u/lucdima

I’ve been into computers and software since 1983, when my father brought home our first personal computer. I was 10 years old. I learned to code, played and made small videogames, and I was really happy!

After finishing secondary school in the early 90s, I started university to study Information Systems. But I hit a hard wall. I was doing really well at coding, but the overall degree was oriented towards management and the parts of information technology that I really did not like. I wanted to make videogames. I had made a few on my Commodore Amiga, but at university I was learning Cobol. Well, also C, C was fun, but not Cobol.

My father wanted me to finish at all costs. “It’s very important to have a degree,” he used to say, but for me it was too much. We had a lot of discussions, and finally I decided to quit university and go my own way in 1995.

My father passed away, almost unexpectedly, in 1999. It was a really sad moment. I was 26.

Almost 10 years later, I decided to emigrate from my home country. To have better chances abroad, I also decided to return to university and finish my studies.

My second experience at university was really amazing. I finished as the third-best student, got a full scholarship, and they also hired me as a professor before I finally emigrated. It was one of the best experiences of my life.

Now I live in Germany. I make software and videogames, and I really love what I do. My university degree allowed me to work in different countries and at different cool companies. My father was right, but obviously the 90s were not my time to finish university. On top of that, in 2023, I also finished 2 videogame related diplomas, that I wish they had existed in the 90s… 

The path is not always the preset path, and sometimes we need the perspective that time can give us to see it.

I wish my father could see my achievements, but my skepticism prevents me from believing that. Anyway, I still love the idea that he can.

One of the latest boards: A500 (guess the computer...)

Hey everyone,

Last time we posted here we were at 63 boards. Three months later we're at 81, and a lot of that is thanks to this community. So many ideas and discussions here have shaped the game, and Leon and I just wanted to say thank you.

We add 6 new boards every month until we reach a complete 99, and then it's done (maybe?). 99 boards for 99 cents, no bloat. There are 3 tilesets to choose from (one more under development), every board is always solvable with unlimited hints and undos.

Just for fun, we also hid an easter egg in the game. We have no idea whether anyone has ever found it. Since we don't track anything, there's simply no way for us to know, and we kind of love that we'll never find out. That's our small vision of a healthier, more ethical mobile ecosystem.

Ideas are always welcome, and if you'd like to try the game, just ask and we'll happily send you a key.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/leons-mahjong/id6504485812

We wish you all a nice weekend.

All the best, Lucas and Leon

It was 2012~. I was a happy user of an iPod touch and a 3rd generation iPad. I was really pleased and very excited about these new platforms, which showed huge potential for video games, demonstrated by great classics like Angry Birds and Plants vs Zombies, among others.

A new platform is something spectacular to experience, especially as a player. And for developers a little bit too. It was a time of several big indie hits and even video games created mostly by a single person.

And it was at a great friend’s dinner that I witnessed for the first time how it all went to hell.

I was having dinner at his modern, minimalist gated community house (Argentina, very wealthy people, to give you an idea, he had a code with the wifi password painted on the pool); he’s passionate about making sushi. Everything was exquisite. Another guest was a venture capitalist and a senior manager at Microsoft Argentina. At that time, despite having some Apple devices, I was more on the open source side of the world, and I truly never liked Microsoft. Or Micro$oft, as I sometimes call it. But what I was about to witness, I think, exceeded the greed of this Redmond giant.

And that’s when it happened, the good investor said to my friend, verbatim: “what the mobile gaming sector is delivering is incredible, with microtransactions, we’re getting a massive ROI. And this is just the beginning.”

I half-heard it, I was in another conversation or more focused on the delicious sushi. But it kept bouncing around in my head. Microtransactions, son of a bitch, I think we’re lost….

I few days after, I played a spectacular plane game on my iPad (I love plane games) and suddenly I saw how all the gameplay was tied to buying upgrades with real money, ammunition with real money, every missile my plane would fire would cost real money. Paying real money to speed up upgrade processes, and that was just the start. Shortly after I saw Clash of Clans, Candy Crush. Full of hope I downloaded Plants vs Zombies 2, and more of the same, ads, microtransactions, everything artificial and a game design oriented toward retention and microtransaction payments.

The ecosystem was broken. At least for me. The toy was broken, the gameplay was broken. My iPad and my iPod touch were no longer the same.

Every time I saw a game in the App Store it said (in-app purchases).

All the excitement, into the trash.

At least I enjoyed those few years before microtransactions. I guess the investor must have made an absurd amount of money without really realizing that he partly broke (they broke) something wonderful.

In 2021 I formally started the comeback. I published a software development manifesto that limits these predatory practices and proposes an alternative that thinks of the user first. It’s called User First Software. And it has a special section for video games. In 2024 I published my first commercial video game that implements, or subscribes to, this manifesto. I’m proud of that. Unfortunately the monetization isn’t the same. Competing against these Goliaths is also complex, with daily ad budgets of 7 digits; but it doesn’t matter. We’re on the right side of the issue. There’s an audience out there that got tired of microtransactions, of predatory practices and of pay to win. There are parents who got tired of seeing their kids desperately begging to get more little diamonds of some color.

If your software or your game isn’t free to play, I invite you to post it in the comments. Let’s show the Goliaths and the players that we can play on mobile again like in 2010. Let’s reclaim the mobile industry.

Looking forward to reading you!! Thanks!​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

(Original text was written by me in Spanish)