Week 9 Steem Memory Game Contest | Theme: Pets & Anime

I love brain games.

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For some weeks now, I have been locked in the tight grip of Scrabble and Chess. In order to defeat my coach, I had to dedicate one hour to reading and playing daily. It's just my way of building my strategic thinking and vocabulary strength.

My opponent ordered pepper soup after he defeated me the second time.	My first time logging into the memory game site.

So, you can imagine how excited I felt when I stumbled on @kafio’s memory game. But let me make a confession:

I thought it was extremely difficult at first. In fact, it took me 2 weeks and one click to finally understand how to play this game. I got spurred to play my first game after reading about @josepha’s experience last week. Then I visited the site. I am glad that I did.

On my first attempt, I had a cumulative score of 1476 points. You should see how I grinned from ear to ear. That's almost close to @saintkelvin17’s recent score! I was so pleased with myself, I had to call my younger cousin to witness this “glorious sight”.

My first game	My cousin's first game

Instead of celebrating with me, she grabbed the phone and started playing a new game. In less than 1 minute, 12 seconds, she got a whooping score of 1537.

My first victory started melting before my very eyes. _{[Weeps for two seconds]}🤧

We then took turns in challenging ourselves. Now, this is where it got even interesting: the more I played, the less I scored. And the more she played, the higher she soared. I could feel my pride and ego deflate. There must be something special about these Gen Alphas.

We had a fun time training our minds. Personally, I love how this picture memory game tests my recall ability and pushes my brain beyond its limits. It was difficult differentiating between the fox 🦊, dog 🐶 and kitten 😸 though. My brain, bless it, kept interpreting them as dogs sitting in different positions.

Why would my brain play this kind of trick on me? Phew!

Highest score at less than 1 minute	Second highest score

What I found even more interesting was that I never missed the lion 🦁 every time I flipped its card. Maybe it's because it was the first pair of tiles I matched. So it stuck to my mind.

I told my cousin about this and she playfully asked if I truly wanted to have an issue with “the king of the jungle”.

The king of which jungle?! _{[Gives her some bombastic side eyes]}

Image belongs to Pamela Audu. No copyright infringement intended.	Image belongs to Igbo Weddings. Used strictly for illustration purposes. No copyright infringement intended.

But her comment made me think deeper. Beyond being an anime character in the memory game and hero in our folktales, the lion also holds cultural relevance. For the Ibibios, my ethnic group, the ekpe (lion) symbolises strength and power. Our neighbour tribe, the Igbos, who chiefly live in southeastern Nigeria, also give prominence to the lion and leopard. You will often see the Isi Agu, or lion's head printed on their traditional attire to represent courage and authority.

“Igbo kwenu!”
“Kwe kwenu o!”

I hope that I am correct?

Hi, friends! Which of these other pets and animes is symbolic in your culture? @yhudy, @eliany, @zulay7059.

_{Thank you for the upvotes, comments and resteem. I look forward to sharing more valuable thoughts with you. Remember to take care of your health and family. Keep STEEMing on!}

_{Published 11 July 2025}