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NIBCARD Games and the Nigerian boardgaming culture NIBCARD Games was borne out of the need to revolutionise the boardgame industry in Africa. With arms in game publishing, designing and promotion, the fast- growing startup is changing the table top gaming culture one game at a time. Speaking with Blueink, founder and creative director, Kenechukwu Ogbuagu said it aims to “provide people with games they can relate to. Games that tell their own stories and that they would able to understand the concepts behind.” To further push this goal, NIBCARD Games recently launched a state of the art website, the first of its kind in Nigeria where home- made board games can be purchased from anywhere in the world. Apart from being a market, the platform is also a hub for lovers of tabletop games to connect and interact with each other and have access to noteworthy resource materials relating to the market. 22 | blueink.ng The most intriguing thing BlueInk discovered about the start-up is the ease with which anybody can become a games designer with NIBCARD’s help. This is the cool part! Game ethusaists who have great ideas can bring those dreams to reality through a simple three-step process. According to Kenechukwu, for designing, “we take your ideas from inception to the drawing board and add colour to tell the stories you intend.” From here, it moves to manufacturing where young, talented Nigerians are called to produce the games according to international industry standard. The company goes further to promote your games on all their platforms, game nights and at the African Boardgame Convention (AbCon), their signature end-of-year event. Nigerian homes to African- made modern board games. The confident Kenechukwu and his team are certain they can make this happen as after all, boardgaming is an African past time. The need to return the African society to the power of gaming is a major passion fuel for the team. It is clear that NIBCARD is more than a business for the team members, it is a social tool. As Kenechukwu puts it, “board games are powerful tools to improve society, tell stories, speak against social ills and injustice. It is also used to promote education.” He reminds us, as the interview comes to an end, that the awareness of boardgame’s social power is what sets NIBCARD Games apart. They simply want to return values to homes and strengthen Despite hitting these giant bonds with the board games milestones, NIBCARD has a on your tables. huge goal for the coming year - introduce one million