Zombies, Run: Incentive Outside Actity

Zombies, Run! App due for release Q1 2012

You tie your shoes, put on your headphones, take your first steps outside. You’ve barely covered 100 yards when you hear them. They must be close. You can hear every guttural breath, every rattling groan – they’re everywhere. Zombies. There’s only on thing you can do: Run!

This is the introduction to the new running game called ‘Zombies, Run!’, which is designed and due to be released for iPhone, iPod Touch and Android during the first quarter of next year and completely funded by Kickstarter.

Using the app, you will be able to record your distance, time, pace and how many calories you burn, select your own music and/or playlists and have these stats read back to you during certain points of your run and. So far then, it’s all very Nike+. You’re given a log and a motivator whilst you run, but when it comes to getting yourself out of the door, it’s all on you.

Perhaps taking some inspiration from earlier running initiatives like Nike Grid or Tag, ‘Zombies, Run!’ feeds you voice recordings and story-lines between your music tracks whilst you’re doing your run, be it outside, on a track or on a treadmill. As you seek to figure out where the zombies have come from, what it is they’re up to and solve a variety of puzzles, you’ll also pick up bits and bobs along the way, such as medicine, batteries and ammo. Once home, you’ll then be asked to distribute this collection of rewards to the most deserving parties – the soldiers? The doctors? The buildings?

And this is the key differentiator between an app like Nike+ and Zombies Run!. With the latter, the game isn’t exclusively played whilst you’re sweating and wearing your trainers. The game continues when you’re back indoors. Whilst you’re splayed out on the sofa, the story continues to evolve and, more importantly involve, offering greater potential for it to nudge you into another run and ultimately providing an incentive outside of the activity itself.

Obviously the additional storylines act like badges (gamification!), rewarding you for your efforts and providing you with additional reason to immerse yourself deeper into the game, but what is more exciting about this is the fact that it opens the door to an additional element or layer that will be added to the potentially boring, isolating and independent activity of running, making it more enjoyable, more motivational and engaging.

I hope to see more stuff like this. And I’ll definitely be giving it a go.