Game of breathwork
How creator Martin Maly's new app BreathQuest is seeking to gamify breathing exercises for fitness, focus and fun.
How many apps do you have on your phone?
How many of them are you using - like, really using and benefitting from?
How about notifications? Is your phone always fizzing with news alerts, special offers and constant reminders?
BreathQuest is an addition to the app market but something its creator Martin Maly hopes will inject a healthy dose of calm and mindfulness to our devices. A storm-breaker against the slew of frantic apps vying for our attention.
The breath-detection app - which takes the slogan "Breathe, Play, Thrive" - takes a 'gamified' approach whereby users can unlock achievements and virtual rewards through practicing regular, tailored breathwork. BreathQuest analyses the user's breath through a microphone (and camera data) and converts inhales and exhales into game controls. As you breathe, you can guide on object along a path (and collect tokens too).
Available as a free trial, a broader and fuller access becomes available through a subscription.
Where did it come from? Breathing News caught up with 24-year old Martin to understand his motivations in creating BreathQuest.
Q: What has motivated you to be interested in breathwork?
A: When I was 16 or so, I stumbled upon sensory deprivation tanks (also known as float tanks). The idea of it fascinated me. I started going a few times a year. A couple years later, I got an email from one of the old float tank places. In it, they offered a discount for an introductory breathwork session. I had never heard of breathwork, but I was quite intrigued. I ended up going, and after the first session I was absolutely blown away. I had never experienced anything like it. From there I started reading books about breathwork, and learning everything I could.
About a year and a half ago I moved to Tokyo, Japan to attend university for a year. While I was there, I was surprised to find that breathwork was pretty much nonexistent in the culture. About 6 months into living there, I attended a 10 day silent meditation vipassana retreat. On the final day, when we were allowed to speak again, I met a Japanese man who happened to be the same age as me, and speak perfect English. Furthermore, he was also the first person I met in Japan who had also been practicing daily breathwork. We immediately clicked, and ended up spending 6 months hosting breathwork + sauna/ice bath events in Japan for entrepreneurs.
After returning back to Canada in April, I began thinking of ways to continue spreading breathwork to the world.
Q: What has inspired you to launch BreathQuest?
A: BreathQuest was inspired out of pure passion for breathwork. I think it’s always best to build things you’re passionate about because you’ll be way more inclined to put in the work required to make it a reality. Especially when you truly believe that it will have a net positive impact on the world. I knew I wanted to build something in the breathwork space, but I didn’t know exactly what.
I was actually riding a train in Tokyo one morning when the idea popped into my head. My first thought was I wondered if the microphone on the iPhone would be able to detect the sound of someone breathing. I noticed most of the existing breathwork apps provided one way communication: the app would tell you how to breathe. However, perhaps there was a way for two way communication: the app tells you how to breathe, and the app detects how you’re breathing. As I pondered on it some more, I thought, what could capture the attention of someone unfamiliar with breathwork? That’s when the idea of a game where your breath is the controller popped into my mind.
Q: How long has it taken from conception of the idea to build and launch?
A: I built the first ever version of BreathQuest (called BreathPlay at the time) about a year ago in the span of (a long) 48 hours. It was initially a macOS app built as a submission to Apple’s WWDC Student Scholars (see below), , which it ended up winning an award for.
After that, I let it marinate in the back of my mind for about a year. Then, in June of this year, I was inspired by this company called BuildSpace to build out BreathQuest into a fully fledged iOS app. Basically, BuildSpace was a 6-week program to bring your idea to life. I had always felt quite confident in my technical skills, but it taught me so much about marketing and growth which has helped immensely. Anyways, that program started in mid-June, and from there these are some notable dates:
June 18: Ideation and Design
June 26: Design finished
July 5: TestFlight (beta version) available
July 12: App Store submission attempt (rejected)
July 19: App Store submission approved
July 19: August 19: Updating app based on user feedback
August 19-now: Social media marketing
Just this past week, the social media marketing has paid off. Some of my TikTok and Instagram videos have started garnering a bunch of attention. The BreathQuest TikTok account has several videos with over 400K views, and 3000 followers. The BreathQuest Instagram account has amassed 12.9K followers, and a video with 18.4 million views.
An interesting tidbit: the Apple app review process took about 15 back and forth messages between Apple and I. They kept on claiming that my app had already been submitted, and thus my submission was spam. I kept insisting I had not submitted this prior, and I could not find any apps doing this. When I was beginning to lose hope, I got a call from San Diego from the head of the App review team. They looked further into my case and realized that someone had found the code I had posted online (for the Apple student submission), downloaded it, and had submitted their own version. Luckily, we were able to prove this with timestamps on the code, and my app was allowed on the App Store.
Q: What are your aims and objectives with the app?
A: I think there’s nothing as effective and accessible as breathwork. I want everyone on this planet to give breathwork a shot. It’s been life changing for me, and I think it could be for many others too. As such, I hope this app reaches as many people as it possibly can, and can make breathwork more approachable to everyone.
Q: Who is the app targeted at?
A: This app is targeted to both the experienced breath worker as well as the first time breather. I hoped to make it as approachable to the first time breather, without sacrificing its value for the experienced breath worker.
Q: What are you looking to achieve long term?
A: My biggest dream is to have absolute control over how I spends my time, and to one day open a permanent sauna, ice bath, and breathwork space in Tokyo as an oasis for entrepreneurs, artists, and athletes to recharge and explore their consciousness.
Q: Can you set out what the benefits of BreathQuest are? How should people look to use the site - daily, twice daily, weekly etc.) How can they incorporate it around busy lives?
A: A daily practice brings the best results. Just five minutes a day can lead to reduced stress and anxiety
[1], better sleep quality
[2], and improved focus and cognitive ability
[3]. Personally, I find BreathQuest most effective when I use it the first thing after I wake up, and the last thing before I go to sleep.
However, even just one of these daily times will work wonders! During the onboarding flow of the app, there’s an opportunity to set a daily reminder. I’d highly recommend to do so!
Find out more about BreathQuest: