Pomodoro RPG started with a bad habit. I'd set a 25-minute timer, actually focus, finish a clean session — then reward myself by opening Twitter "just for a minute." And everyone knows how that story ends. Three hours later, no second session.
I tried a lot of Pomodoro apps. Most did exactly what they were supposed to: clean UI, stable timer, nothing to complain about. But there wasn't much reason to come back beyond forcing yourself to be more disciplined.
So I asked myself:
"What if finishing a focus session felt like completing a quest in an RPG?"
That's when Pomodoro RPG was born. About six months of development later, it became a Flutter app where every focus session earns you EXP, levels up your character, and unlocks new job classes — just like the JRPGs I grew up with.
One important decision I made early on: no backend for the first version. No accounts, no cloud sync, no server to maintain. All data is stored directly on the device.
That sounds limiting at first — but the more I built, the more I realized that most of what makes a progression game feel good doesn't actually need the internet. Leveling up, unlocking classes, watching the EXP bar fill — it can all happen instantly on the user's device. The constraint also forced me to simplify a lot of design decisions. Every new feature had to prove its worth without leaning on a backend.
The feature that took the most time was exactly the one I thought would be simple. I originally planned to build four basic character classes.
Then I added upgrade branches.
Then a prestige system.
Then cosmetic skins.
Then things slowly spiraled out of control.
In the end, the game has 40 different character classes across four main paths: Scholar, Warrior, Cleric, and Rogue. What I love most is that each path encourages a different working style. Warriors do better with long focus sessions. Scholars are rewarded for consistency. Some classes favor speed; others reward maintaining long streaks.
Another feature I never planned from the start was the weekly boss system. At some point I realized the app had no reason for users to open it today rather than tomorrow. So the idea came together.
The bosses are inspired by the Seven Deadly Sins. Instead of fighting monsters or dragons, players face the temptations and bad habits that almost everyone encounters in daily life — laziness, greed, pride, envy. I liked the idea of turning the things that usually make us procrastinate or lose focus into enemies that players can actually "defeat" through their daily focus sessions.
Each week, a new boss representing one of the seven deadly sins appears. Players defeat them by completing focus sessions throughout the week. When a boss goes down, they earn EXP, gold, and some cosmetic rewards.
I still love that a productivity app lets you fight the embodiment of procrastination.
If I were starting over, I'd probably focus on the retention systems much earlier. The core timer only took about a week to build and run stably. But the things that actually keep users coming back every day — boss battles, streak protection, progress rewards — appeared quite late in development, so I had to constantly rework the data and system architecture to support them.
I'd also do localization from day one. Adding Vietnamese at the end meant hunting down every hardcoded string across the app. I still remember finding one more stray English string just a few days before the release build.
The app is now live on both the App Store and Google Play. It's still just a Pomodoro timer at its core. But if you've ever wanted finishing a focus session to feel like earning EXP after a battle — this might just be the app for you.
