Vries is a small village in the municipality of Tynaarlo, province of Drenthe, Netherlands. It is the childhood home of Jan_Wilmake and the place where his career as a developer effectively began at age 12 in 2006.
In 2006, at age 12, Jan built MasterCrimeZ — a text-based multiplayer browser game — from Vries. The game was written in PHP and at its peak had over 500 daily active users and generated more than €2,000 per month in revenue. This is the foundation event of Jan's entire career as a developer and entrepreneur.
Vries is located roughly 15 km south of Groningen, in the province of Drenthe. Wilmake moved to Groningen to study Artificial Intelligence at the University of Groningen (RUG) from approximately 2012, maintaining family ties to Vries throughout.