UAE iPhone app 'Kalimat' shortlisted for global award

posted on 26/01/2012: 40 views

Every year app-fans all over the world select a number of games to be nominated for the title of ‘Best app ever'. This year, one of its winners may well likely be created in the UAE.

Kalimat is a word game. "Something like scrabble, but with some new features,” explains Fares Fayad, the Lebanese app designer based in the UAE. "You just need to form words as quickly as possible, because there is a 3-minutes time limit.”

Fares cannot deny being an Apple fan. Ever since the product was on the market, he committed himself to it and thus became an expert user. Especially gaming led to whole new level when the iPhone came on the market. "I just get hooked into it more with the iPhone.” A couple of years later his name was connected to one of the most popular word games played on the iPhone.

The app is nominated for Best Board Game and Best Word Game and in just about one day users all over the world will bring out their votes.

"I wanted to turn my expertise and ambition for these products into a business, so I started designing apps,” says Fares explaining how the Kalimat game became a product linked to his name. But, he admits, his wife has a share in it. "She found something missing in the conventional word games; it was then that I came up with the idea of a timer, taking away chances of using help.”

Driven by his ambition, Fares soon got to meet people willing to look into his ideas. AppsArabia, a mobile app fund set up by Abu Dhabi's twofour54 media hub to encourage the local mobile app-market responded enthusiastically by offering the funds needed to develop the game and published the iPhone application in February last year.

"It was their first publication of a mobile app. They conditioned it be a game that could be used on the local market. So I decided it should be developed in both English and Arabic.” But believe it or not, the game is played in English more than it is in Arabic in the UAE, adds Fares.

Quality is most important, if you ask Fares and he credits the developer that decided to make Fares' ideas reality. "Pyranha Bite was the right choice of developer, because of the quality the company emphasises.

There are many companies in the region that compromise quality. The design is not always perfected, and the games crash a lot. Then they are on the market for low prices, and this is a pity.”

Although most app-users are still based in the US, the mobile apps-market is a rising market in the region for both users and developers and if this market continues to grow, a full-time living could be managed by the craft. "Right now it is a business that I share with contributors like AppsArabia, but in the future I am planning to publish new apps independently. I would not mind having this as a full-time job.”

Fares says to enjoy playing the game himself and is honoured to be nominated. Depending on the time of announcement, which will be done in San Francisco on the 26th of January, he might even stay awake for it. But in the end does not mind so much if the app does not get awarded. "Its name now stands next to that of famous games such as scrabble and is played by 20.000 to 25.000 users locally. That in itself is an honour.” – Emirates 24|7

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