Nijika

Nijika was built as a personal solution for my study group. I had been tracking my Japanese language study time with a different service before, but I felt that I wanted more control over the data as well as a more collaborative and fun experience. I decided to build Nijika along with one of my friends.

Since I thought that most of my friends would not want to make a separate account for a web app, I decided to make Nijika a Discord bot. This way, they could use it in a server that they were already in and it would be easier to share their progress with everyone. I also added some features that made it more fun for a group setting, like a leaderboard and exp system.

The result was great, not only did my friends actually use it (and still do!), but I learned a lot and even increased my study time. Having the leaderboard serve as a form of lighthearted competition pushes me to study more, even on days where I don’t feel like it.

Nijika is one of my favorite projects. It’s been some time since I made it and I’ve learned a lot since then, so I’m considering a rewrite since the current codebase is a bit of a mess (😅). But I still love it because it’s my most personally impactful project.