Project Overview
Ayo Game is a mobile app that digitizes the traditional African board game Ayo, making it accessible to a global audience through an engaging and educational experience.
The app is designed to preserve and celebrate African cultural heritage while providing a fun single-player gameplay experience, allowing users to play against the computer with multiple difficulty levels.
The Problem
Traditional African board games like Ayo have limited digital representation, which reduces awareness and accessibility—especially for younger generations and global audiences.
Many people also face barriers such as:
Difficulty finding a physical Ayo board
Cost and inconvenience of purchasing the board
Lack of exposure to the game rules and cultural relevance
Project Goals
The goal of this project was to create a modern mobile experience that:
Makes Ayo easy to learn and play for beginners
Preserves African cultural heritage through design and storytelling
Provides an engaging single-player mode (vs computer)
Supports different difficulty levels to keep users challenged
Creates a smooth and enjoyable mobile-first interface
Role & Responsibility
Role: Product Designer (UI/UX)
Platform: Mobile App
Responsibilities:
Designed the end-to-end mobile experience (game flow + UI)
Created user flows, wireframes, and high-fidelity screens
Designed a clean visual system that reflects African identity
Focused on usability, accessibility, and player engagement
Tools: Figma
Key UX Challenges
Digitizing a physical board game comes with real product challenges:
Teaching the rules without overwhelming new users
Making gameplay feel intuitive on mobile
Balancing fun + strategy for beginners and advanced players
Keeping the interface clean while showing game state clearly
Designing a computer opponent experience that feels fair and rewarding
Design Strategy
To solve these challenges, I focused on:
Simple onboarding + learning
Clear gameplay interface
Engagement through difficulty levels
Cultural identity without clutter
Core Features
Single Player Gameplay
Difficulty Levels
Educational Value
Mobile-first Experience
