In Focus: Lual Mayen
02 February 2021
Lual Mayen is an independent video game designer, developer, entrepreneur, Global Gaming Citizen (2018), and winner of the 2020 CNN Champions for Change. He is also the founder of Junub Games. As a young child growing up in a refugee camp in Northern Uganda, Lual taught himself to code and created Salaam, the first game ever to bring together the virtual world of gaming and true-to-life experiences connecting players to journeys of displaced people.
Born on a 200-mile journey from civil war in South Sudan to Uganda, Lual uses his own experience as a refugee to design immersive gaming and digital tools for educational experience and social impact. In 2017 Lual came to the United States and has since spoken about the power of video games in peacebuilding and bringing people together.
Lual spoke with REACH team members Bethany Dill and Sarzah Yeasmin about the power of video games to understand the uncertainty that refugees experience worldwide, as well as tools and policies that can help young people create future opportunities in global settings of migration and displacement.
Where did the idea for your video game, Salaam, come from?
I’m from South Sudan. When the civil war started, my family had to flee. They walked 250 miles to find a place of refuge. As they were fleeing the county, they didn’t even know where they were going; they were just trying to find a place where they could start a new life.
I didn’t experience the war, but I was born on the way as my family was fleeing the country. I lost two of my sisters on the way. We had to settle in northern Uganda, where I lived in a refugee camp for 22 years. There was no good education or health care. I played a lot of football—that was the only thing we could do in the refugee camp as children.
The first time I saw a computer was in the camp; an organization was using a computer to register refugees. I asked my mom what it was. She worked for three years, looking for $300 USD, and she came to me and said, “Here is the money you can use to buy a computer.” I encouraged myself, “If my mother can work for three years to buy this computer for me, I can learn to use it.” I had to walk three hours every day to charge it.
One day, my friend installed a video game on my computer. I came back home and opened my screen to the video game, and I started playing it. When I started playing this game, the first thing that I discovered was, games aren’t just fun. I felt like they could be a tool that can help people. There is power in games; they’re a powerful tool. They’re not like movies. When you’re playing a video game, you’re making decisions. I started learning to code in a refugee camp, and I started my first simple game while living in a refugee camp.
“True peace is something that is built over time. It’s not just two parties signing a ceasefire. It needs to change your mindset; it needs young people to be engaged. Video games are a very powerful medium that we can use to change the world, educate, and help people create empathy.”
How does an experience like playing a video game help users understand some of the uncertainty refugees experience?
When I look at my mother’s journey—our journey, refugees’ journey—I know how people experience that. I’m from a war-torn country. That’s what inspired me to look at education in uncertainty.
I’m building Salaam now, a game that puts the player in the shoes of a refugee fleeing a war-torn country. Our message is for people to understand the journey of the refugee. You have to feel it as a player. You take care of the character. When you buy food or water in the game, you’re actually buying food or water for someone in a refugee camp.[1]
True peace is something that is built over time. It’s not just two parties signing a ceasefire. It needs to change your mindset. It needs young people to be engaged. Video games are a very powerful medium that we can use to change the world, educate, and help people create empathy.
One of the concerns about a digital tool such as this one is that it makes narrower and sensationalizes traumatic experiences. How do you think about these dilemmas?
I think a lot about this when I am designing the game. As an independent game designer, I am responsible for creating the environment in the game. I think about how people are going to think about the game, see and perceive the game as they play and engage with the game, and how can we build empathy through this gaming experience. Part of the game design involves getting people engaged in the story of the game as a person, which requires building an environment where people are going to understand the game.
Ask yourself, why are you playing the game? Is it for fun? Is it for education? It is up to the players to decide. We want to bring serious games to the mainstream platform and encourage people to play something that is helpful. The game is coming out soon; we are in the testing phase. This game came at the moment when the gaming industry needed it the most. When we premiered the game in 2019 at the Microsoft Theater, we had 5 million viewership. This is what games can do, bring people together.
You lived in a refugee camp for over 20 years. Can you recommend tools and policies that help young people create opportunities in refugee camps?
Policymakers must think about the opportunities that are available to refugees in protracted situations. When we give them opportunities, let’s give something that lasts for life rather than for two months—for example, investing in books and technology. Food and clothes are important, but give people something that they can use to make their lives better and utilize opportunities. Ask refugees what they need—some will say food, but some will say education. I want to focus my efforts on giving coding classes. I gave 150 computers to the camp a few months ago and the ones with these digital tools can now learn and educate themselves from home.
Digital tools like games can help change the narrative, help people to connect and meet the needs of the community. Now that we are working from home during the lockdown, I sit in my chair and think, “Where would I be if we were experiencing this uncertainty of a pandemic three years ago when I was in a refugee camp?” If young refugees have a computer and internet as I do now, they could be like me and work from home. In today’s world, no one will ask you where you are working from.
Endnotes
[1] There are in-app purchases in the game, so when the player buys water in the game, they are buying water for someone in the refugee camp. Click here to learn more.