About

Welcome to the about page. My name is James M. Young and I run and manage Barking Universe. I would consider myself an exceptional Programmer, Designer/Artist and Content Writer. I love creating apps and games and creating experiences people will enjoy and remember for years to come.

My values

My values are very important to me and shape the vision and products.

• Quality - quality is what makes great products, not OK products.
• Integrity - all our content is secure and tested to the max to give you piece of mind.
• Vision - we want to create products of tomorrow, not today.
• Fun - if a product does not make you smile when using it, why use it!

The journey so far

The Barking brand has been in existence since 2008. I started off building games in Flash, then moved over to apps, still in Flash, then moved over to apps and games in HTML. At this time I am expanding beyond apps into articles and books. See below for highlights of the journey so far.

Puzzle Quest

The first game that I created was called Puzzle Quest. This game was built in Flash, which was the dominant technology for games at the time. This game got moderate success and spurred me on to create more games. You can still play it, but you must now download it and play offline (click the link above to find out how).

Barking Games

While developing my next game, I decided to create a platform that showcased some of the best games out there by other developers. So Barking Games was born in 2010. Most days I would upload new games and players from around the world were able to enjoy them.

More games

At the same time as creating Barking Games, I was still creating games. Up until the switch to productivity apps, I created 5 more Flash games, which are still available to download and play.

By far my most successful game was Time Escape. This was a room escape game, but set over an entire house.

Barking Software

Looking for other opportunities, I decided to start producing some productivity apps. These apps would work on desktop and mobile devices, allowing you to use them while offline. The first app that I released was Collections in 2014. I developed quite a few productivity apps, at the time still using Flash though. The link above is for the modern HTML version of the app. These apps lived on my new Barking Software website.

Switching focus

Barking Games was doing ok, but maintaining that while doing other projects was becoming an issue, as well as the fact that Flash was being phased out on the web. So in 2016 Barking Games was closed down and focus was shifted entirely to Barking Software.

New technology

In 2018 all my productivity apps were still written in Flash. It was time to switch to modern web technologies, which enabled not only running them on desktop and mobile, but also in your browser. Timers was the first HTML app that was released. By 2022 I had 9 apps which all work online and offline on web, desktop and mobile. The Productivity apps page lists all the apps we have on offer.

MetroMaps

In 2020 I started creating a new area of the site, MetroMaps. This was an interactive map showing how metros and railways changed over time. I created 2 maps initially, London Underground & DLR and Isle of Wight railways. I have since added many more maps, including detailed history and pictures, which can be found on the MetroMaps page.

Solitaire Definitive Edition

I had a great solitaire game in Barking Games Solitaire, however this was written in Flash. Solitaire Definitive Edition was written in HTML (and React) and works like all our productivity apps on all modern devices. It was not a direct replacement for the Flash version, as this focused on the most popular games, built in a fresh new interface. It was released in 2022.

New site for 2023

In late 2022 I started developing the new Barking website that you see today. This was written in Next.js and was aimed at being a true 21st century website, with easy access to all parts of the site from every page. I also added archive of all my Flash games to download, refreshed pages for productivity, a home page for Solitaire Definitive Edition and lastly a more comprehensive history of maps for MetroMaps (as well as some new maps).

Barking Universe

At the start of 2024 the site was rebranded to Barking Universe to better support the future vision of the site, which will house apps, games, articles and books.

The future

Watch this space. I will continue to support all of my apps (excluding Flash games) and am always having ideas for new ones, as well as branching out into new areas. I also love hearing your ideas, if you have any then why not get in touch on our contact page or reach out to us on socials.