Metaphysical App

Just another mobile game preying on another innocent user.

A Metaphysical App is a smartphone or smart device app with a paranormal or supernatural function. They're usually found in Urban Fantasy or soft Speculative Fiction settings where technology is advanced enough to be handheld and run complex programs. The effect comes from the application itself rather than the installed device. The settings can have a less portable device such as a home computer or an AI that can perform magic, but these wouldn't qualify as an app.

Exactly how this program can achieve such a function can lead to handwaving. The applications might be Post-Modern Magik, where technology can cast magic. On the other end, it may be under Clark's Third Law, where the software is advanced enough to look like magic.

Like other tropes, the existence of Metaphysical Apps can either be a significant Plot Device of the story or a simple flavor that shows everyday technology in the setting.

Examples of Metaphysical App include:

Anime and Manga

• Darwin's Game (as pictured above) gives participants a Sigil, powers randomly bestowed to each user. The players participate for survival where they fight one another with their Sigil or weapons gained from the app can give out.
• Ingress: The Animation has Ingress, an app where two factions of the Enlightened and Resistance. These factions battle each other for XM or 'eXotic Matter' (a matter from another dimension that can affect the human mind).
  • Technically an inversion of the trope, as Ingress: The Animation was based on the augmented-reality game Ingress (later Ingress Prime).
• Real Account (or Re-aca for short) was a popular social media application until people's minds were transported to a virtual space. The people are forced to play a death game where they die or get killed during the game. There is also how their followers will die too if they are killed, while the players will die when they have zero followers.
• UQ Holder has magic apps in the setting where magic and technology have advanced so that people can use a program for magic without training and 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.
• 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 gives him different powers and equipment.
  • The Hero Booster Program can also give a hero more power. In truth, it's made to make heroes go berserk.
• 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. The app is still on his phone, and he can summon girls as his party and other powers.
• The Girl in S Rare Gear has Encircled Grimzelia, 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.
• 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.
• 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 due to using an Esper's ability.

Literature

• Digital Devil Story: Akemi Nakajima creates a computer program that duplication demon summoning rituals. It is Gone Horribly Right as he intended to use it for his revenge against the school.

• The web novel, Pet King, has a supernatural app that can capture normal and magical animals. The main character uses this to run his pet shop and increases his business.

Video Games

• From the Licensed Game of Digital Devil Story (see example in Literature), the Shin Megami Tensei series. The franchise features different versions of the Demon Summoning Program, which are safer than Nakajima's application (most of the time):
  • 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, contract, and summon demons as allies. The military and the Ring of Gaea learned of the application. However, Stephen emailed 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 in its black boxes. 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 who use smartphones with 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 an official Hunter.
  • Devil Survivor has the Demon Summoning installed on game consoles called COMPs (short for Communication Players, which look like a Nintendo DS or 3DS). The program allows the user to contract and summon Demons. It also has another application called the Harmonizer, which enables humans to damage demons while also lessening damage from them.
  • 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 users' 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 an app that 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 take unsuspecting people to transport them 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 their 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, where the Englitened want to make humanity enlightened. At the same time, the Resistance wishes to restrict Exotic Matter due to the mental damage it can cause.

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. There is also a store where players can use Dice Points to buy items.
• From 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 use her to control people. It does this by learning information by chatting while analyzing metaphysical structures and then using it 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. However, 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 classes, items, and equipment.
• Miracle Appstore allows the protagonist to buy magical items with unique powers. The objects are only available through the app and need 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 using the phone to scan an array; then, the demon transports to the user's place.
• In 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. The players are transported to a virtual space where they fight monsters and other players to gain points. The game can exchange points in-game to grant any wish in the real world.

Western Animation

• Parodied in The Simpsons' Bart the Bad Guy 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.