For 22 of his 24 years of existence, Lual Mayen lived in a refugee camp in northern Uganda. His mother and father fled from South Sudan and its many years-lengthy civil warfares. And that is why Mayen’s journey to turning into a sports developer is so rare and fantastic. I heard Mayen inform his story at Rami Ismail’s #1ReasonToBe panel at the Game Developers 
Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. As he instructed that tale, there wasn’t a dry eye inside the target audience. So, I met with Mayen on Friday and captured his story on video. He tells it so well, and I encourage you to look at the entire video. Mayen turned into born at some point of wartime. His mother and father have been fleeing South Sudan, which managed to gain its independence as a country in 2011. They have been attacked on the road, and the parents needed to separate. Mayen became born at the manner to the camp. He grew up there with no energy. He was one in every of more than 2.Five million displaced by using the civil war, which commenced in 1983.
A few years returned, Mayen saw a laptop computer at a registration station for the refugee camp. He informed his mom he desired one. She saved money for three years to get the $three hundred to buy it for him. When she gave it to him in 2013, he burst into tears. He took it to an internet cafe and used it. And he located Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and the joy of playing. He didn’t understand how video games have been made. “I thought they fell from heaven,” he said. It becomes a 3-hour stroll to get to the net cafe, but he made the journey regularly just to fee his laptop and play games. But as an infant born in a violent struggle, Mayen notion about how to create a sport that could inspire peace. He taught himself to make video games and shaped his very own agency, Junub Games. “Living in a refugee camp is not clean,” Mayen said in his talk on the GDC 2019 panel. “I requested what’s the exceptional manner to restore a sustainable peace in my country? My essential recognition turned into to contribute something to my united states of america.” “I found out the strength of gaming,” he said. “I realized games may be useful for peace and battle decision. I started out creating an online game in my united states of america, so video games can divert their minds from negative sports.”
He created a game called Salaam (an Arabic phrase that means peace) about shielding groups from being destroyed. It changed into a ten-megabit mobile recreation, however, he may want to only distribute it via Bluetooth networking. It spread in a viral way. A convention organizer at A Maze located it tracked him down and asked him to talk at a conference on games in South Africa. There, Mayen met Ismail, co-founder of Vlambeer and a hit game developer. As an envoy for indie recreation developers, Ismail encouraged Mayen to pursue his ardor of creating games. Mayen additionally made a board sport, Wahda, that encourages peaceful struggle resolution. He did so as it does no longer require a computer to play, and so, refugees might also have a hazard to play it. Ismail pays for the panelists to come to GDC in San Francisco, however, in spite of an invitation, Mayen wasn’t capable of being available 2017 due to President Donald Trump’s immigration regulations. His visa wasn’t accepted in time. But Mayen made it this yr, and he gave a hell of an inspiring communicate. The communicate brought tears to Ismail’s eyes and to mine as properly.
Last year, Mayen appeared at The Game Awards, wherein he becomes named a Global Gaming Citizen in conjunction with an award backed by using Facebook. (27 million people watched that display.) Mayen is operating with Facebook to publish Salaam as an Instant Game. Mayen now lives in Washington, D.C., and he is also working with a small group on a virtual reality sport. Oculus is operating with him on that title. I would like to get him to speak at our GamesBeat Summit 2019 and wish a sponsor will select up his travel costs. “Maybe at some point, my dream will come actual, making the biggest online game studio that makes games for peace,” Mayen said.
