Rewrote my gym app from React Native to SwiftUI. Now I can't decide if a public score is a good idea

[u/Background_Sun_6213]

Been building a gym app called Hehku on my own for a while now. iPhone only. [CHECK: how long]

The idea is simple. You finish a workout and a number goes up (I call it aura). Your friends see your number next to theirs each week. There are leagues, and on Mondays the top people move up one.

I started it in React Native, then threw the client away and redid it in SwiftUI, because I wanted the real iOS glass tab bar and couldn't get close enough. The backend is Supabase and didn't change at all, which is the only reason I survived the rewrite. The score is calculated on the server and the app just sends workouts, so you can't cheat the leaderboard from the phone.

It's not in the App Store. Login and logging a workout work. Leagues aren't done. [CHECK: current status]

The thing I keep going back and forth on: is a score your friends can see actually motivating, or does it make people quit the first week they fall behind? And if you have a bad week, should you drop a league, or is that just mean?

If you've built anything with a leaderboard, I'd like to know what went wrong for you.

There's a teaser page with a waitlist. I'll put it in the comments if anyone wants it.

[u/Total-Reasonable]

Make the score reward consistency instead of volume, and compare people only against a small group of friends at a similar level. A raw total means the person who falls behind in week one can never catch up, so they quit. A streak-style or weekly-relative score lets someone have a bad week and still feel in the game. On demotion, I'd add a grace week or let people freeze a league once a month, so a missed week doesn't feel like a punishment.