September 2025
For years I’ve been interested in mobile development, but never quite had the head-space to build a native app, instead opting to build web applications that work well on mobile devices as well. This all changed when I stumbled across Expo, a framework for building React Native apps, and something just clicked for me. It made it super-easy to get started and I enjoyed being able to preview my apps in a web browser without having to start up a simulator or connect a mobile device to run them. Getting to leverage all my existing web development and React skills was a huge win.
Somewhat on a whim, I decided to build a Tetris-like app for runners. Connect your Strava account and earn a block for each mile you run. Stack the blocks to build towers and compete with your friends. I started the app on a vacation in 2024, thinking it would just be a quick/fun project for a few weeks. A few months later I found myself struggling to integrate Matter.js, a 2D physics engine, determined to take the app to the next level. On my next long vacation (over a year later 😅) I’m putting the finishing touches on the app.
Needless to say, it turned into a much bigger project than I had anticipated. There were lots of difficult learnings along the way and jumping into coding without doing any design or planning made the development process a bit more windy and slow. AI coding agents played a large role in the app development, from a toy-like ChatGPT 3/4 generating some of the initial code for the Tetris mechanics, to more recently, powerful Claude agents seamlessly implementing entire features across the full stack.
My mind feels much lighter having this one shipped, but I’m already scheming for my next big project. Runo Towers does a good job differentiating from other apps already on the market, targeting a niche group of runners with a casual game-like experience, but based on the feedback so far it’s not something that anyone really feels a need for in their life 🙃. Next time, I’ll want to do a better job of prototyping and gather user-feedback early, before investing a ton of time coding. I’ve also leveled-up my skills by taking some LangChain/LangGraph courses, with the hopes of identifying new and powerful integration points for LLMs in my future projects. For now though, I’ll just be focusing on keeping my latest Topply Tower at the top of the Runo Towers high score board 🏆