// Technology
Building QuestLog: Creating My Own Game Backlog Tracker
How a growing game library became a personal tracking app—and what I learned by building it with AI as a development partner.
Every gamer knows the feeling.
Your library keeps growing. Steam sales happen. Free games get claimed. New releases pile up. You have hundreds of games sitting in your collection, but remembering what you own, what you want to play, and what you have already completed becomes its own challenge.
For years, I had this problem. I wanted a simple way to organize my games—not just a list, but something that felt like a personal journal of my gaming journey.
That idea eventually became QuestLog.
Where the idea started
My interest in technology started long before I worked professionally in IT. I spent years experimenting with computers, modifying games, and learning how things worked.
Tools like Bethesda’s Creation Kit and the Source Engine gave me my first experiences creating and modifying digital worlds. I did not realize it at the time, but those experiments helped build the curiosity that eventually led me toward software development.
Designing QuestLog
The goal was simple:
Create a personal game library that helps players track their journey.
Instead of focusing only on achievements or social features, QuestLog focuses on organization and ownership. It lets players:
- Track games across Backlog, Playing, Paused, Finished, and Dropped states
- Add personal ratings
- Write notes and preserve memories
- Create custom collections
- Organize games with tags
- View game information and artwork
- Import a Steam library and refresh activity data
I wanted it to feel less like a database and more like a personal gaming journal.
Building it with AI as a development partner
One of the most interesting parts of creating QuestLog was using AI throughout the development process.
AI tools helped accelerate the work by acting as a coding partner. They helped me brainstorm features, troubleshoot problems, explain unfamiliar concepts, improve the interface, and work through implementation details.
But building the application still required understanding the problem, making design decisions, testing ideas, catching mistakes, and deciding what belonged in the final product. AI did not replace that responsibility—it helped me move through the learning process faster.
The project became less about simply writing code and more about learning how software is designed, tested, packaged, and improved.
Lessons learned
Start small
The first version of QuestLog was much simpler. It started as a basic tracker and gradually evolved into a browser app and packaged desktop application. Beginning with the smallest useful version made the larger project possible.
Build for yourself
QuestLog solved a problem I actually had. That made it easier to stay motivated, recognize which features mattered, and decide when something was genuinely useful.
Keep adapting
The tools used to build applications continue to evolve. Learning how to research, adjust, and understand a new tool is just as important as memorizing any single language or framework.
The next entry
QuestLog began with one thought: I wish I had a better way to track my games.
It became something much bigger—a project that helped me learn software development, experiment with new tools, and combine two of my biggest interests: technology and gaming.
That is what Respawn Labs represents: building, learning, experimenting, and sharing the journey.