The story behind Lingoquest

In 1983, I started a Computer Science degree in Leiden. A year in, I switched to the Conservatorium — the guitar had a stronger pull than I expected, and I spent the years after that teaching it in music schools.

Computer Science and I found our way back to each other in 2009, when I returned to university — older than most of my classmates, but curious in exactly the way that got me hooked the first time.

I live in Morón de la Frontera, in the heart of Andalusian flamenco country — the same soil this game is built on. Flamenco has a word for the kind of raw, unfiltered honesty it's after: duende. That's the feeling I wanted Lingoquest to carry — not a polished tourist version of Spain, but something closer to the real thing.

Lingoquest is what happens when that history collides: a language-learning game built by someone who left programming for music, came back to it, and never stopped being curious about either.