07 Jan 2016

Nominated Councillor for Francistown,  Zazambi Tuelo has innovated a new educational board game called ‘Genesis’ taking an inspiration from the old and popular Tswana game Mhele. 

Mhele is a strategic African board game played by two players with the aim of capturing opponents pieces, so is the Genesis game.

In an interview with BOPA on Monday, Tuelo explained that, the name ‘Genesis’ means the beginning. In this case, the beginning of a new dawn for the old ‘mhele’ game.

“The thought to innovate a new game similar to mhele came to me in 2014 until late this year when the current design was achieved and now playable. 

The game is meant to help stimulate players’ minds by helping them understand and enjoy patterns,” he said. 

Furthermore, he said the game is suitable for people above the age of five years. 

He also said his intention is to commercialise the game in the near future.

The youthful councillor who holds an Honors Degree in Computing is not new to the world of gaming innovation as he has another educational game and is an aspiring educational textbook writer with a complete Mathematics book manuscript awaiting publication.

“There are many innovative Batswana youth out there with great ideas but the only hindrance to implementing their ideas is programmes that can capitalise their projects and help advance them. 

I for one fund my own designs and all the materials,” he said .

 Genesis  is a game played by two players at a time on a board similar to that of chess. Each player is given nine marble-like pieces which differ in colour. 

Capturing of opponent pieces takes place when three pieces of a single player are placed in successive pattern one after the other in a horizontal, vertical or diagonal straight line on the squares marked “O” The capture format only takes place in black squares; white squares are only used for navigation. Ends