I first heard about “Zombies, Run!” from their Kickstarter campaignin 2011. I was intrigued by the concept and kept an eye on it. I seriously considered supporting the project, but because they didn’t support Android at first (they announced support further in the funding drive) and because I had kinda lost faith in the project, I decided not to fund. That was probably my bad, considering it got 72,627 pledged of the $12,500 goal.
By now, however, the game has matured and is available on the Android Play market: Zombies, Run! and features a base building concept with stats and more on the official site: zombiesrungame.com. The game was also featured on the play store and that generally means it’s at least worth a try, maybe even the money.
I have high hopes for exergaming; It’s a simple concept that could make gaming very enjoyable. The principles of gamification are tried and true and using these for motivation seems like a great idea for mankind as a whole. Initial examples of exergaming are about any game that involves a physical side, Dance Dance Revolution and the likes come to mind. The Wii held a lot of promise and was actually advertised and reviewed for this potential, though in the end it was all quite disappointing to me. The 2003 eye-toy for PS2 is an earlier attempt at getting you out of your chair, but failed horribly and the current versions, including the Microsoft Kinect aren’t making a splash either, beyond their initial novelty value. My favorite fitness game was Yourself!Fitness but that’s actually nothing more than a customizable fitness video. (I still have a soft spot for Maya!) It did get me moving though, back when it was almost new. There are attempts at putting the gamification into sports through many social fora and even sites like Fitocracy but they can’t be considered excergaming as such. I’m not minimizing their value though, Fitocracy is a great tool for whoever uses it as a motivator. The excergaming genre has not been developed to its full potential, but Zombies, Run! might just be the one that does it right!
So I decided to buy the game and give it a try. Ill be back later and hopefully at least slightly fitter for more!
Couldn’t have decided to get it at a worse time though, Max is draining our energy and in all honesty, that GTA IV game I bought for PS3 isn’t helping either. Expect a follow up soon though.
In the mean while, the game has gotten a lot of attention lately as Halloween came around and well know bloggers like Violet Blue touched on the subject of running from Zombies to get fit.
blog.cone 