Show HN: AfriTales – Discover the Magic of African Storytelling
I've been working on AfriTales, a flutter based mobile app that brings African folktales into modern stories narrated episodes wrapped in a children and adult friendly UI player. The stories are created to cover north, south, west and east Africa. I think of it as a digital by-the-fire-side.
Why AfriTales: Cultural relevance: There is a gap in culturally-rich audio-native storytelling apps for Africans, the diaspora and people interested in African stories. Modern Influence: Modern UI makes the the app feel elegant and emotionally resonant. Retention via structure: Episodes are short (2-5 minutes) and there are stories series for premium users.
MVP features include: A launch landing page (https://afritales.org/) for early engagement and waitlist signups. I have currently sourced over 100 stories. Thanks to Google's Gemma 3 270M, users can generate stories with their own twist. Freemium model: 3 free tales per day, plus premium subscription for unlimited access. Robust Flutter structure: Architecture with TTS integration, and images for context.
I am starting in Ghana before expanding, and I'd love feedback from this community: Would you (or your child) use an audio-based storytelling app with a strong regional cultural tie? Suggestions for retention strategies or content formats that engage long-term users?
Thanks
Are these actually African folktales? The video seems to demonstrate only the LLM generation.
Then it occurred to me:
what if the designer - writer sought to draw my attention by making me hyperfocus on the text?
That is, musicians do it with dynamics, architects do it with compression and expansion, writers do it with words, but do designers do it with the most dynamic, infinitely extensible medium on the planet that combines all of our senses and perceptions at once?
Maybe that was the point here, even if it was unintentional, bordering on magic?
As others have pointed out, the web page promises "cultural heritage" and "authentic stories from Africa," but the demo shows AI slop. If you're offering both, then that needs to be made more clear: highlight the authentic stories, and then make clear that users have an option to AI-generate more stories like them. If you're offering only AI-generated stories (and your words "the stories are created to cover…" make that sound possible), you need to be forthright about that, because you'll be called out, with righteous indignation, for selling AI slop as if it were a particular people's cultural legacy.
Also, speaking of "particular people," if you actually want to do something good with this project, make the provenance of each story clear and specific: not just "African," not just "West African," but "a tale from a Wolof griot, collected by Birago Diop." Africa is the largest continent of all, and its cultures are many and diverse with many different storytelling traditions.
I was intrigued by the headline, but interest dropped off quickly when I realized that the whole thing seems to be about LLM generated "stories".
Honestly, I would have loved to read some genuine african tales, but I really don't care about reading LLM slop, much less do I intend to pay for such a service.
How do you square this with this feature you've added where LLMs can generate slop that has no resonance for anyone? It would seem to be at odds with the purpose of the tradition you're building your business around.
I see you identifying a need (African storytelling traditions should be preserved), which is great. But I would really recommend talking to experts in this field before monetizing features that dilute these cultures' canon.
I'd rather just see a Gutenberg collection of African folk tales than this...
A collection of extra-cultural tales would be very interesting. African, Asian, Pacific. But this AI tale generator is simply diluting the value of the story and insulting to the culture which nurtured such a story.