Reforge — Ravensbreath Lab

007 / SYSTEM DESIGN

A fitness app where you’re the main character. There’s a town that needs you, a character who grows, and progress you can actually see.

RoleProduct design & engineering

ForRavensbreath Lab

Year2026

ToolsReact · Vite · Tailwind · Custom quest engine · Vercel

01 — THE PROBLEM

Most fitness apps are trackers. You are the data. This one puts you inside a story I’m still writing.

02 — THE SYSTEM

A workflow people can follow.

Quest

Every workout comes with a reason. A neighbor needs a hand, the guild has posted a job, a raid is forming, or you’re at the forge making your own armor.

Train

The movement is real. The app knows what you can do and what you’d rather not, because you said so up front, and it builds from there.

Level

Six stats climb as you go: Strength, Agility, Vitality, Endurance, Intelligence, Luck. Growth you can read in numbers on the days you can’t see it anywhere else.

Earn

Gear, titles, guild ranks, and the occasional strange thing a traveling merchant will sell you. Things to find and things to work toward.

Return

Miss a week and nothing is lost. No broken streak, no guilt. The town is still there, the story is still going, and your character is right where you left them.

03 — DECISIONS

The choices that made it practical.

Decision 01

No shame, ever.

Life gets busy. Reforge doesn’t guilt you, doesn’t punish a gap, and doesn’t send a disappointed notification. It waits until you’re ready.

Decision 02

Build a town worth coming back for.

People come back for people. Olibrook has a farmer, a healer, a blacksmith, an innkeeper. Some of the work comes from them directly, and the reason to keep going is that at some point you started to care what happens to them.

Decision 03

Make growth visible.

Progress in a mirror is slow and easy to doubt. Progress in numbers is immediate and honest, and it shows up on the days nothing else does.

04 — RESULT

Something worth coming back to, even on the bad weeks.

284Workouts in the library

240Quests written

KID MODEA separate quest line, tested by an actual kid

Built for the person who needs the push

Most fitness apps assume you already want to go. This one was built for the version of me that doesn’t, and needs a reason that isn’t willpower.

The reason is a place. Olibrook is a small town with people in it: Aldric the farmer, Senna the healer, Corren at the forge, the Golden Stag inn. Some quests come from them. Others come from the guild board, from a raid forming up, or from your own decision to spend an evening at the forge making something. Six character stats climb as you train, so growth shows up as numbers on a screen well before it shows up anywhere else.

In testing, and still growing

Reforge is fully functional and in closed beta with family and friends. Most of what got built recently came straight from them: GPS tracking for walks and hikes, a workout timer, and more than a few quest ideas from the app’s youngest and most demanding tester.

Content is still being written, and the world is still filling in. The bones are done.

NEXT PROJECT

A two-person volunteer grants committee stopped losing its hours to reading, and grew to six. →