A push-up game you play by doing push-ups

Most fitness software is a form you fill in after the fact. This is a workout game in the ordinary sense of the word: a map, a run of levels, enemies, bosses, loot, a clan and a season ladder. The difference is the input. There is no button that says you did the set. You prop the phone up, the camera watches you, and the level clears when the reps are actually on the board.

It does one movement, the standard push-up, and does it properly rather than covering forty exercises shallowly. That narrowness is what makes verification possible: a phone camera can judge a push-up honestly, and once the reps are trustworthy, everything built on top of them is trustworthy too. The counter does not identify variations, so diamond, archer and decline reps are not scored differently, they are just push-ups to it. The wider argument for building a gamified fitness app this way is set out separately.

The Dojo is a winding map of levels grouped into chapters. Each chapter is its own biome, so the ground, the sky and the light change as you climb rather than the same screen being recoloured. You move up the path a level at a time, meeting yokai along the way, and a chapter boss holds the gate at the end of each stretch. Beat it and the next biome opens.

• Levels ask for a specific amount of verified work. There is no timer running out and no lives to lose.
• Chapters and biomes group the map into themed stretches, each visually its own place.
• Yokai are the encounters on the path, which turn a set into a fight rather than a rep target.
• Chapter bosses cap each stretch and are the reason the ground keeps changing.
• Coins and chests come from doing the work, and buy cosmetic gear only.

The campaign is built to keep opening rather than to be finished in a weekend, which is the honest way to build a workout game with levels: the map is a container for months of training, not a thing to speedrun. Campaign starts are paced with that in mind, and Dojo Premium is there for anyone who would rather train without waiting. What you get out of it accumulates on two separate ladders, covered in titles and divisions.

Stand the phone up a couple of feet in front of you, facing you, roughly at floor level. On-device pose detection tracks your joints frame by frame and counts each rep with a haptic pulse, so you never look at the screen mid-set. The frames stay on the phone. No video, image or frame is ever uploaded, and only the rep count is submitted for validation.

1. 1

   Start the level

   The level tells you the work it wants before you begin, so you know the number you are training toward when you get down on the floor.

2. 2

   The camera counts, the phone buzzes

   Each completed rep is counted on the device and confirmed with a haptic. There is nothing to tap between reps. The full setup walkthrough is in counting push-ups with your phone camera.

3. 3

   The count is checked, not the video

   The number goes to the server for validation while the frames are discarded on the phone. Exactly what is and is not transmitted is set out in on-device rep counting.

4. 4

   The level clears and the map opens

   Verified reps clear the level, pay XP toward your next samurai title and add to your season total at the same time. One set, three things moved.

If you would rather not give the camera permission, you claim your reps manually instead and the game still works. Ranked sessions are a different matter: those are issued and validated by the server, physically impossible input is rejected outright, and suspicious sessions are flagged for review. The mechanics of the counter are covered in detail on how the AI counter works and the push-up counter app.

Clans are asynchronous, which is the only design that survives contact with real schedules. Nobody has to be online at the same time as you. Your clan shares a vault, upgrades a town hall together, and takes on a shared clan boss raid once a week, with everyone's verified reps counting toward the same health bar.

A clan never disbands. If the leader disappears, leadership passes to the longest-tenured member rather than the group quietly dying, which is what usually happens to a fitness group chat in February. Premium members can run clan boss raids back to back instead of waiting for the next week's raid. How seasons and clan standings work together is on the clans and seasons page.

The campaign is the thing you play, but it is not the only scoreboard. Every verified rep pays XP toward a level, and levels carry samurai titles: Ashigaru at level 1 at the very start, Daimyō at level 80 for people who have been at this a very long time. Those never reset, and they are covered in full on titles and divisions.

Running in parallel is the ranked season, with divisions from Bronze up to Master, described in the app as the summit. Division thresholds are server-side and are not published, so nobody can tell you the exact number that reaches Diamond. Neither ladder is purchasable: verified reps are the only thing either one counts.

The game is free to download and free to play. Gems can be purchased and they buy cosmetics: armour, helmets and weapons that change how your samurai looks and move nothing on either ladder. Dojo Premium is an optional subscription that unlocks unlimited energy so the campaign never makes you wait, weekly rest insurance so a week off does not break your streak, and back-to-back clan boss raids. It never unlocks rank. The split is laid out on what is free.

Be equally clear about what this is not. It is not a coach and it does not write you a programme. It counts, it verifies, it ranks, and it gives you a reason to get on the floor tonight. The actual training knowledge is free on this site: start with the push-up form guide if you are new, push-up progression for beginners if a full rep is not there yet, and how to do 100 push-ups if you want the long project.