For iPhone · TestFlight beta, summer 2026
The idle game your screen time pays for.
Traverse locks your distracting apps behind a real shield and pays you gold for every focused minute — even while your phone sleeps. Getting back in costs gold, one coin a second. And the time you don't scroll charts a hand-drawn atlas you keep forever.
Founding cartographers get lifetime pricing at launch.
The atlas — every landmass here was once a focus session.
The ledger, live
0
gold a Traverse user has minted since you opened this page, at the default wage of 30 a minute. Unlocking Instagram would spend it back at one gold per second. Focus is the only way to earn — and gold is never for sale.
The loop
Lock. Mint. Chart.
I
Lock
Slide to lock your chosen apps behind Apple's FamilyControls shield. Real enforcement — not an honor-system timer you can swipe away.
II
Mint
Every blocked minute mints gold, in your pocket or out of it. Focus is a wage here, not a debt — nothing to water, feed, or keep alive.
III
Chart
Focused time charts new coastline in your atlas. Charted land is permanent: nothing wilts, dies, or resets when you have a bad day.
Want back in? Hold to unlock and pay from your ledger — priced honestly at the moment of weakness. Lock back early and the unspent gold is refunded.
Why it sticks
Three promises no blocker makes.
It pays you. It never fines you.
Other apps charge you friction and guilt — dead trees, shame screens. In Traverse, gold is a wage for focus. Nothing dies, expires, or guilt-trips you. Ever.
Nothing leaves your phone.
No account, no server, no analytics SDK. Your screen-time data is processed on-device by Apple's Screen Time framework and stays there. We couldn't read it if we wanted to.
It actually blocks.
Built on FamilyControls — the same enforcement as Apple's own Screen Time. When your apps are locked, they are locked, until you pay the honest price to open them.
The moment of weakness
Spending is priced in rust.
Everything you earn in Traverse is ember gold. Everything that spends it — the unlock button, the countdown, the cost — is rust. One glance tells you which side of the ledger you're on.
The copy stays honest too: unlocking "pauses today's momentum clock". It never says you "lost" anything — because, by design, you can't.
Banked
✦ 22,928
Blocking
Traverse
Focused
01:24:17
✦ 6h 22m banked · +30/min
Unlock for
5 minutes
Ember earns. Rust spends. No third color.
The commission
The intervention is free. Forever.
Blocking, the full gold economy, and the start of your atlas never cost a cent. Paying only buys you more world to chart.
The Expedition
- Full app blocking — the shield is never paywalled
- The complete gold economy and surge pricing
- Your first continents of the atlas
- Your streak, capped honestly at ×1.5
Cartographer's Commission
- The unlimited atlas — every continent beyond the first
- The full biome roster and rare structures
- The Treasury and alternate app icons
- Founding cartographers: lifetime for $59.99, launch week only
Gold, unlock time, and streaks can't be bought for real money — not now, not ever. If you could pay your way past the shield, nothing in Traverse would mean anything.
Set out
Chart what you didn't scroll.
The beta opens this summer, before back-to-school. Founding cartographers get lifetime pricing and a hand in the atlas.
Request a beta invite