NIBCARD in 2019, because for me, what we do here at NIBCARD is not just a social enterprise, it’s a calling.
Sorry, I’ve gone off track, but that was what I was doing before formally starting NIBCARD.
KC - As I said, it was a calling for me; beyond fun, there are things games teach you and do. Beyond being my source of livelihood, there are a lot of things.
For instance, when you’re playing games, your emotions are involved, you want to win, and playing it at a young age, you’re learning problem-solving skills, and that is a hugely important skill.
You could have a bachelor’s degree, but you can’t solve common problems or create value, and ultimately, you have to solve a problem to create value – and make money.
Even goal setting skills, once someone is teaching you a game, your brain is automatically thinking about how to win. So you have a goal and you have a problem you want to solve.
Then there’s also active direct learning where you’re using trivia questions and stuff, there’s a high tendency that you’ll remember the answers to those questions the next time someone asks you because you’ve played a game where that information was featured. Emotions were involved and your heart was open.
Our school competition – a game by NIBCARD
There are also simple skills like just learning to wait your turn. Waiting for your turn is a huge skill we don’t have in this country, from waiting in ATM queues to other things like that.
When a child plays a game with others, they have to wait for their turn, and when you teach a child that from the jump, they learn that it’s actually normal to wait for things to get to you, you do not have to be the first to get things or opportunities, because at the end of the day, it can still get to you.
Those are simple skills that games teach people, and why I knew I wanted to work in games for the rest of my life.
KC - Hm. I actually did not. I was lucky to not be in a situation where my parents or other people’s criticism would be a determinant in my next moves. I come from an okay family – financially – but I was extremely independent since I turned 17 and stopped collecting money from them at the start of university, so I was predominantly on my own.
My dad also died when I was 9, so it was just my mum and she had other children to take care of as well.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if I had much money, most of my experience was just me volunteering and travelling up and down and collecting monthly stipends that would only last two weeks on transport alone. So, I was just very strong-headed and determined to make my way. I squatted with people, I hitchhiked… God has been so kind to me because, hm!
I could see in my head what I wanted NIBCARD to be, and even now, this is just a tiny fraction of what this could be. I’ve seen it, and that drive made it possible for me to push past anything.
KC - I can tell you that this industry can make someone hundreds of millions of dollars. The gaming industry is huge. Especially in the developed world, countries where they have more gadgets and consoles and live a “better” life than us.
We aren’t at that level of digitization yet, so in a way, there are even more opportunities for tabletop games in this industry in Nigeria.
People have told me “Why don’t you transition to mobile games?”, and I always tell them, “You that you’re talking, how many games do you have on your phone right now? And don’t mention Candy Crush o.”
So it’s really about intentionality for me.
You walk into my cafe, you drop your phone. We aren’t competing with Facebook or TikTok or anything, so based on that, you can see how many opportunities we have to really impact and touch people on a personal level.
NIBCARD games
Now think what the market in Ghana, or Nigeria, or the rest of West Africa sef, looks like. We want to connect with people, offices, teams and all.
You don’t have to be a game designer to earn money in this industry. Just like how in the movie industry, there’s the script writer and set director and designers and actors and then you move on to post-production like influencers and the rest. There are so many ways to make money in games.
It depends on your market model, your skill, and the value you’re creating.
Thousands of people could earn money based on one person’s idea.
You could be a rulebook writer, a graphic designer, a gamemaster, an illustrator, a manufacturer, a designer… So yes, it is a very lucrative industry, but it’s in its infancy in Nigeria.
This means that growth will come, but not immediately. This is essentially the growth of an industry, and you can never be richer than your industry.
What NIBCARD is doing is the burden of trailblazing, where we have to almost do it all, because there are just not enough people to fill in the roles we need.
There are times I’ve cried, relationships I’ve lost, sacrifices I’ve made, but it’s worth it because I know that someday in the future, there might be a pay-off.
Now? It’s definitely been difficult, but I’d also encourage others to come into this industry because the long game is sometimes the best.
KC - Ah. Well. Saying it for lack of another word, and with plenty of humility o, but yes, I feel like we are pioneers.
I say this because the operation of NIBCARD has jump-started so many people’s careers in games. When I was starting manufacturing, I couldn’t find so many people that I needed, from printers to graphic designers and all, so I had to seek people out and train them in the way I wanted, thus making them able to say they were game graphic designers and the like.
NIBCARD has designed over 40 games for other companies, so I have various designers that I can speak to and they understand my language.
Being a pioneer isn’t easy, but I’d say it’s a labour of love.
So far we have manufactured over 10,000 games, for ourselves and our international clients.
KC - Ah, No o, no!
I bootstrapped from the jump, and to date, I haven’t pitched NIBCARD to anyone.
Everything we have or have gotten has been either earned or freely given to us. In the beginning, it was just me scraping money together from my previous job and savings, and for the cafe and the African Boardgame Convention we started in 2016, it was crowdfunding.
I still feel like there’s something that’s missing though, something that will push us way up, but I don’t know exactly what it is. I believe God will show me.
It was crazy anyway, because I resigned in October 2019, planning so many things, and the pandemic really surprised me, and all the plans I had kind of collapsed, I said God.
But even through the pandemic, business was still moving, albeit slowly. At first, we were afraid of COVID-19, but then the fear kind of wore off. We used to even do house parties and game nights, because at some point people just got tired and started to come out and I couldn’t stop people from coming, me too I needed the money, so.
It was just me o. Me, my faith and my money.
KC - There are so many, wow.
I think the first is a lack of awareness of the industry itself, I’m talking about both the people and the government. They just don’t know much about board games and manufacturing and importation, so it makes things difficult.
People still walk into this cafe and are shocked that it even exists. My goal is for NIBCARD to be everywhere.
This lack of awareness has created stereotypes about games: chess is for brilliant people, scrabble is for people who like English, ludo is for idle women, and draft is for idle men.
People often look down on games and gamers, especially the older generation.
Then a lack of resources, and not just financial resources, I mean human resources. That is why I have to be a jack of all trades. I’ve put out ads on social media for game masters and other roles, and I rarely see, and even when I do, I can’t guarantee that the person will stay. Even when I first started, I had three employees, but COVID hit and I had to let them go. Now, my staff is mostly me, volunteer gamemasters, and the production team in the back.
Two of them (my former staff) went on to design their own games which NIBCARD manufactured.
Another thing is distribution; we don’t have someone doing how-to-play videos and stuff like that. It doesn’t make sense that I’ll design a game, develop it, and then manufacture it, show you how to play, make the rule book… It’s long work, and it’s not easy.
Then, of course, money. Money, money, money.
KC - When we started this cafe, it was just for my own games because I used to carry the games to different places like lounges and sit-outs and the like in Abuja, but it was stressful and some people might be welcoming and some others might be super rude, which I could understand because I’m essentially intruding.
So I decided to crowdfund rent for this space and the thing just blew up and people started donating, and that’s why we have all of these other games too. They were donated. So when people come, we can teach them our games, and they can come with their friends and play, it’s just a place where people can meet NIBCARD one-on-one.
NIBCARD Games Cafe, Abuja
And because Nigerians are such sceptical people, a business without a physical office did not inspire a lot of trust. Most people need to feel like there’s a place they can go to make sure NIBCARD is real. So the cafe gave us some credibility in that sense too.
KC - We started this convention in 2016 because there were no board game conventions at all – at least none that I knew of in Africa. I attended a comic book convention in Lagos in 2015, and I realised that ah, we need this for board games too. Like Comicon in the US. I also realised that it was a way of drumming up awareness of both people and the government to see that this industry was something real and big.
KC - The award was not just for me, it was for the brand and the team, and I was surprised we were even nominated because you don’t submit to be nominated, they just pick from the industry by merit, and the people that were nominated with were big big people o. So when we now even won, it was mad. It was a beautiful moment.
We thank God. It meant so much to me because, in the past, some of the winners have even been knighted in England, so these are real industry giants.
Winning the award gave us credibility, it showed me that people are watching, through the struggles and tears, and it shows that we know what we are doing and we have been recognized for that.
KC - I love that I love it. I love my job, I love the potential of what we’re doing, and I love that it’s limitless. I love that we are also creating social value like skill development and also giving people fun at home, in the office and in their lives.
I love making games because they are like movies and music. You don’t just sit with one and that is the end of it; there’s an endless selection of games to play, and there always will be, because people will create.
KC - It’s actually very haphazard because for me it’s all about inspiration, and It’s the simple things that people don’t notice that spark inspiration – like the way someone coughed or laughed or people crossing the road.
No Gree! – Game by NIBCARD
I could have like ten game ideas swirling around in my head, but they haven’t culminated into a proper game, and one day, both the theme – the flesh – and the mechanics – the skeleton – would come together and I’ll have that lightbulb moment. So there’s no standard way I make games.
Campus Wahala – Game by NIBCARD
KC - Ah, I can’t do that. I won’t pick between my games, but I’ll tell you my favourite board games that aren’t mine at the moment.
Right now, my favourite games are heavy games, meaning games that you can sit down and play for two hours straight, so Stone Age, is an engine-building game and it’s very complex, because I don’t enjoy straightforward games. Then Wingspan and Sheriff of Nottingham, are essentially like Nigerian politics in the sense that there’s bribery and corruption.
Lastly, is Werewolf, which is like Among Us, because it’s an imposter game.
The conversation continued past that for a bit, but that was the gist. In the end, I could practically hear my mum saying in my ear, “Does he have two heads?” and at that moment I’d have said yes, that’s definitely a man with two heads and three more to spare.
KC’s convention, The African Board Game Convention – which NTA dubbed the first of its kind in Africa – is a 2-day event that happens towards the end of every year (late November or early December) as a way to celebrate the year and prep gamers, designers, enthusiasts and other members of the community for the new year.
You can follow NIBCARD games on Instagram and Twitter (X) and check out their website at nibcardgames.com, where you can buy games whether you’re in Nigeria or abroad (it could also make a cute gift for our lovers in japa…) and if you’re ever in Abuja and want to say hi to KC and meet other members of the community, it’s here.
You should also check out KC’s latest release No Gree!, which is a fan-favourite charade game at his cafe.
That was not a request.
So, what did you think of KC? Did he inspire you to pursue your dreams too? Are you going to try out a board game or two? (I played Our School Competition at the cafe and it was so fun I nearly stole it).
Let us know in the comments, hm?
comments powered by Disqus
