“Let’s build an app” I said to myself, “It won’t be too hard”. Well shit, it was way harder than I thought, but I loved doing it, even when I hated it. That’s how I started building SillyGooses™, a game tracking app that was gonna replace the multiple apps I was using to track my progress and collection.
WHY: Well I really dislike relying on a service hosting all my data and staying online, especially when its data I care about having ))<>((. So I figured I needed to build my own database, and I would export info from the services I was using to make sure if it went down I had a backup. Most of the servces I used (RAWG, HowLongToBeat, IGDB, CoverProject… etc) had a backup option that exported to spreadsheets… but I also dont love spreadsheets so I thought, if they could build a website to host this, I could easily create an app to hold the data. Well I was dumb, it was not easy.
HOW: I did lots of googling, lots of reasearch, and since this would just be for me, it could live on my macbook. So I went through some basic Swift training and xcode tutorials and felt like I was ready to start. In hindsight since I wanted to share this with some select friends it might have been better to do this in a language that was easier to use across macOS and Windows as well as iOS and Android. OH WELL, this is what I chose. So with that I started writing the code for my “Kanban style tracking system”
SO WHAT DID I END UP BUILDING?
According to the website I am hosting it on, it is “The ultimate macOS game library manager for chronic game collectors.” We’ve all been there: hundreds of games sitting across Steam, console stores, and digital sales, while you stare at your desktop unable to pick what to play next.
SillyGooses™ is a sleek, native macOS game tracker designed to transform your chaotic backlog into a beautifully organized, interactive gaming hub. Blending flexible Kanban workflows, high-res poster grids, deep analytics, and a touch of gaming whimsy, SillyGooses™ gives you complete control over your collection—without feeling like a boring spreadsheet.
At first it was literally 3 columns I could drag around my games in, then as I got more comfortable in Swift I added new features and improved the UI. Now its a fully fledged app (in my mind), that pulls metadata from multiple services and stores it locally, so I don’t need to be online to use it. I can use as many columns as I want, each game has game data I care about, and I have the ability to pick images and add screenshots I take.
It also has a collection view where you can see a sexy “covers” view. I made a fun stats page, filled the app with geese, and even created a fun mini-game for choosing a title to play. I think it turned out really well and I’ve been using it off and on for a couple months now. If you wanna try it out and don’t mind downloading zip files off sketchy sites like SillyHole.com you should check it out. Its definitely better than the other app on there. That one (SillyPages™) was harder and I still am not 100% happy with it, but it works for what I need.
