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Deported from London. Released from a Lagos cell. Starting again on June 12 Street, between the port cranes and the prison lights. Read the story, meet the people, then play it free in your browser.
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Every major character has a story told in chapters. Start with AJ.
Deported from London with one bag and an accent Lagos will not forgive, AJ washes up on June 12 Street with nothing but an old friend and a cooking pot. Now the gate police want ₦2,500,000, and the man who owns the purple club wants a favor.
Funke studies medicine at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital by day and talks to the new man at No. 3 from her window by night. Then the owner of Prizm offers her a gift she knows better than to take.
Chuks cooks for the whole of June 12 Street and saves every spare naira for a restaurant of his own. When his childhood friend AJ comes home broken, Chuks feeds him first, and then the owner of Prizm offers him the money he has always needed.
Tara rents the one chair at the Palmline Unisex Salon outside the estate's main gate, sends money home to Abeokuta every month, and repeats almost nothing she hears. Then the Warden's boys start talking in her chair about the young man from London who lives down her corridor.
Danger is the most dangerous man on June 12 Street and the one it loves most, a street poet with a notebook of verses. Benny can sell anything to anyone. Together they hustle at the gate and take any odd job going, no questions asked. Then a man with a London accent moves into Room 3, and the Warden's boys hand them a bag.
Babatunde Olaoye, the tallest man on June 12 Street, lives in its smallest room, so the street calls him Tiny. He came from Ilesa with a smile and no plan. He owes everybody in Iloro House, and still has a visitor every day. Then the money runs out, and somebody at Prizm starts asking what he hears.
Kingston is the only name anybody has for him. He sleeps a night or two in every room of Iloro House, pays no rent, sweeps the corridor at dawn and preaches to the sea. Nobody knows where he comes from. Then the rains flood June 12 Street, a child goes missing in the dark, and the house finds out why it keeps him.
Mallam Garba spent his life in uniform and came to a Lagos gatehouse looking for peace. He sells snacks, gives advice, and remembers a man from the old days whom he hoped never to see again.
The police who guard the Abraham Adesyan Estate are funny, tired, underpaid and sometimes greedy. Three chapters from inside the gate, out in the bush and in the party-night queue.
Chief Lazarus Ekanem retired from the prison across the road and bought the club at No. 1145. Now he hosts, introduces, witnesses and takes ten percent for the table, and he has just heard about a young man with a London accent.
Deported from London, beaten in a cell, broke on a veranda bench. He has a plan, a London accent and a debt to the gate police.
A fifth-year medical student who leaves for LUTH at dawn and talks to AJ from her window at night, while her father keeps the door shut.
Big, kind and always cooking. He knew AJ before London, and he feeds him before he asks a single question.
A retired Hausa soldier from Kano who traded the parade ground for a snack counter, and sees everyone who passes the gate.
Funny, tired, underpaid, sometimes greedy and sometimes kind. They hold the gates, and they want to be settled.
Thirty-one years at Kirikiri prison, now the owner of Prizm. He plays the big man, brokers deals at his table, and takes ten percent.
She runs Prizm's floor on party nights. Look sharp, keep it classy, and no wahala on her floor.
Economics graduate, second class upper, "in opportunities". He borrows ₦500 and pays back ₦50, exactly once.
The hairdresser at Palmline, outside the main gate, and AJ's neighbor in Room 7. Everybody talks in her chair. She repeats almost none of it.
The most dangerous man on June 12 Street and the one it loves most: a stare that stops a fight, a laugh you can hear from the gate, and a notebook of verses.
Small, quick and never short of a word. If it is moving this week, Benny has it, and it is written in a notebook with a rubber band around it.
The smallest room, the emptiest pocket and the busiest door on June 12 Street. Nobody can explain it, least of all Benny.
No room, no rent, no surname, no home town. A Rasta preacher with locks to his back who sings to the sea and sleeps wherever a door is open.
Dimeji and Yelena, five children, a gym in the yard and three dogs that sometimes get out.
A walled estate on the edge of Ajegunle, where Navy Town meets Kirikiri. One street, one club, one gate that costs ₦2,500,000.
The estate's one main street: a coal pot, a rooming house, a clinic, a gym, a restaurant and a club.
A face-me-I-face-you at No. 3: eight rooms, one kitchen, one bathroom, one bench. AJ lives in Room 3.
The Warden's club at No. 1145: purple lights, a pool deck, a rooftop garden and Joe-Izzy live every night.
Armed police, a queue, Sarge's window, a salon and a clothes shop. Everyone starts here.
A street football pitch, an unfinished building, three officers on a smoke break, and the beach beyond.
The real neighbourhood that gave the game its name: AJ City, by the ports of Apapa.
Start here: the two ways to play, how money works and how to get through the gate.
Sign in, make a character, get past the police and meet other players live.
What each gate and Prizm VIP ticket opens, and what it costs.
Every key and touch control, on a computer and on a phone.
Free? On a phone? Why 18+? Is it real? The short answers.
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