A Horley TV producer taught himself to code in his spare time, to bring a university friend’s lockdown invention to phones.

CubeRoots Ivy is set to launch on Android on December 3, after Simon Gummer spent a year building it in his spare time.

Eddy Martin – who Simon met at university about 18 years ago – painted and numbered a set of wooden cubes at his kitchen table during lockdown in 2020. One of the games he devised with them became a pub favourite among his friends.

Simon saw potential for a mobile version of the wooden-cube game. The rules were easy to pick up, but each move changed what you could do next.

Players can place a number one higher above or to the right of a tile, or a number one lower below or to the left. It reminded Simon of Connect Four and dominoes.

“No one was going make this for us, so we thought we probably have to make it,” Simon said, of the pair’s decision to build the app themselves.

He had previously made a text-based party game in which players had to guess who had written anonymous answers.

CubeRoots Ivy was his first game with moving pieces and animations.

Eddy Martin – who Simon Gummer met at university about 18 years ago – painted and numbered a set of wooden cubes at his kitchen table during lockdown in 2020. One of the games he devised with them became a pub favourite among his friends. (Photo contributed)

placeholder image — Eddy Martin – who Simon Gummer met at university about 18 years ago – painted and numbered a set of wooden cubes at his kitchen table during lockdown in 2020. One of the games he devised with them became a pub favourite among his friends. (Photo contributed)

Simon taught himself how to build it, fitting the work around his job and sometimes opening his laptop while watching television.

“It’s just when I could grab half an hour here or there,” he said.

Six years later, it has even caught Apple’s eye in Japan – it was featured on the Today tab of the Japanese App Store.

The free game launched on iPhone on September 30. Simon said it had attracted more than 1,000 players and had an App Store rating of around 4.8. He said the response had surprised him because the two-person studio had spent nothing on advertising.

Eddy Martin – who Simon met at university about 18 years ago – painted and numbered a set of wooden cubes at his kitchen table during lockdown in 2020. One of the games he devised with them became a pub favourite among his friends. (Photo contributed)

He was pleased to hear from players who kept coming back, though he was also curious about what would have earned the game a fifth star from those who rated it lower.

The game is available in seven languages, and each level has its own layout and objective.

The December 3 update will bring the game to 150 levels and add grey bombs that activate when a cube is placed next to them, yellow bombs that turn part of the board into quicksand, and a bomb players can drop themselves. The game is free to play and works offline.

Martin is still developing the wooden-cube set that started it all. He hopes to release it as a set that can be used to play several different games.