African Riddles
A riddle game you play with your ears and your voice, made first for blind and low-vision players.
Riddles have always been passed on out loud, as call and response around a fire or at a table. This game keeps it that way. It’s being designed so nothing on screen is needed to play.
- GameKitendawili!A riddle!
A demo of the call and response only. In the game, you answer by speaking. The riddle shown is a well-known example, and the game’s riddle collection is still being researched.
How a round works
- Step 1
Allow the microphone
A spoken prompt explains why the game needs to hear you, before your browser asks.
- Step 2
Hear the riddle
The game calls “Kitendawili!”, you answer “Tega!”, and the riddle is read aloud.
- Step 3
Say your answer
Speech recognition turns your voice into text. It’s being tuned to handle many accents.
- Step 4
Hear how you did
Fuzzy matching accepts near-misses and different phrasings, and audio tells you if you got it.
Designed ears-first
The rules we’re designing to. We’ll test them with blind and low-vision players and change them based on what we learn.
- Playable eyes-closed
- Everything that matters is spoken. The screen is optional.
- Large, clear captions
- For low-vision players who read along: big type and high contrast.
- Every accent welcome
- Answers are matched loosely, so the way you speak is never counted as wrong.
- Hear it again
- Repeat any riddle as often as you like. There are no timers.
- Keyboard fallback
- For players who can’t or don’t want to speak, typed answers work too.
Where it is now
- NowResearching Swahili riddles and where they come from.
- NowBuilding the voice loop: speak, listen, match, respond.
- NextPlay-testing with blind and low-vision players.
- LaterMore languages and riddle traditions from across Africa.
Questions we’re working on
- How can we collect riddles respectfully, crediting the communities they come from?
- How well does speech recognition handle Swahili spoken with different regional accents?
- How should audio-only hints work without giving away the answer?
- What makes a voice game feel social and fun, and not like a test?
Know a riddle, a player or a partner?
We’re looking for play-testers, Swahili speakers and storytellers, and organisations that work with blind and low-vision people.