Development journal
Behind-the-scenes decisions from building, publishing, and operating mobile games and everyday apps.
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Written by: Jonathan Reis on
Build one analytics contract for an Expo app, keep Firebase and GA4 working, add Amplitude without rewriting product code, and gain independent rollout, failure isolation, and better product decisions.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
Configure Google's official Analytics MCP in OpenCode, authorize ADC access, and turn repeated GA4 questions into reproducible reports.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A practical asset-library pattern for React Native apps, static sites, store exports, and shared audio without losing the editable original.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
Use one editable icon source, an opaque iOS raster, and a transparent Android adaptive foreground so launcher masks do not crop your artwork.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
Build a browser-side PNG export button with an editable aspect ratio, a visible capture boundary, loaded fonts and images, and dimensions that match the downloaded file.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
Prepare a community-specific app showcase with a native creative, compliant direct store links, readable QR codes, optional campaign metadata, and measurement that does not overclaim attribution.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
Configure RustDesk Direct IP access to control the existing desktop session over a LAN, verify the connection, and diagnose firewall or Wi-Fi isolation failures.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A practical event model for distinguishing a completed row, column, or block from the ninth correct placement of one digit, then routing both through sound and haptic feedback.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A practical strategy for launching Sudoku, Nonogram, Hashi, and other logic puzzles as independent products before connecting them in a shared collection.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A practical guide to enabling Chrome Remote Debugging, finding its dynamic CDP port, changing the Playwright MCP endpoint, and diagnosing 403 and ECONNREFUSED errors.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A practical method for comparing mobile product ideas using competitors, monetization, distribution, personal fit, and evidence instead of category size alone.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A repeatable OpenCode workflow for checking whether an AI gateway routes the requested model, comparing billing with upstream prices, and testing image generation endpoints.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
Step by step how I ran the first iOS build of an Expo app (Sudoku) that already built on Android, in a pnpm monorepo: prebuild, pod install, xcodebuild Release, simulator. Includes the three traps that block the build (babel, Hermes prebuilt, Firebase mock) and how to fix each one in versioned source files.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
An Expo POC hosts Godot in a native Android View, fixes the RN↔GDScript bridge, and replaces thousands of nodes with batched drawing; on iOS, the diagnosis shows why a build and bootstrap do not prove Simulator rendering.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A practical tutorial on how to build a VS Code extension from scratch. I read the minified source of the official OpenCode extension, found the internal HTTP endpoint, and built one that sends any selection — including from unsaved files.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
Why the declarative Skia renderer with 81 React components per cell struggled on low-end devices, and how reimplementing the board with Skia.PictureRecorder + <Picture> removes the reconciler from the render hot path.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
How a global vscode-languageserver-protocol override broke @astrojs/check with ERR_PACKAGE_PATH_NOT_EXPORTED, and why removing the override fixed typechecking across Astro sites.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A practical note on adding GA4 and Cloudflare Web Analytics to a small studio site without turning legal pages, sitemap rules, and header/footer links into copy-paste drift.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
How we used Loki user-agent logs, iPhone model usage data, and mobile screen-resolution stats to choose practical aspect-ratio targets for a React Native game layout.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A practical structure for app documentation: living plans, dated history, versioned release notes, product references, store copy, and release gates without turning one Markdown file into a junk drawer.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A solo developer walks through a Nielsen-based heuristic evaluation of a published React Native game, prioritizes the findings, and measures the score change after fixing them. Practical process for indie devs without a UX team.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
The app was already published, but the website still talked like a pre-launch teaser. Here is what we changed — with AI assistants and an automated design critique — to turn it into a real conversion surface.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
Every blog post on our Astro site showed the wrong date — one day earlier than the frontmatter value. The root cause was simple, but the complete fix touched frontmatter, formatting, sorting, and the content schema.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
After nine Play uploads on versionName 0.1.0, lint overwriting production config, and ambiguous build script names, we documented SemVer rules, dev/prd commands, and why lint must not regenerate config.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
Validate Firebase Analytics in a production React Native APK by combining local debug logs with the realtime response behind GA4 DebugView, even when its device counter says zero.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A practical release checklist for AdMob UMP in an Expo/React Native Android app, covering GDPR messages, US state privacy messages, app store linking, and the SDK gate before ads can request.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A win-screen celebration overlay fell behind the result cards and dropped too fast. The cause was React Native's sibling paint order, not a missing z-index. Here is why zIndex alone is not enough on Android and how we fixed both bugs.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
Our Sudoku blocked pencil marks that conflicted with the row, column, or box. It felt like a safety check. It was actually a free solver that told players which numbers were still possible. Here is the fix and the principle behind it.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
We wanted physical-keyboard input in a React Native game on Android. The classic hidden TextInput trick failed under Fabric because showSoftInputOnFocus is ignored. adb proved it, and a config plugin fixed it for good.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A border on an overflow-hidden container silently shifted our Skia board and un-centered every digit. Here is how screenshots, not eyeballs, found the real cause in a React Native game.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A developer shortcut hidden behind __DEV__ disappeared exactly when we needed it in a release build. Here is why that happens in React Native and how we moved the gate to runtime config.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
How we gave a template-looking Sudoku a bold art direction by changing the theme tokens first, sharing them with our website, and staying inside a low-end performance budget.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
How Daily Sudoku added a persisted vibration toggle, reused gameplay feedback events, and kept Web bundling safe while using expo-haptics on native.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
How we reduced the gap between Web and app in an Expo/React Native game by replacing synthetic tones with bundled WAV assets and configurable audio logs.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A field note on testing a React Native Skia canvas board with Playwright, replacing DOM-only selectors with a narrow test bridge, and keeping persistence deterministic.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A field checklist for proving that Astro sites on Cloudflare Pages are crawlable, submitted in Search Console, and actually indexed by Google.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
How one React Native sound setting ended up owning gameplay effects, Android tap feedback, and a double-toggle bug in a nested Switch.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
How we measured React Native response time from tap handler to state update and paint when frame stats did not explain what players felt.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
How we tested a Skia Sudoku board behind config without deleting the React Native renderer, accessibility layer, or rollback path.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A practical field note on fixing a missing native splash after an Expo SDK upgrade by moving from the legacy splash block to the expo-splash-screen plugin.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A field checklist for tying one Google Play test purchase to RevenueCat credentials, the Play Console order, sandbox data, SDK identity, and Sentry.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
How to separate what a Google Play build has proven from SDK, billing, ads, and observability gaps before inviting more testers.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
How to build a local Expo/React Native AAB for Google Play and still validate signing, Firebase, Sentry, AdMob, RevenueCat, and Play delivery like a real release.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A release bug where Google Play installed a new Android versionCode while the React Native JavaScript bundle still reported the old Sentry release.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A margin and operations breakdown for deciding whether an indie app should pay RevenueCat or own Google Play Billing support itself.
Written by: Jonathan Reis on
A practical order for getting developer identity, payments, public profile, account groups, signing keys, and legal pages ready before a first Google Play upload.
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