I got tired of bad mobile puzzle games, so I built my own; here's what I learned

Short summary

A solo developer built MerjUp, a mobile puzzle game rejecting predatory monetization through design discipline. Key lessons: the core mechanic must feel satisfying, ship your landing page before launch for SEO and waitlist growth, use public interest as honest feedback, and resist feature creep by keeping the core loop first. Built with Next.js, Bun, MongoDB, Resend, and Vercel.

• •Built MerjUp by prioritizing core mechanic quality over monetization gimmicks and feature quantity
• •Shipped landing page before game launch to start SEO, build waitlist, and gather honest pre-release signals
• •Learned: mechanics-first design discipline beats feature expansion; waitlists provide better feedback than analytics

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.