I'm going to tell you what other people haven't told yet.

Nobody cares whether you went to App Academy or learned how to code in your mom's garage.

Nobody cares if you have enough skill to rewrite the linux kernel from scratch.

If you want a job, you have to understand hiring managers needs and fears, and most importantly you need to know how to address them.

If you know how to get things done on time, and on budget then you're hirable.

While it shows passion that you built yet-another-asteroids-port it's irrelevant for the most part.

and this is coming from one 25 yo software engineer without a college degree making an income way above average and hardly 2 years of real experience.