TEN Bahraini students have created a new board game with an aim to promote the kingdom’s cultural heritage and raise awareness about investments and financial planning.
The bright young minds from the Muharraq Secondary School for Girls – including Danah Al Malki, Fatima Ashkanani, Zainab and Ghadeer Al Hayki and Sarah Saleh – combined elements of the popular games ‘Monopoly’ and ‘Carrom’ to create ‘Al Konah’.
The game highlights investments and landmarks in four regions – Muharraq, Manama, Riffa and Sakhir.
It uses the traditional Carrom board and discs, alongside paper notes with different denominations and ‘action cards’ designed by the students.
Each player would be given three money cards and three action cards and assigned a region, with the one who successfully purchases all three projects within their claimed city declared the winner.
“The name Al Konah is based on the Arabic word ‘takween’, which means formation and creation,” Ms Al Malki told the GDN.
“It represents the idea of combining entertainment and investment planning, and the verb ‘kowen’ means ‘to create’,” the 18-year-old added.
“This links our project to the way regions are formed, while ensuring the promotion of cultural heritage.”
From left, Ms Saleh, Ms Zainab Al Hayki, Ms Al Malki, Ms Ashkanani and Ms Ghadeer Al Hayki
Ms Ashkanani said the team performed market research and analysis, identified gaps and developed the game that blends the precision of Carrom with the concept of investment.
“We then moved forward with designing and producing a prototype before resorting to digital marketing and collaborating with influencers for the launch and distribution,” the 17-year-old added.
Recognised by the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiques (Baca), Carrom is a traditional tabletop folk game of Indian origin.
The game of two to four players is played on a wooden board with four holes at the corners and a number of flat multi-coloured discs that much be flicked by the players into the holes and points are counted according to the colour of the disc.
For the cards used in Al Konah, the team used colloquial Bahraini dialect to add an element of fun and excitement.
“It includes ‘tah sooqak’ (your market fell) which means you take money from any opponent you choose, and ‘itras Jibek’ (fill your pocket,) which means you take BD10 to support the purchase of a project,” 17-year-old Zainab Al Hayki explained.
This is the girls’ first project and they hope to continue developing it and making it available to all members of the public.
“We aim to design new and improved versions of the game,” Ghadeer Al Hayki said.
“We also want to come up with an application for mobile phones and even expand into Gulf and global markets to allow everyone to play our game,” the 16-year-old said.
“We want Al Konah to become a globally recognised brand, and also to expand into creating other new games that combine culture, education and fun with financial awareness and strategic thinking,” 18-year-old Ms Saleh added.
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