From Chaos to Code
The CheddaTech Founder Story
I'm the founder of CheddaTech. This is the story of how a broken iMac, a £120 laptop, and countless late nights turned into open, developer-first infrastructure for indie games.
From Earthquake to Code
I grew up in Christchurch, New Zealand. In 2011, I survived the earthquake that killed 185 people and destroyed my city. That moment planted a seed I didn't understand then: life can collapse in seconds, but rebuilding is always possible.
Fast forward to 2024 in the UK. Working as a chef and caring for my wife, I found unexpected freedom in a broken 2010 iMac someone was throwing away. I fixed it with a new hard drive, installed Godot 3.6, and built my first project: The Cheese Game.
That simple game sparked something bigger. Frustrated with existing backend options, I imagined CheddaBoards - a universal, open, permanent system for game leaderboards and achievements. The seed was planted.
Losing Everything
By early 2025, I had momentum. A new computer, a working game prototype, and the early concepts for CheddaBoards. My wife was one of the first to play the Cheese Game MVP.
Then my marriage collapsed suddenly and destructively. I lost my home, my computers, my pets - everything except an outdated cloud backup of my game.
I became homeless with nothing but that backup as a lifeline.
Rebuilding on a £120 Laptop
Living in a hostel, I scraped together £120 for a battered Dell Latitude 7490. On that ancient laptop, I recovered my game from the cloud and kept building.
I released The Cheese Game Beta 0.76 while still homeless - proof that creation doesn't require perfect circumstances.
A month later, I found work as a live-in chef at a 900-year-old pub that was being used as a film set for Practical Magic 2. Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock were filming scenes where I cooked 50-hour weeks.
After service, I'd drag myself to my room and code through the night. My boss saw a tired line cook. I saw the only path out that didn't require permission.
The Phoenix Project
From those late-night coding sessions emerged CheddaTech - infrastructure and games that are open, permanent, and owned by developers, not corporations.
CheddaBoards
SDK + backend for leaderboards, achievements and analytics. No vendor lock-in. Your data, your rules. Self-host anytime. If you outgrow our hosted service, take your data and run your own - the code is yours.
CheddaGames
Indie games like The Cheese Game, powered by our own infrastructure. Proving what's possible when developers own their tools.
The Mission
CheddaTech isn't just a company - it's my declaration of independence. Every line of code is a step away from dependency, poverty, and powerlessness. Every feature is built from the perspective of someone who lost everything and knows what really matters.
CheddaBoards gives indie developers what I desperately needed: transparent, permanent, open infrastructure that can't be taken away. No gatekeepers. No sudden API changes that destroy your game.
If you're tired of building on platforms that could disappear tomorrow, you're not alone. Let's build something permanent together.
What's Next
The path forward is clear: grow CheddaBoards into the infrastructure layer that indie game developers deserve. Expand CheddaGames as living proof of what's possible. Build CheddaTech into a sustainable company that can't be destroyed by circumstances.
From a broken iMac to gaming infrastructure. From homelessness to building the future of indie gaming. CheddaTech is proof that rock bottom can be a foundation.
Still coding on that £120 Dell Latitude 7490.
Still building.