Projects and Software by Dean Blackborough
Open source PHP libraries, Laravel apps, games and half-finished experiments, led by the Costs to Expect API and Prune, a live 2D editor.
This is only a glimpse of the last 30 years, it is the stuff I support and work on and some interesting legacy stuff.
Anything that costs money is tagged Commercial.
01
The two big ones: Prune, a live 2D editor and runtime, and the open source API behind Costs to Expect.
Major project · Editor + runtime
A C++23 live 2D editor and runtime prototype where the editor stays part of the game. Play and build in the same loop, with SDL2, Dear ImGui and yaml-cpp.
Major project · API
A flexible open source REST API, the backbone of the Costs to Expect service. Designed to track expenses, it has grown to track almost anything. Everything is configurable, from data types and validation to limits, and it is built to be multilingual and to scale. It drives the apps, the website and the Yahtzee and Yatzy game scorers.
02
An expense tracking and forecasting service with an open source API at its heart. The apps and sites below all run on the API above.
App
A free, open source, planning-first budgeting app. Manage income, expenses and savings, schedule items monthly or annually, and see your budget projection update instantly. Includes a demo mode, seven currencies and is powered by the Costs to Expect API.
Started Jul 2022 v1.15.0 / 13 Sep 2026 1 GitHub stars
App
Plan your finances before they happen. A planning-first budgeting app for people who want control before they spend, with multi-month forecasting, multiple budget scenarios, savings goals, bulk editing and a full change history. £89.99 lifetime access with a 30-day free trial, no subscription.
Started May 2023
App
A lightweight Laravel app for tracking cashflow against the Costs to Expect API, with percentage splitting, recurring expenses and reporting periods. Alpha.
Started Sep 2026 Updated 1 Oct 2026
Website
How much does it cost to raise a child in the UK? A long-term project tracking what it costs to raise our children to adulthood, 18.
Started Mar 2019 v2.02.0 / 4 Jul 2023 2 GitHub stars
03
Learning game development in public, a maths quiz for the kids, and game scorers that run on the Costs to Expect API.
App
Game scoring for Yahtzee, powered by the Costs to Expect API. Proof the API isn’t just for expenses.
Started Jun 2022 v1.14.0 / 4 Oct 2026 2 GitHub stars
App
Game scoring for Yatzy, also powered by the Costs to Expect API.
Started Aug 2022 v1.06 / 4 Oct 2026 2 GitHub stars
App
Game scoring for Scrabble, also powered by the Costs to Expect API.
Started Oct 2026 v1.00.0 / 4 Oct 2026
Starter kit
A work-in-progress platformer starter for Godot 4.4+, built as a testbed for learning the engine and a foundation for future games.
Started Jul 2025 Updated 30 Aug 2025 8 GitHub stars
Starter kit
A beginner-friendly platformer starter project for GameMaker Studio.
Started Jul 2024 v0.11.0 / 11 Jan 2025 5 GitHub stars
App
Small maths quiz app that generates random short division and long multiplication questions for the kids.
Started Nov 2021 Updated 6 Dec 2021 2 GitHub stars
04
Small PHP packages and starters I built for my own projects and shared along the way.
Renders Quill insert deltas to HTML, Markdown and GitHub flavoured Markdown. 235k installs on Packagist. No longer maintained.
Started Feb 2017 v4.01.0 / 15 Dec 2021 116 GitHub stars
05
Older projects, kept online for reference. Zend Framework 3 and Dlayer live here.
General and Bootstrap-specific view helpers for Laravel Blade templates. Starts with pagination.
v1.00.3 / 30 Jul 2019 1 GitHub stars
Standalone wrapper classes for the Bootstrap 4 view helpers in ZF3 View Helpers, usable in any PHP site.
v0.04 / 21 Jan 2018 1 GitHub stars
A starting point for a PHP/MySQL web app using Docker for local development. It echoes phpinfo() and nothing else.
v0.01 / 22 Apr 2018
Utility classes that don’t deserve their own package: an image resizer and an Excel parser.
v0.07 / 10 Dec 2017 1 GitHub stars
Small app that talks to the Costs to Expect API to track holiday expenses.
v1.00.0 / 15 Nov 2018
The original web app for entering expenses into the Costs to Expect API.
Updated 17 Dec 2019
View helpers for Zend Framework 3, mainly Bootstrap 3 and 4 components.
v1.02.2 / 15 May 2018 9 GitHub stars
IDE code completion for Zend Framework view helpers.
v1.07.0 / 20 Jan 2018 3 GitHub stars
An open source responsive web development tool aimed at people with limited design or development experience.
v1.17 / 13 Sep 2017 3 GitHub stars
The migration of Dlayer to Zend Framework 3. Never released.
Updated 15 Jan 2018 1 GitHub stars
Custom ZF3 view helpers built for Dlayer vNext, possibly useful elsewhere with minor changes.
v1.00.0 / 18 Oct 2017
An earlier attempt at a C++ 2D game engine. Superseded by Prune.
v0.8.0 / 1 Jun 2022 2 GitHub stars