Learn about Sho’lah, your daily brain training

Sho’lah – Brain Training is the first and leading Arabic Personal Brain Trainer. The game helps users train their memory, attention, speed, and problem-solving skills. Sho’lah provides users with a personalized daily workout of educational games based on neuroscience.

This is an interview with Abdullah El-Sayed from Elektron Games.

Sho’lah – Brain Training won the 2nd IMGA MENA People’s Choice Award.

Can you introduce yourself?

I’m the Co-Founder and Game Director of Elektron Games, an award-winning mobile games studio based in Kuwait. We focus on building casual games with unique mechanics, high replayability, and polished design. We’ve released multiple titles since we started in 2014. Today, we’re most notably known for “Sho’lah”, a very popular Arabic Brain Training game with over 3 million downloads.

For those who don’t know Sho’lah – Brain Training, can you give us one sentence to describe your game?

Sho’lah is a personalized Brain Training game that helps users train their cognitive skills, by providing a daily workout of challenging and fun educational games.

What makes your game unique?

The variety of science-based games, provided in a short and enjoyable daily workout, makes Sho’lah a unique game that can be a daily habit for a lot of players. The app includes over 30 mini-games designed to challenge different areas such as memory, flexibility, attention, and problem-solving. Furthermore, players can track their cognitive performance and compare it with others.

Now about you and your team: what’s the story behind your studio’s creation?

Our first game, released in 2012, was an Arabic brain-teaser app called Craziness, that was developed under a month. The game was an instant success, topping the App Store charts in MENA days after launch. We decided to release an English version, which also took off and became the #1 app in Canada, UK, and most of Europe. That’s when we decided to allocate more resources and establish a mobile gaming studio under our parent company “Waveline Media”. In the following years, we’ve released multiple titles such as Toad Rider, a game inspired by the classic NES Battletoads game, and Tap Army, a lane-based arcade shooter. Our biggest title so far is “Sho’lah”, the Arabic Brain Training game.

The design is simple and efficient, the game is instructive and fun in the meantime. What inspired you?

We try our best to develop games that are easy to pick up and play in the first session. It’s an essential factor in the success of mobile games. For Sho’lah, we were inspired by the recent trend of hyper-casual games. These games are extremely lightweight and instantly playable. Their UI also tends to be minimalistic. We decided to take this approach while ensuring there is enough depth in the games to keep users motivated over time. The games in Sho’lah have adaptive difficulty, so they become harder as you progress.

How do you feel about winning an IMGA award? Tell us about your victory.

We’re incredibly honored! Winning this prestigious award is a major accomplishment that we’re really proud of. We’re also very thankful for our fans who voted for us.

Any new game or project coming out in the next months? Anything else you would like to say to the world?

We’re planning to add a new Language section in Sho’lah in the next few months. This will feature a collection of word games, which is a very popular genre. Next year, we plan to expand and launch a global version of the game, so keep an eye on it!

Thanks a lot!

Discover all winners at http://mena.imgawards.com/winners-nominees/2nd-imga-mena/.

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