Independent apps & games · Mac downloads, browser play
This is where we publish what we make ourselves: Mac apps you download once, and games that run from a page with nothing to install. Each one starts as a joke you can explain in one sentence — then gets built like it matters.
One Mac app, one browser game. Both had to survive the same five rules before they got a download button.
01 · Utilities & research · macOS 12+
Type a username. It checks 180 public sites and gives you a verdict for each one — with the request, the status code and the rule that decided it.
The joke: “is this name taken?” — asked of 180 websites at once, from a laptop.
02 · Physics puzzle · any modern browser
A cannon, a gong and a loaded beam. You set the speed, the timing or the counterweight — and the MuJoCo engine decides whether the physics holds.
The joke: a physics exam where the marker is a simulation, and it never gives partial credit.
03 — in the workshop. An app is listed the day it is notarised; a game the day it is finishable. Neither appears as a countdown.
Nothing in Physics Lab is animated to look right. Every attempt runs the same rigid-body simulation, so a wrong answer looks wrong in front of you.
MuJoCo 4.0, compiled to WebAssembly and vendored on this site. No plugin, no account, no network traffic once the page is open. Your progress is a line in your own browser's storage.
Funny is the entry requirement, not the selling point. An app or a game joins the catalogue only if it survives all five.
If the pitch needs a second sentence to make sense, it is a product idea rather than a funny one. The good ones sound like a dare rather than a feature list: check a username against 180 websites at once — or land a cannonball in a ring using two sliders and real gravity.
Most ideas fail here. That is the point of a test.A funny premise only earns the build if the tool tells the truth. Every result keeps its evidence: the URL requested, the status returned, the rule applied. A site that refuses an automated request is labelled as such and never quietly reported as “not found”.
A game is held to the same rule from the other side: the win is the engine's verdict, not an animation recorded to look almost-right when you miss.
Fails at: the first verdict that is dressed up to look better than it is.Local scanning, local files, licence keys checked offline against a public key built into the app. The games keep the same bargain: the physics engine is in the tab, so no server decides the outcome and there is nothing to sign in to. If a thing needs us online to be useful, we have built a website and forgotten to say so.
Fails at: “sign in to continue”.No dashboards, no streaks, no subscription prompted inside the app twice a week. You pay once, and the app keeps working years later, on whatever version you paid for. A free game is held to it just as hard: no coin pack, no energy bar, no reward for coming back tomorrow.
Fails at: a feature list longer than the job description.Everything exports to a file you can read, the licence verifies without a phone call home, and uninstalling is one drag to the Trash — or, for a game, closing a tab. A thing you cannot leave is not funny; it is a contract.
Fails at: data that only exists inside the app.The Mac app installs the old way, and is signed and notarised before it goes up. The games install not at all.
Browser games skip all three steps: no download, no installer, no uninstall. Open the page and the engine loads with it; closing the tab is the entire cleanup.
codesign -dv.# check what you just downloaded, before you open it
shasum -a 256 ~/Downloads/HandleLens-1.1.0.dmg
2abb8369c81267883fe4239718fda9cf37c35c409c9e5223599f3e39bbd825aa HandleLens-1.1.0.dmgIf something here is wrong or missing, write to [email protected] — we answer.
No. Every app here is distributed directly: a DMG from this site, and a one-time licence bought through Paddle. No store account, no commission folded into the price, no review queue between you and an update.
The trade-off is honest: updates come from the app itself rather than from the App Store badge, so the signature, the notarisation ticket and the published checksum do the job that the store would otherwise do.
The games are not in a store either — they are a URL. That is the whole distribution plan, and it is why they cost nothing.
No to all three. Physics Lab is a page: open it and the physics engine — MuJoCo, compiled to WebAssembly — loads with the HTML. Nothing is installed, nothing is registered, and no card is asked for. There are no ads, no in-game currency and no “energy” that refills tomorrow.
It needs a browser with WebAssembly, which is every current one, on macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS or Android. Your progress is stored in that browser, so it stays on the machine and nobody else can see it.
It should not. Each release is signed with an Apple Developer ID certificate and notarised by Apple, so the first launch is a normal double-click — even offline, because the notarisation ticket is stapled to the app.
If macOS still hesitates, right-click the app and choose Open once. We never ask anyone to disable Gatekeeper, install a helper, or run a script to get an app started.
HandleLens has no account, no analytics, no crash reporting and no telemetry. Its network traffic is the public profile checks you start, plus an optional daily update check that can be switched off in Settings. Licence keys are verified offline on your Mac.
Physics Lab makes no network requests after the page has loaded. Its only memory is a saved level number in your browser's local storage.
This website is static HTML: no cookies, no fonts loaded from elsewhere, no tracking script to consent to.
No. Each app is a one-time purchase for one person, and the version you bought keeps working without a recurring payment. HandleLens is US$6.99 once, with a free edition that checks three usernames in total.
Funny is the entry requirement, not the marketing. An app gets in only if its premise fits in one slightly absurd sentence, and only if it is then built exactly — real evidence behind every result, no invented numbers, no account, and an easy way to take your data out.
See the fun test above. Most ideas fail on the second rule, which is why the catalogue is short.
Purchases are handled by Paddle, and every purchase carries a 14-day money-back guarantee — the published refund policy has the details. For a lost key or a second machine, write to [email protected] from the address the purchase was made with.
Yes, one at a time. An app appears in the catalogue on the day it is signed, notarised and downloadable; a game on the day it can actually be finished. Never as a countdown or a waitlist. The catalogue is the roadmap, and the feed tells you when it grows.