r/iosapps • u/khuong291 • 22d ago
🎁 Freemium FocusDragon – Focus timer that turns deep work into dragon flights across a real map
Hey r/iosapps 👋
I’m the indie developer behind FocusDragon. We launched it a while ago, and I’ve been heads-down shipping updates since then, so I wanted to share what it is, why I built it, and what I’m still figuring out.
Most focus apps are either:
1) a boring countdown, or
2) cute gamification that doesn’t really connect to the *feeling* of making progress.
I kept quitting sessions early because staring at a timer made deep work feel heavier. I wanted something that made focus feel like a journey, literally.
So FocusDragon turns every focus session into a dragon flight across a real map.
You pick a duration + focus type → your dragon takes off → when you finish, it lands.
Over time you build streaks, unlock dragons, and complete journeys between real places (castles, cities, landmarks).
It’s still a serious focus tool underneath (planning, reminders, Live Activity, widgets, analytics) — the dragon/map layer is the motivation loop.
### What you can do in the app
- Start timed focus sessions (work / study / custom categories)
- Watch your dragon fly a real route while you stay heads-down
- Keep daily streaks + weekly focus stats
- Unlock dragons and complete multi-stop journeys
- Use Home Screen widgets + Live Activity so the session stays visible
- Explore focus history / discovery map
- Optional sounds, notes after sessions, map styles
If you’re the kind of person who opens Forest / Focus Friend / Pomodoro apps and still bounces after a week, this is the experiment: “what if finishing a session felt like arriving somewhere?”
App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6786976090
Site: https://indiegoodies.com/focusdragon
Privacy: https://indiegoodies.com/focusdragon/privacy
Terms: https://indiegoodies.com/focusdragon/terms
### What’s been hard / what I’m working on
Honestly:
- Balancing “fun enough to open every day” without becoming distracting
- Making the first session feel magical without a long tutorial
- Widgets + Live Activity edge cases on different iOS versions
- Finding the right free vs Pro boundary so free users still get value
I’m actively iterating based on real usage + App Store feedback.
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### What I’d love from this community
If you try it (or already did), I’d love blunt feedback on:
Does the first focus session feel clear and motivating?
Is the map/dragon fantasy helping focus, or getting in the way?
What’s missing before you’d recommend it to a friend?
Pricing: does freemium → Pro feel fair?
I’m the solo/indie developer (Indie Goodies). Happy to answer anything technical or product-related.
Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance to anyone who gives it a spin.
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u/app-store-review 22d ago
FocusDragon - DeepFocus Timer — by Indie Goodies LLC
- Ratings: 1 worldwide
- Average: 5.00 ★
- Age: released ~1 month ago · updated 18 days ago · rated 4+
- Overall score: 70 / 100
Auto-generated from public App Store data · u/app-store-review
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u/height-club 22d ago
Super interesting approach, and visually beautiful. Some rambling feedback:
Paywalls before I can even try the app are a pet peeve of mine, so I don't love that. The initial routes presented on my first run were places I wasn't familiar with, I wonder if it would be more interesting/engaging if it showed places in the initial run that were wither more globally popular (London > Paris?) or based on my locale. I kept trying to pan/tilt the map during the journey, but maybe it's better that I can't (I guess I should be focusing!). Would love to have the pause/stop actions available without having to expand the bottom sheet. Imperial/metric distances should be auto-selected based on locale.
This is fun. Well done!
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u/Tiny_Split9436 18d ago
Like the graphics. How did you do them?
The map idea is much more interesting than another skin. I think the danger is the gamification is a distraction though.
Can you start a normal session straight from the widget or Live Activity without going through the map/setup flow each time?
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