This Philly dev built a ‘Minecraft’ party platform with his five kids

Philly-based developer Tony Mantoan, founder of Decorus Software, spent the last eight months building something called Minecraft Party Host. It’s an online platform that lets Minecraft players book their own private, souped-up server with minigames and custom-made worlds.
But he had little helpers here and there, literally: the entrepreneur’s five children all helped to build the platform.
His three older kids — aged 14, 13 and 10 — decorated and helped create the various worlds available in the system, while the two youngest — aged eight and six — also pitched in by, er, beta-testing.
Mantoan, 38, also roped in his wife Kelly to run the Facebook page. “I guess you could say it’s a family business,” the developer said in an email.
But isn’t this already a thing? This platform, Mantoan said, stands apart from other services because it takes care of the legwork so players can go straight to gathering stone and watching out for Creepers.
“All the worlds and minigames are 100% ready to go,” Mantoan wrote. “There is no need for messing around with server hosting, plugin configuration, or minigame setup. Just send the server address to friends, login, and play. I’m not aware of any other Minecraft server provider that does all that setup and configuration.”
Access to the party platform will run players $20 for three hours.