Allcancode is a completed chapter. There is one part of it I want to keep alive: Run Marco.
Before Allcancode became a platform for building software, it was a coding adventure for children. That game is the company's legacy I most want to carry forward. I am returning to it personally, keeping it available and working on a refreshed edition.
The reason is simple. I love education. The company had its own journey, but my interest in creating things that help people learn has continued through everything that came after it.
Where the adventure began
In 2013, teaching JavaScript at CoLab Athens helped bring me back to an idea I had put aside: making programming approachable through a game. We began developing the game in early 2014 and launched Run Marco publicly that October. I told the longer story in my 2018 account of Allcancode's beginnings.
The idea was to give children an adventure they could direct. They would assemble instructions, guide a character along a path, and see what those instructions actually did. Moving forward and turning became the beginnings of a program. The puzzle gave the instructions a purpose.
The original Run Marco home screen. The game remains available at runmarco.com, where I am continuing its development.
We built Run Marco with artists, game design, programming, and feedback from children and educators. The tools we developed around the game eventually helped take Allcancode toward application development. The company's historical timeline traces that progression from the game to the later platform.
I value that whole journey. But when I think about what I want someone to be able to open and use years from now, I come back to the game.
My work has moved forward
I no longer see a reason to continue developing Allcancode's low-code platform in the era of AI. That is my judgment about the platform we built and where I want to put my effort today.
At UBITECH, I am now building Gaia, a completely different platform for enterprise AI agents and applications. That is where my work on software creation has moved.
Run Marco answers a different question for me. I want to keep giving children a place to explore how instructions become actions, how a sequence can go wrong, and how changing it can produce a different result. I still find that a worthwhile thing to build.
When I picture someone using the game, I think about the space between an attempt and the next attempt. A character stops somewhere unexpected. The learner looks again at the instructions. Perhaps a turn came too early, or a step was missing. There is something specific to examine and change.
That is the kind of experience I want educational software to make room for: trying an idea, seeing what happens, and having another go with a little more understanding.
Education keeps drawing me back
My love for education did not end with Allcancode. I am working on a personal exam-prep project, and there is more educational work underway that I will share when it is ready.
The learners and the technologies may be different, but the interest is familiar. I enjoy thinking about how to make something difficult approachable, how to give someone a useful next step, and how to leave room for them to do the thinking themselves.
Returning to Run Marco comes from that same place. I want its original characters, artwork, and puzzles to remain available while I refresh the interface and the way people move through the game. The Run Marco project page describes that ongoing work.
There is also a responsibility in choosing what to preserve. The game carries work that many people contributed to. Keeping it alive means making that work available to another child who has never seen it before. For that child, the adventure is new.
If you have a child in your life, try Run Marco together. Let them choose the instructions and see where the character goes. If you know a teacher who might find it useful, share it with them.
That is the future I want for this part of Allcancode: a game someone opens, plays, and learns something from.
Sources
- My original Allcancode story, February 9, 2018; preserved here. First-person history of teaching, the game's development and launch, and the later pivots.
- Allcancode's historical timeline. Background on the progression from Run Marco to an application development platform; cited for that history.
- Run Marco and my project page. The game and the personal revival described here.
- About Gaia. UBITECH's platform and my current product and technology role.