How Gitemon works

Hatch

Sign in with GitHub and your Gitemon hatches from your public profile. Nobody else can hatch you. Your main language picks the creature’s land, colours and shape, your second language colours its gems and markings, and each one walks in its own way.

Walk

Tap the map to walk, or steer with WASD, the arrow keys or the thumb stick on a phone. Your Gitemon walks home when you stop. Real GitHub work (merged pull requests, reviews, active weeks) earns more steps each day.

Catch

Walk up to another player's Gitemon and catch it. Worked together for real? It's a bonded catch.

Find the legends

500 sealed legends belong to developers who shaped the tech world. They sleep on the island, nameless, until their own developer signs in and wakes or removes theirs. Every legend you walk past goes into your Legend Log. One is the legend of the day: stand near it and your Gitemon glows for six hours.

Status is earned

Standing comes from merit: steady work over time, not volume. The plaza round the monument holds only the top 1 % of players, and only at merit 75 or more. A Merit House needs merit 50, a mini-plaza seat 40, and a seat nobody has earned stays empty. Steady work also evolves your Gitemon (Form 2 at merit 40, Form 3 at 70), and it never evolves back. See the whole ladder.

Belong

Nine climate lands surround one town. Your language decides your land and your guild hall, and guilds compete each week on how many members walk and find legends. The top 3 players by merit in each land live in its Merit Houses, with a sign for what they build or who they hire.

Power is not size

A Gitemon never grows because of raw volume. Only work other people confirmed counts: pull requests merged into their repos, reviews you gave, stars others gave you. Every stat is log-scaled with a ceiling. Commits to your own repos count for nothing on their own, so AI-generated volume changes nothing either. The scorer is open source: read it, and send a pull request if you think it's unfair.

Look around

There are two views. The map view works like a city builder: drag to move the map, scroll or pinch to zoom, right-drag (or two fingers) to turn and tilt. Keys: WASD or the arrows move, Q / E turn, R / F tilt. The walk view follows your Gitemon closely from a fixed angle: press the footsteps button or V, walk with WASD or the thumb stick, and turn the view a quarter at a time with Q / E or the turn button. V or the map button takes you back.

Privacy

Gitemon never requests access to private repositories, never stores where you live, and never contacts anyone. Your private work counts only through the anonymous number GitHub itself shows on your profile, and only if you turned that setting on.