I felt like my kids weren’t getting out of the house enough this winter, so I made a little app called Footnotes Character Journeys. Basically, you pick a character quest included in the app, or one downloaded from my website, and give the app HealthKit access, et voila, the character in the app takes a virtual step for every step of yours. As your character arrives at key moments in their journey, called Waypoints, you’ll be notified about whatever dramatic plot point just occurred. Included in the app are journeys inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, the Odyssey, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, and more!

I realize this is not THE most original idea, but what to me makes my take worth installing is the variety of stories, and the ease of spinning up your own: each .journey file is simple JSON, and it’s really easy to add them to the app. You can even build a .journey right here on my website! Also, it’s free! I mostly made it for fun and to stick on my résumé.

Hope you enjoy it! i’ve been dogfooding it now for a month or so with family and friends and we’ve really had fun.