Mehendi Dash

Two of us tap mehendi designs on one phone, race for what each hand pays, and split the cone and auto money before settling up.

Who this is for

Rehana Ansari does mehendi at home in Ibrahimpura, Bhopal. In wedding season she and her younger sister Shabnam do six or seven hands a day at 400 a hand, sitting on the same mat. By eleven at night the last bride has gone, the cones are finished, and the two of them are lying on the bed with one phone between them and no wish to sleep yet. That is the half hour this game is for.

How the job is done today

Right now that half hour goes to Ludo King, and Shabnam wins too often. The money side lives in a Navneet notebook on the shelf: 90 for a dozen cones, 60 for the auto to Shahjahanabad, 40 for glitter, written in Rehana's hand because Shabnam forgets. At month end they sit with the notebook and argue about who paid for the cones that Friday, and it usually ends with one of them saying leave it. So the counting is dull and the playing is somebody else's game about horses and dice.

The screens, in order

1. Two names — Rehana and Shabnam type their names once and pick a colour each, so the phone knows who is holding it.
2. The hand — Shows the hand that has come in and what it pays, drawn as a design and a stack of notes, with no sentence to read.
3. Tapping — The dots of the design come up one after another and you tap them in order until the palm is filled, and the phone counts your seconds.
4. The cone bill — A cost lands between the two of you, cones or glitter or the auto fare, and each of you pushes notes across to cover your half.
5. Settle up — Ends the night with one line saying who owes whom how much, and the total for the week underneath.

What it keeps track of

• Players — name, colour, money earned tonight, money put into shared costs, nights won
• Designs — the picture, how many dots, the order of the dots, what the hand pays, how hard it is
• Nights — which date, who played, what each one earned, which designs came up, who ended ahead
• Shared costs — what it was, how much, which night it landed on, how much each person put in

The one decision that matters

The one thing to get right is whether the game speaks in words or in pictures. One way is to write the job out plainly: peacock, both palms, 500 rupees, sixty seconds, go. It is quick to build and reads well. The other way is to show only the design and a stack of notes, say the number aloud, and never put a sentence on screen at all. Go the second way. Rehana's mother-in-law Zubeida reads Hindi slowly and would still be on the first line while Shabnam is halfway down the palm. The clock in this game should be measuring fingers, not reading. The only written words anywhere are the two names the players typed themselves.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out playing from two separate phones. One phone passed back and forth after each hand is how these two sit anyway, and building for two phones brings in matching, waiting and a dropped signal on Bhopal data. Also leave out any link to real money, no UPI, no reading from the notebook. The rupees in the game are game rupees. The moment real cost splitting enters, it stops being the thing they open for fun and becomes homework.

How you would know it worked

Zubeida, who reads slowly and has never finished a game on a phone, ends a night ahead of Shabnam and asks them to set it up again the next evening.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I do mehendi at home in Bhopal and at night my sister and I want something to play on my phone. Make a game where a hand comes up with dots on it, and you tap the dots in order until the design is filled, and the phone counts your seconds. Whoever does it faster earns more for that hand. Then between rounds a cost lands, a dozen cones or the auto fare or glitter, and both of us have to push in our half from what we earned. At the end of the night show one line saying who owes whom how much, and keep a running total across nights. Please put no written instructions anywhere, only the design, the notes and the numbers, because my mother-in-law reads slowly and still wants to play. One phone only, we pass it after each hand.