I love hyenas. Some of you already know this about me. Years ago, I worked as a research assistant on a spotted hyena field project in Kenya, where I fell in love with them (and ended up in a nonfiction book about them). A few years later, a book I wrote about hyenas myself got published, a young adult fantasy novelette titled Beyond Acacia Ridge (which, sadly, is out of print now, though you may be able to find used copies on a certain website you might be boycotting).

I also love Pokémon. You may not have already known this about me, but it’s true. Here’s an obligatory embarrassing photo of my friend Ricky and me in my childhood room to prove it:

And an obligatory embarrassing selfie of my ex and me in New York City last year at an event called Pokémon GO Fest:

Last year, after playing a few too many rounds in the Pokémon GO Battle League, I found myself wondering: could a productivity app as fun as Pokémon exist? One that would inspire me to fight my battles and have adventures and level up in the real world?

Dear readers, I’m delighted to tell you that it does!

Focumon is a free productivity app/focus timer/monster collection game by indie developer Milton Ren. After finding out about it last year, I started using it to help me focus, and I quickly discovered that there is nothing quite like leveling up cute pixel monsters to motivate me to write, edit, clean, and break through my resistance toward innumerable challenging tasks.

Milton has also built a fun and supportive community around Focumon, including a Discord server where he actively solicits design ideas for new Focumon to introduce to the game. I suggested a grass-type hyena Focumon, offering drawings and text I made myself as inspiration (I am not a skilled artist yet, but someday I will be!):

Milton, who is very kind and receptive to community feedback, created a Focumon design called Florayena inspired by my ideas:

He invited me to write a Focudex entry for Florayena, too! I wrote the following: “Gardener Hyena Focumon. This cheerful Focumon always stops to smell the roses. It releases a powder from the bud on its tail that brings wilted flowers back to life.”

He said he loved it! And now, my friends, I’m delighted to report that Florayena has been released into the wild! Here’s her official sprite in Focumon:

Now, dear readers, I have a request for you all. My birthday is coming up one week from today (April 8th)! As a birthday present, I would love it if you could sign up (for free!) for Focumon using the “Accept Invitation” button on my trainer profile: https://www.focumon.com/trainers/WolfDolphinGirl and start leveling up your focus with me in the app! We will both get rewards in the game this way. I will happily “follow” you so we can be accountability buddies!

If you end up deriving as much benefit from Focumon as I have, you can also subscribe for a “Pro” pass later (like I have) to support Milton’s hard work in developing this game, for about $4 USD/month. However, that is entirely optional, as you can always access all the primary focus features of the app entirely for free!

I hope you will enjoy Focumon! Thank you to Milton Ren for creating an awesome app and making my childhood dream of designing a video game creature come true! Until next time, keep calm and Florayena on!