Something unexpected is happening in the world of mobile gaming. Maliyo Games, the Lagos-based studio behind a catalogue of Africa-inspired titles, is seeing a meaningful uptick in downloads for Crazy Ludo: Classic Dice Game and the story behind that surge stretches far beyond the continent where the company was built.

According to data from Sensor Tower, the numbers tell an interesting tale. Between late December 2025 and late March 2026, Maliyo’s portfolio of games experienced a significant wave of growth, with Crazy Ludo emerging as the clear engine of that momentum. While Nigeria has always been a natural home for the game, recording a remarkable 400% increase in downloads over the period, it is Pakistan that appears to be the primary driver of the current spike. Downloads from Pakistan have climbed by 11.2% over the same window, and given the country’s enormous mobile gaming population, even a modest percentage shift translates into substantial volume.



The Pakistani context makes the trend all the more legible. On the Google Play Store, two of the top three free games on Android in Pakistan during this period are Ludo titles: Ludo King and Yalla Ludo, both longstanding favourites that have cultivated vast, loyal audiences across South Asia. On the App Store, Ludo sits as the third most popular app in the country across the same timeframe. This is not a niche interest. It is a deeply embedded cultural pastime finding renewed expression on mobile screens, and any game that credibly occupies the same genre stands to benefit from the rising tide.

Back in Nigeria, the appetite is equally real. Ludo Naira, developed by Get Moore Services, has become one of the most downloaded free apps on Android in the country, with its keyword rankings data showing strong and sustained positioning across search terms like “naija ludo,” “ludi,” and “naira bet” throughout February and into March 2026. The keyword “ludei” in particular showed a dramatic climb from near-invisible to top-three ranking around early March, signalling that new players are actively searching for ludo experiences and finding multiple options to choose from. That competition, paradoxically, validates the category and gives a game like Crazy Ludo a broader pool of potential players to draw from.