Mappdev is officially closed for business. I've taken my skills to OMGPOP.com, so you should visit me over there. You can still check out a couple of my games, though...
Mappdev is was the independent venture of Christian Montoya, a games enthusiast who got his start at the age of five with his very first Nintendo Entertainment System. Years later, while studying Electrical & Computer Engineering at Cornell University, he taught himself web design and programming in his spare time. He would often design simple games with whatever platform he had available, even with his limited skills. For one of his senior design projects, he created and built a portable, tilt-controlled gaming device that bore similarities to the GameBoy Advance and the iPhone, which he named the “Weeboy.”
After graduation, Christian found himself working at a number of web companies, mostly startups, but one thing that persisted was that he always found a way to work on games. During his time at InvestorGuide.com, he designed Tickers, a game based on unusual stock quote symbols. Later, through a collaboration with Yaowei Yeo, he helped build DotA on the recently launched Facebook platform, which at its peak attracted over 20,000 daily players. He was then recruited to work at The Social Gaming Network, where he contributed to projects including, but not limited to, Fight Club, Jetman, Bubble Words, and Name It. In July of 2008, he started Mappdev, and within a week he launched his first product, Pop Answers. He got the idea from his fianceé, and within months it was attracting thousands of players every day. On January 19, 2009, Christian began his first day as a full-time, independent games developer.
Mappdev is was built on the following principles:
- Games should be based on original & intriguing ideas.
- Games should be well designed.
- The barrier to entry for any game should always be as low as possible.
- A game developer should never abandon or ignore the community of players.
- If two people enjoy playing a game, it has a chance.
These guiding principles are inherent to any and all success of Mappdev.
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