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Nigerian game developer Xelabyte Studios has released MerjUp, a free arcade puzzle game for Android and iOS that combines can-merging with physics-based aiming. The launch is an early test of whether an original mobile game built in Nigeria can compete for players’ attention in global app stores.
Xelabyte Studios was founded in May 2026 by Gideon Oladipupo Ajiboye known as Xela Oladipupo. The company builds its own consumer gaming intellectual property and does not take on development work for clients, a choice that sets it apart from many software studios in the country that grow by serving other businesses. MerjUp is its first public product, and it is also the studio’s argument that African developers can own and publish games rather than only build them for others.
In MerjUp, players tap the board to launch a can, then press and slide to angle the shot before release. When two matching cans collide, they merge into the next tier. A well-placed shot can set off a chain reaction that clears a crowded board. According to the studio’s press kit, the cans evolve through eight tiers, starting at Duo and ending at the top-tier Omega, with each tier given its own look.
Oladipupo told Disrupt Africa that the difficulty comes from positioning, physics and chain reactions, and from pushing a score higher without losing control of the board. The studio has added progression, leaderboards and other systems meant to give players reasons to keep improving.
The game offers three modes. Puzzle mode is a campaign of 100 levels with escalating board layouts and merge requirements. Classic mode is a timed race to a score target. Survival mode removes the clock, and a run ends when the stack of cans crosses the line. Daily challenges and rewards are included to encourage repeat play. Sessions are short, which suits the way most people play mobile games.
The studio does not claim to have invented a genre. Oladipupo acknowledged that games such as Suika Game have already shown how appealing physics and merging can be, and said Xelabyte wants to build its own identity on the idea. That honesty matters in a crowded category, where many merge games compete for the same downloads.
The founder’s broader pitch is about market gaps. Africa has a large and increasingly connected young population, he said, yet few globally recognised consumer game brands come from African studios. Xelabyte wants to show that a game made in Nigeria can compete for the same global attention as one made anywhere else.
Early numbers are modest, and the founder has said so himself. When Disrupt Africa reported the launch on October 7, MerjUp had around 400 players on Android and an iOS version was still in progress. Oladipupo said he did not want to exaggerate the studio’s traction, and described the encouraging sign so far as players grasping the core mechanic quickly and then competing to beat their own scores.
The picture has since moved on. The game’s press kit now lists it as available on both Google Play and the App Store. The Google Play listing shows an update, version 1.1.0, aimed at bigger combos and smoother survival play, and it carries a 100+ downloads label. The listing also says the game contains ads and in-app purchases, which means “free to download” describes the entry point rather than the full business model. Download counts and player counts measure different things, and all figures here come from the studio or its store pages rather than independent verification.
For Xelabyte, the next test is growth. The studio plans to try user acquisition in Nigeria and in international markets, including those with larger mobile gaming and advertising economies. That approach makes commercial sense for a free game supported by ads and in-app purchases, since advertising revenue per player varies widely by region. It also means the studio will have to compete with well-funded publishers for attention, where a good core mechanic is necessary but rarely enough on its own.
The challenges are familiar to any small studio. Discovery on app stores is difficult, retention is hard to sustain after the first week, and a game’s success often depends on marketing budgets that independent developers do not have. A studio founded only months ago, working from Nigeria, faces those hurdles with fewer resources than most of its competitors, which makes the early reception of MerjUp worth watching.
Still, the launch fits a wider pattern of African technology founders looking beyond fintech and enterprise software toward consumer entertainment. Mobile phones are the main way many people on the continent reach the internet, which makes mobile games a natural place to build products for local and global audiences at the same time.
MerjUp is free to download on Google Play and the App Store. More information, along with press materials and contact details for interviews and review copies, is available at merjup.com.
