#125 Portfolio — hired web work, and the games we make for ourselves
Hired React / Next.js work is the day job. Games are Dreaming Saints — paid from Constantine's wallet, not a client brief.
Constantine is Team Lead at The Evenstar (web agency of record) and, through that seat, senior team lead on a large-budget commercial lending product. High rank in both: agency lead, and lead on the product that agency staffs. Upwork stays web-only — same hired work, done for himself as a contractor. None of that is the studio.
This post ports the old /tags/portfolio list from the personal blog onto the studio site. Client names stay generic where the contract was private. No dump of internals.
Hired web — 2018–2024
Work Constantine did as a web engineer / team lead. React, Next.js, TypeScript. Production systems with real money and real uptime. This is the job. Games are not listed here.
2018 — Stripe payments. One-day job: token → customer → charge. Hard part was deploying on the client's machine over a shared screen.
2018 — Dental clinic admin. CRM for clients, doctors, appointments, and a teeth-shaped checkbox grid so a doctor could mark which tooth had work. React, MobX, TypeScript, Ant Design, GraphQL.
2019 — Hotel staff UI. Figma to React + SASS. Reservations, rooms, guests.
2019 — Analytics widget kit. NPM package of reusable charts. Bug fixes, new chart types, bundle-size cuts, Redux cleanup. React, BizCharts, Ant Design.
2020 — IVF report API. JSON in, PDF out: charts, tables, images, unit tests, validation. Frontend waited up to 60s then downloaded. React-pdf, Node, Express, serverless.
2020 — Car rental service. UI/UX, maps, tables, charts, offer cart, unit tests. React, TypeScript, Redux, Tailwind, Leaflet, Jest.
2021 — Factory CRM. Giant project, 10+ microservices. Bugs across service boundaries, docs, internal libraries, broken PWA, outdated packages, performance. React 17, Redux, Recoil, Material UI 4.
2021 — Atlassian gadgets. Productivity / task-time analytics widgets. More filters, fewer clicks, better errors. Atlaskit, React 16, Redux, VictoryCharts, TypeScript.
2022 — Task manager with rewards. From scratch: auth, orgs, teams, invites, CI/CD. Each ticket could pay money, time off, or a gift. React 18, TypeScript, Stripe, Plaid, Vercel.
2022 — Restaurant point of sale. Tablet orders, payments, customer lookup, custom orders. React, TypeScript, Material UI, Redux.
2024 — Insurance arbitration. Led the frontend team. Auth, orgs, users, signed offers and responses, CI/CD, eslint + husky. Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind, shadcn, NextAuth, Zustand.
2020 — Bachelor, Software Engineering. C++ terminal games, then FiveM RP, then React. University was a push; most of the useful work was self-taught.
Games — ours
- COLLAPSE MACHINE — tesla-punk co-op open-world imm-sim. The magnum opus. First code 14 Nov 2021.
- Ball-Aqua — tropical ball-rolling multiplayer. Same three people, simpler game, shipping now so we can move to CM as the main project.
- Whomers Ate My Lawn! — tiny simulation, shipped 6 Apr 2025.
- RISING BONEvR — VR physics climb. Demo since Nov 2021. First proper C# game; Taisia's first Blender models.
- Lifeinvader — social network for a GTA 5 role-play server. Server is dead; code is public.
- TRP: Text Role Play — text adventure engine (inventory, perks, stats) on a Fallout PnP ruleset.
Links
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/stcost
- GitHub: github.com/StCost
- Upwork (web only): Kostiantyn N.
- Studio: dreamingsaints.github.io/blog
- About the team: 100 About