From their college days to the present, three youths of Meghalaya had a dream — of one day developing a mobile game that would help spread the usage of Khasi language.

The game, released two weeks ago, is now a reality and steadily gaining serious attention.

Aibor Nongkynrih, 25, Aikindasuk Khongsngi, 26, and Denzil Sawian, 25, met during their college days. The trio then came up with the idea of the mobile game.

In 2016, they developed the game and named it Shi Kyntien, meaning one word.

However, the first version of the game, after it was released, was left to await further updates as they were all busy completing their studies.

After graduating, the trio regrouped and redeveloped the game.

Around two weeks ago, the game was put up on the Google Playstore and till date, more than 10,000 people have downloaded and installed it on their Android phones.

For Aibor, who completed his bachelors in commerce, developing the game was mostly self-taught and YouTube played a big part.

“I am concentrating on coding while Aikindasuk is into graphics. Denzil helps in collecting the Khasi words. Through this game, we want people to know more about the Khasi language as many have forgotten even the spellings of words where special characters need to be used,” Aibor said, after the trio was felicitated by the Khasi Students’ Union on the 184th death anniversary of Khasi patriot, U Tirot Sing Syiem.

The youths had spent around Rs 10,000 for the mobile game, and they have been funding themselves.

Although they are now working in different areas, they make it a point to meet up and plan their next ventures.

They are planning to help rural kids learn the English language, starting with the alphabets and right up to spellings.

“Our aim is influenced by the concept that education should be in the form of entertainment. We feel that this way the people will be more interested to learn,” Aibor said.

The trio also have plans to develop a digital graphic novel to spread knowledge about patriots like U Tirot Sing and games like click and point.

They also want to help youths stay away from drugs and are planning to come up with a game, which will subconsciously discourage them from using drugs.

The group is planning to come up with another game to promote cleanliness and the use of traditional shopping bags, commonly known as pla ïew.

“People’s behaviour can be changed subconsciously and this will make them say ‘no’ in the real world. We will try to do this through these mobile games,” Aibor said, hoping for an exciting future.