Field notes
Behind-the-scenes decisions from building, publishing, and operating mobile games and everyday apps.
React Native tooling
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.
Design systems
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.
React Native Haptics
How Daily Sudoku added a persisted vibration toggle, reused gameplay feedback events, and kept Web bundling safe while using expo-haptics on native.
React Native Web
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.
React Native Testing
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.
Technical SEO
A field checklist for proving that Astro sites on Cloudflare Pages are crawlable, submitted in Search Console, and actually indexed by Google.
React Native Android
How one React Native sound setting ended up owning gameplay effects, Android tap feedback, and a double-toggle bug in a nested Switch.
React Native performance
How we measured React Native response time from tap handler to state update and paint when frame stats did not explain what players felt.
React Native performance
How we tested a Skia Sudoku board behind config without deleting the React Native renderer, accessibility layer, or rollback path.
Expo Native Builds
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.
Android monetization
A field checklist for tying one Google Play test purchase to RevenueCat credentials, the Play Console order, sandbox data, SDK identity, and Sentry.
Quality before beta
How to separate what a Google Play build has proven from SDK, billing, ads, and observability gaps before inviting more testers.
React Native on Google Play
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.
React Native release debugging
A release bug where Google Play installed a new Android versionCode while the React Native JavaScript bundle still reported the old Sentry release.
Mobile monetization
A margin and operations breakdown for deciding whether an indie app should pay RevenueCat or own Google Play Billing support itself.
Google Play in Brazil
A practical order for getting developer identity, payments, public profile, account groups, signing keys, and legal pages ready before a first Google Play upload.