Matt

  • Lessons From Flappy Bird’s Success

    Much has been said in recent weeks about the conundrum that is Flappy Bird and how it could have possibly become the #1 Free app on the App Store. First off I think it’s great to see a small independent developer is still able to have some success on the App Store.  It has become…

  • Game Designing

    My current side project is a match 3 game like Candy Crush Saga.  They are super addictive games that work great on mobile because they are so nice and casual to play. Problem is the competition on these types of games is stiff. Differentiating my game from the crowd is difficult. Originality adds a level…

  • Meditation

    Many years ago when I was younger I had a clarity of thought and an ability to focus for a very long time without distraction.  These days it is very difficult to avoid getting distracted. The ability to focus on a singular thing for long enough to really dig into it is a real skill…

  • Meditation For Programmers

    Programmers have one of the most intensive intellectual jobs.  It requires great focus and concentration to write software productively. If you measure the productivity of a programmer you might be surprised at the range. At the bottom there are software developers that actually create negative productivity; every line of code they write is one that…

  • Candy Crush Game Analysis

    Candy Crush Saga from King has been dominating the top grossing charts for a very long time now.  The game mechanic itself is not new or particularly innovative and is of similar type as Bejewelled that was originally released in 2001 – long before the iPhone was invented.  What is it that differentiates CCS from…

  • Creating Feedback Loops

    A feedback loop for success is anything that looks at your past or current state and if you have fallen off the tracks does something to get you back on them. That’s kind of vague. So here are some examples of feedback loops: For a weight lifter – keeping a log of past lifts encourages…

  • Buying Code

    As a developer I have strong opinions about what makes good software and there is a desire to rewrite code that I find from other people so that it is ‘better’. This makes it difficult  to justify purchasing code.  I could just write something similar/better myself.  Yet, buying code is probably the cheapest most effective way…

  • Top Grossing Apps Has Stabilized – Keeping you out

    I like to keep an eye on the top grossing apps in the app store.  They are the ones killing it, and rolling in much of the money players spend, they are the games that I look to for ideas to model in my own apps. The big games have it mostly figured out, and…

  • Api First Web Development

    The web is still suffering through a page refresh disaster. HTTP started with simple pages where full page reloads when navigating wasn’t so bad. Modern sites have boatloads of images, css, js and html files on each page that need to be requested each time a page loads and checked to see if the file…

  • Distraction Free Writing

    I have just discovered a feature in wordpress to do full-screen distraction free writing. The idea is to remove all visual distractions from the computer so that the only thing you can focus on is your writing. Managing distractions is something that I have always done at work. I turn of notifications for emails and…