Is it possible to fall in love twice with computers?

After that moment when I discovered my passion for computers, I never had the same feeling again with another device. Using laptops was a nice improvement but the OS and the overall experience was pretty much the same as working on a desktop computer.

Source: pixabay.com

I had never had too much excitement about the early smartphones technology. Not even with the increasing capabilities they were introducing – color screens, Java Mobile Edition apps, GPRS. I was pretty happy with my battle-tested Nokia 1100 and just being a web developer on my linux box.

And then one day – late 2008 – one of my friends showed me his brand new iPhone 3G – the first iPhone model available here in Argentina. I just couldn't believe how different to anything else that tiny device with a huge display was. Full eye candy interface and incredible responsive interactions. I don't think I'm that kind of techie person who is buying gadgets all the time. But this time I can say it was an instant crush: I just got my iPhone 3G the next day.

Ok, the third pic was getting pretty decent…

iOS development

It was just the right time since the first official iPhone SDK was launched that same year. I installed a Hackintosh on my laptop so I could start making some apps development right away. With a small app concept in mind I started my first side project while I was still working for Globant.

Just a couple of months later I applied to an iPhone developer remote position at Nextive. After spending some weeks on my spare time developing an app test the technical folks were happy with the results and I got in :)

First iPhone app developed – Truco Counter

Fortunately, the time spent at Nextive was totally the opposite than the previous jobs working for companies. I got to work on incredible iPhone game projects for clients like Zynga. Team leaders and teammates were just awesome. Additionally, I discovered that working remotely was the best fit for me. In fact, I've never got to work from offices permanently again.

After a few months Fede joined Nextive as an Android Developer and then Agus as well as an iPhone Developer.

Indie development and apps development outsourcing at Kartjuba

By the time I was leaving Globant, we started talking with Fede about getting into the Indie Games Development world. Both of us were already doing some mobile development but we thought that the user base would be much more important if we targeted it as a Facebook app – if it went well, we could then port it. We then started developing an AS3 card game in our free time (mainly on weekends). He started developing the game logic and I focused on the UI. Then a good friend of mine Rod and Agus joined us as backend developers to be able to finish the project.

We launched the game on July 2009 under our brand new development studio label: Kartjuba.

Truco Arcade Game Play

After over a year we decided with Fede to go full-time with Kartjuba and then the same did Agus. Rod moved to new New Zealand and kept working from some time remotely with us.

The game did pretty well, users loved it but we couldn't find a way to monetize it.

After that, we launched an iPhone game. This time it was a massive failure. I think back then we fully realized how hard it was to succeed and make a living being an indie developers.

Bubbles Catcher – iPhone game Promo Video

At that point some friends who knew that we were working in our new studio started recommending us to their clients and friends. And then those clients recommended us to their own network. We started getting busy and soon Dani would join us as the new fourth member of Kartjuba after Rod left. He was also a good friend of ours and we had shared some time with him at Nextive.

And that is how we at Kartjuba developed 30+ games and general purpose apps in the last 10 years.

More than just client side code

For many projects we require to do not only client side development but also to implement some service APIs, CI/CD and some other devops tasks. From PHP frameworks, Python and Django to backend as a service. CI Pipelines, fastlane, Application submission. I'd say real full stack mobile development :)

Never giving up on Indie Development

Although I've spent most of the time working on client projects, I never lose my motivation for starting and launching the next Indie project. Sometimes is really tough after failing on every single attempt. Somehow I manage to recover energy, try again and just keep launching new stuff.

Will definitely write some more about this topic in the future.