“Challenge Accepted”
From left: Fady Asmar, Danny Abdow, and Justin Samona.
Trio markets KonKan app for IOS and Android
By Sarah Kittle
Fady Asmar has been dreaming of this day for a decade. A man of the modern age, he’s been looking for a KonKan app for nearly as long as there have been apps.
KonKan is a popular rummy-style card game widely played in the Middle East and Latin America. It is historically recognized as the ancestor of modern Rummy.
KonKan Classic, the app Asmar developed with Danny Abdow and Justin Samona, sits at the top of searches for KonKan. According to Google, their game is a polished version that “features smooth animations, Arabic and English language support, and online multiplayer matches to connect with friends or players worldwide.”
That sense of connection was the team’s primary goal.
“I grew up playing this game,” Asmar said, “My dad played it and his dad played it.”
Asmar is the “face man” for the development trio; Justin handles advertising and marketing, and Danny is the app engineer behind the design.
Asmar has made his career in the hospitality/hotel industry. “Danny reached out to me with this app he was trying to create for the hotel business,” he recalls. “It wasn’t really scalable for that industry, and Danny asked if we could do something else with it. ‘I can code whatever,’ he said.
“As a matter of fact…” Asmar replied, going on to say he had been sitting on this idea of a KonKan card app for the last 10 years. “Sure enough, 20 minutes later, he had created a prototype for me, and here we are.”
It was the first app that Abdow had ever brought to market. “Danny is such a smart guy,” said Asmar. “I give him the credit all the time.”
Asmar and his friends wanted to introduce the game to a new generation as well as provide connection across the diaspora. “This game is deeply integrated with our heritage,” he explained. “Anytime I looked for something like it in an app version, I never found exactly what I was looking for.”
So he and his friends created it.
Development
According to Asmar, it took about four months to develop the app. “A lot of hours and a lot of work,” is how he described it. At the time of the interview, they were still working on the Android version, hoping to roll it out in September.
“We’re at the point where I can get an iPhone to play with an Android and the game is playable and everything is good,” said Asmar. “However, we need to get more people on our beta testing to make sure we’re not releasing an incomplete or defective game.”
Although the iOS version has been released, that doesn’t mean they’re done with it. They are constantly enhancing and improving the app. “Even though we feel like we’ve put out a great product,” said Asmar, “the community has a lot of ideas and suggestions which we are acting on.”
Whether it’s adding tournaments, leaderboards, or the ability to make wagers or watch someone else play, they want to keep things interesting and make people want to come back and play on a regular basis.
One of the suggestions they’ve incorporated is the ability to play a three round game. It’s not typical in “real life” to play for only 10 minutes, but once the feature was available, Asmar quickly became a convert. “I’m in a waiting room and I want to play this game for 10 minutes, I can,” he explained. Using this feedback, they added a set of three rounds and a set of five as well.
Centered on Community
There are some features of KonKan Classic that are unique to the Chaldean or Syrian version of the game, such as a fellish (misdeal) and “going KonKan” (basically a ‘Hail Mary’ play). These features aren’t available on other KonKan apps.
This app also has a tutorial for those that are new to the game. “My son, who’s 8 years old, it’s hard for him to hold 14 cards in his hand,” Asmar explained. “ I tried teaching him and he wasn’t really grasping it (editor note: literally). But once we created the app, he loved it.
“He’s actually playing it, and it makes me so happy to think that something my grandpa taught my dad and my dad taught me, I can pass on to my son in app format.”
These days, kids want everything on their phones. “So why not give it to them on their phones, you know?”
Asmar has heard back from the younger generation in the community that many have always wanted to learn how to play KonKan but lacked the time, patience and guidance. With this new app, they now have tools and resources to learn. “It’s amazing,” he said.
Thousands agree and have downloaded the app already.
“It never clicked until we got to the beta testing,” said Asmar. “We invited people on and the feedback I received immediately was ‘This is amazing. You guys created this?’ and ‘I’m on it every day. Thank you so much for creating this.’ It’s almost surreal.
“It’s finally clicking. We created this. This is our product.”
With players from 24 different countries, it’s easy to see how the app can unite people across distances as well as generations. Most users are from Michigan but there are also players in Iraq, Australia, Sweden, Canada, and Germany, among other countries.
“Someone may have a relative in Australia and they might say, ‘Hey, did you hear about this new app? Download it, let’s play,’” said Asmar. “I can connect with family on the other side of the world, and here we are, playing a game we grew up with.”
Asmar and his partners want to get the word out to the community in California, where hundreds of current downloads can turn into thousands.
When asked to describe the app in three words, Asmar does not hesitate: “Unique, authentic, and addictive.”
The app currently does not have a chat room; it’s a conscious choice to not distract from the game play itself. There are, however, pre-loaded text comments and icons that can be used to say, throw a shoe or an egg, or send a kiss or a flower.
If Asmar could play the game with anyone, of course, he’d choose his dad, who wasn’t very tech savvy, but would have loved the game. “My dad was a flip phone kind of guy who would rather play a card game than throw a ball around in the yard,” said Asmar. “I think he would be proud of what we created.”