Thailand · one developer
A one-person software workshop.
Crafnia is craft + -nia, a land of handiwork. In practice, it is one developer in Thailand and four apps: a Bitcoin clock, its altcoin twin, five fitness calculators, and a spy party game played on one phone.
Every app below is open and free to use today. Alongside them are practical guides drawn from building them, including the mistakes.
01 — the index
The apps
Each app lives on its own subdomain and uses its own name. An app only appears here once it works for a stranger; until then it stays on the bench.
BlockClock
A Bitcoin block clock: split-flap price, block height, mempool depth, fees and hashrate on one screen. It reads public APIs straight from the browser, so there is no account to create, nothing to install, and no server of mine in the middle.
blockclock.crafnia.com ↗
AltClock
The same clock, pointed at everything that is not Bitcoin. Live prices, how far each coin still sits below its all-time high, and what share of the market Bitcoin holds, with a deadpan verdict attached. Built as BlockClock's twin, down to the last stylesheet; only the numbers and the colour change.
altclock.crafnia.com ↗
Mystery Agents
A hidden-spy party game for three to eight people around one table, played by passing a single phone around. Everyone is told where the round is set and who they are, except the spy, who is told nothing. Questions go round until the timer runs out, then the table votes. Thai and English.
mysteryagents.crafnia.com ↗
FitCalc
Five fitness calculators — fasting window, daily calories, protein, fat-loss timeline and working weights — each answered the way a coach would write it in a notebook, not as a bare number. Every guide carries the name of the certified coach who reviews it. Static pages, no account, nothing to install.
fitcalc.crafnia.com ↗
Looking for one of them by what it does? Mystery Agents is the free way to play a Spyfall-style spy game online on a single phone, and FitCalc holds the TDEE calculator.
The coach who reviews FitCalc's guides is named on each of them, and the certificates are listed on FitCalc's About page. You can browse everything in one place under FitCalc Guides and FitCalc References.
Some of the longer reading lives inside the apps themselves: FitCalc's guides on how much protein you need, breaking a fast and a realistic 16-week plan, and AltClock's explainers on distance from all-time high and the break-even multiple.
Two more sites came from the same bench but are not Crafnia products: a bilingual website for an accounting firm, with its own admin and filing calendar, and a personal portfolio.
02 — method
How they get made
Most of them start as web apps, because that is the shortest distance between an idea and somebody using it: open a link, and you are in. If an app earns its keep, it grows onto iOS and Android.
The parts list stays short on purpose. This page is static files. BlockClock has no backend of its own. Fewer moving parts are what make it possible for one person to still be maintaining every one of them in a few years.
Nothing new starts until the last thing can go a month without attention. The longer version is in launching a small web app on Firebase Hosting.
03 — history
How it got here
Before Crafnia
Tools built for one user. Small things I wanted for myself and could not buy in the shape I wanted, written in evenings and hosted wherever was cheapest.
First release
BlockClock was the first one finished well enough to hand to a stranger. It also set the pattern the others follow: get it usable in a browser, then decide what deserves more.
One address
Once there was more than one app, crafnia.com became the front door, and every app moved to a subdomain named after itself.
Where it stands
Four apps open: two clocks, a set of calculators and a party game. The subjects have nothing to do with each other; the bench they are made on is the same one.
Next
Keeping these four running, and writing down what each one taught. A new app gets its place on this page the week it can survive visitors, not before.
05 — notes
Notes from the bench
Practical guides drawn from building and launching these apps: what to check, what went wrong, and what fixed it. All notes.
Domains
How to pick a domain name without getting burned
Why a DNS lookup lies about free names, and what RDAP tells you instead.
Search
Why a static site beats a single-page app for anything that needs to rank
What a crawler really receives, and a curl check you can run yourself.
Hosting
Launching a small web app on Firebase Hosting
Preview channels, cache headers that match, and hashed stylesheet names.
Games
Building a pass-and-play party game
Five bugs, two missing rules and how to test turn order.
04 — who
Who builds them
One developer in Thailand. The design, the code, the hosting and the reply to your email are all the same person. No sales team, no investor, nobody else's deadline.
The subjects come from ordinary life: watching Bitcoin, coaching clients, and a game night with friends. Each began as an annoyance worth one weekend, and the ones that stayed useful turned into apps.
Send a bug, a request, or a note that something works. Write to contact@crafnia.com and it reaches the person who wrote the code.
