Ancient
Antiquity through the early Middle Ages
Founders, generals, philosophers, and scientists whose thinking shaped every era after them.
For example: Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Sun Tzu, Hypatia, Ashoka.
The library · 700+ ghosts and counting
Meet a mind that changed history.
Catch the Ghost is built around a growing library of 700+ historical figures and the 7,400+ chapters that tell their lives, with new ones arriving every week. Each chapter appears as an apparition, pixel by pixel, across the length of a focus session.
The apparition is the point.
While you work, the image materializes on your screen, slowly, deliberately, over 25 minutes or however long your session runs. The reveal is the reward. Finishing is how you catch it. Leaving early lets it escape, and the app says so in exactly those words. Your coins are not touched unless you chose to stake them on the session. Deep Focus also gives you three one-minute grace windows per session, shown as a live countdown on your lock screen, and a longer 5-minute window can be bought for 200 coins, so a quick interruption does not end the run.
What you catch is a chapter, and the chapters are ordered. Some are a quote the figure actually said, with the speaker and the setting attached. Some are a story from the years that made them. Some are an image from their world, captioned with what you are looking at. They accumulate into a record of what you chose to focus on, and who joined you for it.
A life, in order.
A ghost is not one picture. Chapter one is a cold open: where they came from, and who they were before the name meant anything. The chapters that follow are the years that made them, in sequence. The last one is how it ended and what outlived them. Catch every chapter and the story closes, with the ghost's portrait in a gold ring and the only line worth writing under it: their story is yours now.
Along the way you get sourced quotes, a sentence the figure actually said or wrote, tied to the moment they reveal themselves. Carl Sagan on how love survives the vastness, paired with Apollo 8's Earthrise photograph. Seneca on how short life feels to the unfocused. Ada Lovelace on the poetic side of machines.
Catch the Ghost is built by history lovers. Every ghost, every image, every quote is chosen by our team, drawn from the figures we find inspiring ourselves. We research each one by hand (who they were, what they said, why they still matter) and write their chapters in the order a life actually happens. The library grows slowly on purpose, one well-sourced catch at a time.
Your library grows with every session.
The Ghosts tab is a running record of who you've caught, sorted and searchable, each one showing how far into their story you are. Open a ghost and you get their portrait behind the scroll, their gallery in the order their life happened, and everything we know about them. Each face is a session you finished, a chapter you earned, a minute you did not lose to your feed.
Any chapter can leave the app with you. Save the artwork straight to your photos at full resolution, or open the share editor and put the quote on it: three layouts, portrait or square, with the type sized how you want it. One image, ready for wherever you were going to post it.
Three eras
Catch the Ghost's library spans three broad eras. You can catch figures from any of them on any tier, though Legendary Ghosts (the rarest figures) are Pro-exclusive.
Modern
Renaissance through the 19th century
The architects of the scientific method, the abolitionists, and the monarchs who set modern institutions in motion.
For example: Ada Lovelace, Frederick Douglass, Queen Elizabeth I, Montesquieu, Sōjun Ikkyū.
Contemporary
20th and 21st century
Scientists, athletes, writers, and leaders within living memory, catchable across all difficulty tiers.
For example: Carl Sagan, James Baldwin, Marie Curie, Shuri Tsukiyama, Nelson Mandela.
Rarity tiers
Every ghost has a rarity. Common figures appear often and fill out your library quickly. Rare and Very Rare figures are harder to catch and pay out more coins per apparition. Legendary Ghosts are the rarest, locked behind the Pro tier, and represent the figures whose influence crossed continents or centuries. Higher rarities carry a coin multiplier that applies on top of the base session reward.
| Tier | Access | Coin multiplier | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Common | Free and Pro | 1x | Standard catch rate. Great for streaks and daily progress. |
| Rare | Free and Pro | 1.2x | Harder to catch. More likely to arrive with a quote. |
| Very Rare | Free and Pro | 1.5x | Significant historical weight. Leaderboard-relevant. |
| Legendary | Pro only | 2x | The rarest figures in the library. World-historical importance. |
The Store
Themed packs, earned with coins.
The in-app Store organizes ghosts into themed packs you can unlock with coins earned from focus sessions. Packs refresh with new releases every month. If you focus consistently, you never have to pay to add a new pack to your library.
Great Strategists
4,475 coins
Great Authors
4,335 coins
Actors (I through VII)
4,195 and up coins
Famous Japanese
4,615 coins
Coin packs are also available as one-time in-app purchases at $0.99, $4.99, and $9.99 if you'd rather skip ahead. Not a subscription.
The Universe
How the library connects to itself.
For Pro members, the Ghost Universe maps connections between historical figures, so catching one ghost can reveal hidden paths to others who shared an era, a discipline, or an influence. The library stops being a flat list and becomes a graph. Catch Seneca, and Epictetus gets closer. Catch Ada Lovelace, and Charles Babbage reveals himself.
It is a big map, so there is a mini-map in the corner with a viewport box that tracks where you are looking, the way a strategy game does. Tap the icon to open it, tap the map to put it away.
Start your library.
Your first ghost is a 25-minute session away.
