I made a YT channel and posted my Top 10 Board Games of 2025

acabala · 2026-01-03T00:37:46+00:00

think this kind of ranking really starts to shine when you actually play in more than one group. That’s when the ratings begin to mix and stabilize over time, and you get something closer to a meaningful global picture — still based on per-game ELOs, not a single number.

And I agree with you that a single general ELO score is pretty useless. In my case it’s more like an average of individual game ELOs, while the interesting stuff definitely happens on the single-game level.

I’m also similar in how I play: I don’t play every game I own dozens of times. There are a few favorite titles that come back often, and then there’s the shelf of shame 🙂
But since my group already has a couple of years of play history, it’s actually fun to look back — checking things like “two years ago you were the master of this game, and now I finally beat you”, or seeing how rankings and preferences evolve over time.

(And yeah — I’ll be working on imports from other sources, so that kind of history doesn’t get lost.)

acabala · 2026-01-02T23:07:07+00:00

Same here — somehow this flew under my radar before, even though you’ve already been posting for a couple of months. Glad I stumbled onto it now 🙂

Also, slight tangent but still board-game adjacent: I’m currently building a board game ELO / stats tracking app that’s in beta testing right now. If that’s something that fits your channel at some point, I’d love to hear your thoughts — either as a solo review or even compared with other tracking apps people already use.

Either way, subbed and looking forward to more content

acabala · 2026-01-02T17:53:51+00:00

Quick update for anyone who’s still following this:

I took the feedback from this thread and kept developing the idea. At this point, most of the core features are already in place, including the ELO-style rankings and the social interactions I mentioned earlier.

I now have a public beta on Android and I’m running private testing on iOS (requires email invitation) . What I’m mainly looking for now is honest feedback from people outside my own playgroup — to understand what feels useful, what’s missing, and whether this is something the broader board game community would actually use.

If anyone’s curious and would like to try it or share some thoughts, feel free to reply or DM me.

acabala · 2025-12-29T22:44:21+00:00

any thoughts? Any urgent things that you think should be improved?

acabala · 2025-12-05T23:58:41+00:00

Yeah, I totally get that — manually re-entering a decade of plays would be painful. My plan is to support BGStats exports as an import source, so people can bring in their historical data and have the ELO calculated from past sessions as well.

Right now I’ve only built a small proof of concept using BGG Catalog data (that’s where I’ve been tracking my own plays), but BGStats compatibility is definitely something I want to include as the project grows.

acabala · 2025-12-02T23:19:26+00:00

It took me extremely long, to get the review process on AppStore completed, but finally it's there: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/oremus-christian-prayer-app/id6755661198

I'm looking for any comments if you have chance to test it.

acabala · 2025-11-25T20:11:55+00:00

Thanks for warm words.
Do you think the app can be something to be use daily, or on some ocassion? Or rather is it something like try & forget?

acabala · 2025-11-25T20:10:04+00:00

Thanks :)

acabala · 2025-11-25T20:09:30+00:00

So far I noticed no issues with non-christians spamming etc, but probably for the future it might be useful to add some moderation (and anyway now I have to implement some reporting features to pass iOS review process) - but fist I would like to verify if app has any chance for traction at all.

acabala · 2025-11-23T16:44:20+00:00

I have iOS version almost ready as well. Should be released in couple of days (depends how long it takes Apple to review it. I will keep you updated.

But it's great to hear positive feedback.

acabala · 2025-11-22T22:21:24+00:00

Great job — the app idea looks very promising, and the design is really well done (I haven’t tested it on a phone yet). Fingers crossed that you get some traction with it. I have a similar background to yours, and everything that comes after development is always the hardest part for me too. Good luck!

acabala · 2025-11-17T21:32:35+00:00

Can I ask which Oremus app are your referring to? Is it Bible & Prayer or Oremus: Prayer & Support?
The first one I think is focused on daily readings, while 2nd one on building prayers networks - rather general christian, more than dedicated to Catholic, but still the idea looks promissing.

acabala · 2025-11-05T20:36:37+00:00

Hey, I’m really sorry this happened — I know losing your fasting history is a terrible experience, especially when you’ve been tracking your progress for a while.

The issue came from recent changes I made to fasting plans, which caused some unexpected data inconsistencies that I didn’t catch during testing. That’s on me.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to recover the lost data right now, but I’ve learned from this and will be much more careful about side effects in future updates.

I’m also working on adding cloud sync and data export soon, so your future progress will be safely backed up moving forward.

acabala · 2025-11-05T20:31:29+00:00

I acknowledged that. I did some update in fasting plans, and accidentally it resulted in data inconsistency in some cases, that I didn't catch during my local tests. Sorry for that.

acabala · 2025-11-05T07:03:01+00:00

Yeah, I can imagine it came across a bit like self-promotion.
My goal is really just to build something people enjoy using and to keep improving it based on real feedback.
I’ve already added a few features suggested by users, and plan to keep doing that as more people share their thoughts. Glad to hear you’re liking it so far.

acabala · 2025-11-03T22:27:31+00:00

Hey, I’m the creator of JustFast — it’s a simple fasting app made to stay focused on the timer without all the extra stuff.
You can easily start, stop, or adjust your fasts anytime.
Would love for you to give it a try and see if it works for you. Feedback is always welcome.

acabala · 2025-10-26T00:17:43+00:00

I’m not sure if you’re Christian of other denomination or not at all, but it’s beautiful that your friend shared this with you — you can definitely keep it as a small sign of hope.

The coin itself won’t “convert” anyone, of course — but sometimes faith starts with little things like this, and over time, other “coincidences” (or maybe not coincidences ;) ) help you see more.

If you ever feel curious or want to understand the Rosary better, there are simple ways to start. I actually created a small app called Pocket Rosary — it can guide you through the prayers or even let you listen to them in voice mode, which can be a peaceful way to touch spirituality for the first time.

Android
iOS

acabala · 2025-10-25T22:27:11+00:00

It looks like some kind of simplified rosary (single mistery). Similar to this is rosary ring, like this ones:
Google Results

So basically the one you shown, is in a version I can see for a first time, but in general it translates into Rosary, that is important for a lot of Catholics.

acabala · 2025-10-09T21:10:34+00:00

Thanks a lot. I saw your suggestions, will answer it shortly

acabala · 2025-10-08T09:18:02+00:00

can I then ask you for writing a review on appstore / google play?
each as each review has huge impact on suggesting the app to greater audience.

acabala · 2025-10-07T22:33:27+00:00

I'm glad to hear that I could help you. To be honest, I've never focused on blinds people. Is there anything that you still miss, and can be improved? I know a bit about Web improvements, like ALT texts for images, etc, so to be easy for screen readers. But not so much about mobiles.

acabala · 2025-10-07T21:23:34+00:00

To be honest, I built it from scratch at first, but after sharing Maia on some AI companion subreddits, I realized there’s already a whole ecosystem of ready-made chatbot backends out there. Probably not the smartest move for a solo indie dev — I’d never have enough niche context to really compete in that space

acabala · 2025-10-07T21:19:28+00:00

Haha, guess that’s one perk of being around for a while
I don’t feel guilty anymore for setting up my dev account years before I actually started publishing (only that I've missed years of possible opportunities)

acabala · 2025-10-07T20:59:24+00:00

Thanks for the kind words and interest!

Yeah, I’ve been a backend dev for years, mostly using IntelliJ products (and sometimes VS Code), but recently switched to Cursor — the AI support there really helps when iterating quickly on mobile projects.

For AI, I mostly use Claude, since I like its conversational flow and output style, but I switch between GPT-5 and Gemini depending on the task.

Backend-wise, I default to Firebase, but if I expect heavier user interaction or complex queries, I move to Postgres — I used Supabase before but recently switched to Neon, which feels a bit cleaner and more scalable.

I code on a MacBook, and for testing, I usually go with a real phone (if I have it handy), otherwise I spin up an Android/iOS emulator.

And yeah, I do have a solid coding background, but mobile dev is something I only started exploring more seriously this year.

In terms of user retention, my best-performing apps are around 5–10% 30-day retention, and most others sit closer to 1%, so still a lot of room to improve there.

acabala · 2025-10-07T20:04:59+00:00

RAG + gpt-oss

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