Hi. I’m David Figatner and I’m the developer, designer, tester, and (mostly pathetic) marketer for the games and apps listed on this site.

I spent 15 years as a lawyer (aka evil suit) where I pushed paper and helped large corporations overcome problems and make deals. I was relatively successful, but in 2014 my wife convinced me to give up the glamorous and lucrative corporate life and move to Taipei, Taiwan. There I set up a small shop (conveniently located at my local Starbucks) where I make games and apps.

I write code because I love writing code. I’m a huge Swords and Fantasy guy and I find programming the closest thing we have to magic in this world. You write cryptic codes and stuff happens. I’m sure there are many a wizard who wish they had access to this magic instead of the standard fireballs (although those would be fun too).

I taught myself programming at a young age. Growing up in the 1980s in southern Brooklyn, I had limited resources to learn. Luckily, my parents bought me a Color Computer 2 from Radio Shack. I connected it to the family television and typed code on a green screen with my favorite companion, a funky flashing rainbow cursor.

The CoCo 2 came with Basic preinstalled, and I spent countless hours entering programs from Rainbow Magazine where I learned to debug code (since I made many typos) and some really bad programmming habits. I didn’t have a tape drive (or the new-fangled disk drive) until much later, so I had to keep the computer on or lose all my hard work.

Most of my friends had Commodore 64‘s, which had much better games. But programming those was more difficult, and I’m glad I wet my feet with the CoCo 2 and then the CoCo 3 before graduating to a real PC of the 386 variety, and to Pascal, my first “real” programming language.

I vowed not to pursue computers in college because I didn’t want to be one of those kids who sat around all day staring at their computer (my younger me would laugh at what I do today). Instead I entered college and tried lots of different courses. I ended up as a philosophy major, and after taking an introductory computer science class, and realizing how much of an advantage I had from my hours spent in my parents’ basement hammering out code, I double majored in computer science. But still, I was not going to be a programmer. That was for suckers.

I graduated during the dot-com boom and decided not to get a job at one of those never-going-to-be-successful startups. Instead I bummed around and eventually got a job at an accounting firm writing code while I applied for law school. I followed the wise philosophy: when in doubt, go to law school. I was in doubt and denial, and I saw law school as a way to avoid working for a few more years.

I did well in law school discovering that the logical mind required for programming mixed with the writing skills of a philosophy major is an ideal formula for churning out legal briefs, arguments, and particularly law school exam essays. Like in college, I took a few computer science classes during law school (because what else was I supposed to do), and ended up with a Masters in Computer Engineering to go along with my Juris Doctorate degree. You know, because I was definitely not going to be a programmer or anything.

After graduating I went to work at a white-shoe law firm in NYC. I decided on that firm because of the amazing view from the 52nd floor of the Metlife building. From there I moved to Houston, Texas for another lawyer job (where I met my beautiful wife), before ending up at Microsoft Corporation as one of their many lawyers. I worked my way up the ranks and ended up with my dream legal job: head lawyer for Microsoft Game Studios. AKA, the people that make Halo and Gears of War and Kinect Sports (that was a very successful thing back then). While I loved the brilliant people and helping them make games, what I realized was that I didn’t love it as much as actually making stuff. Coding. Creating. Making magic appear on the screen.

It was when my wife discussed moving to Taiwan that I realized what it was I had been missing. I wanted to spend more time writing code and this was my opportunity. We moved to Taiwan in 2014 and it has been wonderful. I created this space to share my passions and projects.

Hopefully you enjoyed my games or seen my apps or websites, or even used one of my many open source libraries. Whatever the connection, I would love to hear from you! Please drop me mail at david@yopeyopey.com.