Digital Dojo was originally conceived as a player versus player gamelet for PlutoCrat. As the gamelet had a card-play mechanic, the initial design was implemented (in December 2006) as a series of physical playing cards for internal play testing. In the course of testing, it became apparent that the game had sufficient strength to stand on its own. A second round of testing (from January through March 2007) with external play testers validated this conclusion, and the gamelet design was extended to allow for a stand-alone game.

The original gamelet is now available in two settings. In PlutoCrat, Digital Dojo is playable as a gamelet on the martial arts competitive circuit. Outside of PlutoCrat, players may engage in pickup games (with predefined characters) or may log in to play in a persistent world in which their character grows and evolves over time.