Metaphysical App



"There's an app for that."

A Metaphysical App is a smartphone or PDA app (or, more rarely, an application on a desktop computer) -- which is to say, a specialized computer program -- that has a paranormal or supernatural function. By their very nature they're found in Urban Fantasy or "soft" Speculative Fiction settings where the tech base is at least advanced enough to support hand-held computing devices capable of running reasonably complex programs. The magic is in the program, not the device it runs on. There are settings where non-mobile computers or free-willed AIs can perform magic, but in neither case could one classify them as "apps".

Exactly how such a program accomplishes its function is open to authorial handwaving. They may be genuine Post-Modern Magik, where technological means are being used to produce a magical effect. On the other hand, it may just be Clarke's Third Law in play, with an ultimately mundane reason for what just looks like magic, however advanced it might be. Regardless, be careful that a Technopath doesn't get their hands on a phone or PDA that contains one of these.

Like many such tropes, the existence of Metaphysical Apps can be either a major plot element of the story in which they appear, or simple "flavor" details, like any other everyday technology.

Not to be confused with a Magical Computer.

Anime and Manga

 * Darwin's Game (as pictured above) gives each participant a Sigil, a power randomly bestowed on the user. The players participate for survival where they fight one another with their Sigil or weapons gained from the app.
 * Ingress The Animation has Ingress, an app where two factions of the Enlightened and Resistance use the oblivious public to battle each other for XM or "eXotic Matter" (matter from another dimension that can affect the human mind).
 * Real Account: "Real Account" is a social media program which consolidates all one's real-world activities -- including financial and shopping -- into a single all-purpose app.  However, for some users, it's much more -- dangerously so:  it transports people's minds to a virtual space where they forced to play a death game where if you die in the game, you -- and all your online followers -- die in the real world.  And having no followers is a virtual death sentence.
 * UQ Holder! is set in an era where magic and technology have advanced to the point that people can use a program to perform magic without the need of either training or talent.
 * The Yuusha System App, from Yuki Yuna is a Hero, is used by the Hero Club members. The app has different features to combat Vertex in the Jukai, especially in combat.
 * The smartphone app which can hypnotize people is a common device in Hentai manga.
 * Ratman has the hero Neo, who uses a smartphone-like device to transform into his Powered Armor as an app. He also has access to other apps that give him different powers and equipment.
 * There is also the Hero Booster Program that can give a hero more power.
 * Gacha Girls Corp has "Girls Corps", a Gacha mobile game where players gain girls and train them. Heihachi Okura was such an avid player that he got sent to a fantasy world with Girls Corps on his phone to summon girls as his party, as well as other powers.
 * The Girl in S Rare Gear has Encircled Grimzelia has a popular smartphone app where you train and equip the warrior, Yurina. When the main character uses the application, it summons the female warrior into the real world to fight monsters possessing girls.
 * Gate Keepers 21, the Darker and Edgier sequel to Gate Keepers, has artificial Gates programmed as cell phone apps.
 * From A Certain Scientific Railgun T, the Treasure Hunter App allows users to earn prizes by taking pictures at accident sites in Academy City. It also has a high success rate in predicting disasters
 * Dragon Collection - Ryuu o Suberumono: a version of Dragon Collection was released to 100 people that connect the real world to another to summon monsters. The players fight for a series of treasures to win a challenge but can cause real-world damage.
 * The Digimon franchise likes to play with this, with computer programs entering the real world, and humans entering cyberspace.
 * Digimon Tamers has Henry receive his Digimon, Terriermon, by essentially pulling him from his computer screen after playing the in-universe Digimon video game.

Literature

 * The protagonist of the original Digital Devil Story novels creates a computer program to duplicate demon summoning rituals. It quickly becomes a case of Gone Horribly Right when he uses it.

Live-Action TV

 * The Augmented Reality Game at the heart of the Korean series Memories of the Alhambra. It runs as an app on a newly-designed electronic contact lens device, and somehow seems able to blur the border between reality and the game world.

Tabletop Games

 * GURPS Technomancer is a tabletop RPG setting where magic and late-20th-century science coexist and the two can be used together. One of their scientific advances is a "mana coprocessor" - needless to say, a computer's spellchecker doesn't check one's spelling in this setting.

Video Games

 * Being descended from a Licensed Game of Digital Devil Story (see literature) many games in the Shin Megami Tensei series includes variants of the Demon Summoning Program from the original novel. Generally safer than Nakajima's original version.
 * Shin Megami Tensei: Stephen was developing software for teleportation through technology, but one of his experiments opened to the Expanse and summoned a demon. After the incident, it inspired him to create a program that allows the user to communicate with, contract, and summon demons as allies. The military and the Ring of Gaea learned of the application. However, Stephen emailed copies of the program to random people in hopes of stopping them. The protagonist got this email and installed it on his COMP.
 * Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey has the Demon Summoning Program that was distributed by an unknown source for the Red Sprite team. Despite the advanced technology of the Schwarzwelt Investigation Team, it couldn't be deciphered or cracked. It was installed into the crew's Demonicas to help the team survive the Schwarzwelt.
 * Shin Megami Tensei IV and Apocalypse have the people of Tokyo whose smartphones have the Demon Summoning Program loaded on them for survival in the demon-populated city. The Hunter Association gives a phone equipped with the program to people who become official Hunters.
 * Devil Survivor is one of the exceptions to the app being safer in adaptions than the original. This version gets widely distributed, forcing Tokyo into a lockdown as demons let loose by inept users and those controlled by criminal gangs overrun the city.
 * Devil Survivor 2 has the Demon Summoning App, where a person can make a contract and summon demons while also giving users magic. There is also the Nicaea β version, which shows a video of a user's death and their friends' demise.
 * The Metaverse Navigator or MetaNav, from Persona 5, is an app given to him by Igor that allows the protagonist to go to the Metaverse. It can also be used by others that the protagonist allies. To use the application, one would need a keyword(s) to enter the Metaverse.
 * From Persona 5 Scramble, EMMA is a general digital assistant that gives answers and solutions to every issue possible with extreme accuracy. It also has a hidden Metaverse Navigator function that can transport unsuspecting people to a Jail (a place similar to Palaces where individuals' hearts are stolen).
 * SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI Liberation: Dx2 has Devil Download that mysteriously downloads onto users' phones. It allows them to summon Demons along with other supernatural functions.
 * Tokyo Afterschool Summoners has the SUMMONS app, which gives a user the power to summon another being from another world. It can also grant divine equipment called Sacred Artifacts to the user or the summoned person.
 * Ingress is an Augmented Reality Game where two factions -- the Resistance and the Enlightened -- fight over the transdimensional energy called Exotic Matter or XM. They use the app to harness XM, which the Enlightened want to make humanity enlightened. At the same time, the Resistance wishes to restrict Exotic Matter due to the mental damage it can cause.
 * Action Taimanin has an interesting twist on the premise. One Taimanin uses her smartphone to summon creations made on it to attack enemies, but despite the world setting being one where technology and magic often dovetail, the powers in question have nothing to do with the phone. Rather, the powers of the user simply cause the contents of the smartphone to physically manifest, with the phone and or any other electronic medium simply being used as a conductor/spell book.
 * Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth: The Digimon Capture program is a popular tool among hackers. It can gather data on Digimon and manage them for battle. The program is popular with hackers in Cyberspace EDEN because Digimon is needed to activate the program's hacking functions.

Web Animation

 * LEGO Hidden Side: The Ghost Hunter App is an application used to see, blast, and capture Ghosts through the smartphone's camera.

Web Comics

 * In DICE: The Cube That Changes Everything, Dicers gain an app that allows them to allocate their Dice Points and get notifications on quests to get more Dice along with a store that players can use Dice Points to buy items.
 * Tower of God: Emily is an intelligent chatting bot made by the Acorn Workshop. In reality, Emily is a leftover experiment whose ultimate goal is to control people.  It can learn information by chatting or analyzing structures.  Then it uses what it's learned to manipulate people and events towards a specific path.
 * The Great Labyrinth Era in The Gamer is an app that acts like an average mobile game, but when a person falls asleep, they are transported spiritually to the actual labyrinth. This dungeon works like an MMORPG where people can gain items, levels, and skills.
 * Warble is an app sent to the past to help humanity's survival. People who use it are sent to the Underworld to kill Demons and grow in power through distinct ways through the application.
 * Miracle Appstore allows the protagonist to buy mystical items with unique powers. The items can only be available through the app and needs to use real-world money.
 * Mode II is sent through a text message to be installed and gives people unique superpowers, like how the protagonist can read hearts through his phone.
 * All Saints Street has apps that can summon demons straight from Hell or Australia. The summoning happens by using the phone to scan an array; then, the devil transports to the user's place.
 * Target: 100 Million Points! The Ultimate Game to Start a 2nd Life! has a mobile game called "The Ultimate Game" that appears randomly on certain people's phones in which they fight monsters and other players to gain points. The game can exchange points in-game to grant any wish in the real world.

Web Original

 * The web novel Pet King has a supernatural app that can capture average and magical animals. The main character uses this to run his petshop and increases business.
 * The "Master PC" -- a computer program found on both desktop machines and lately smartphones, which gives its user Reality Warper powers over every person within about fifty miles -- has been the center of a series of mostly erotic stories written and posted to the web by many different authors since the middle-to-late 1990s.

Western Animation

 * The Simpsons: In an Avengers: Endgame parody, the villain downloads a Doomsday app that turns people into crystals.
 * Richie Rich, friend of the Harvey Street Girls, has created apps that can make him invisible and walk on walls like Casper the Friendly Ghost.