With swarms of Pokemon Go users taking to social media to praise the new fitness-oriented gaming application, I thought it might be a good time to bring up another, similar mobile app.
Zombies, Run! is a free mobile app available for Apple and Android OS devices, and one of my personal favorites. The app works like a video game, placing the user in the role of the protagonist and immersing them in an action-packed world of zombies and critically important missions.
I’m in the middle of a weight loss journey, and this app has helped me blast through some of my most stubborn and seeming insurmountable plateaus. This app has transformed my journey into an adventure.
An adventure of epic zombie ass-kicking proportions.
The app offers versatility with multiple seasons of main story-line as well as a wide selection of miscellaneous side missions. With a talented cast of voice actors and the ability to rock out to my own music while working out, using this app to enhance my physical activity is a joy. The fully voice-acted audio clips only interrupt your music just often enough to maintain the illusion of immersion, and even better, the app never pressures you into altering your pace. Users can outrun zombies at any speed outside or in the gym, and if treadmills are not your thing, you can even use Zombies, Run! on an elliptical machine or a stationary bike.
But if you want an extra push – a little incentive to pick up the pace and kick your workout up a notch or two, my masochistic friends, you can enable chases in the app settings. Toggling on this feature will trigger zombie chases, which operate like a race between you and a clutch of shambling undead. If you outrun them, congratulations. But if they catch you, you loose some of your hard-earned supplies, and you will understand why that sucks in a minute.
But there is more to this app than just exercising. As runner 5 (the protagonist), you can turn the supplies you pick up on your missions into improvements for Abel Township, your new home. In addition to discovering the source of the zombie plague, you will pick up much-needed supplies as you play the game, which you can use to build facilities and expand Abel Township.
There is is not enough time in the day to list all of the awesome features of this app, but if what I have already written here interests you, I strongly recommend that you go download Zombies, Run!. It has made running fun for me again, and fulfilled my life-long dream of becoming a video game protagonist.
However, there are some features that are pay-to-play, and this Tumblr post from the game’s official account does a good job of explaining the differences between paid and non-paid access. The important thing is that the free-to-play version gives you access to unlimited supply missions and at least one story-line mission per week.
The app has other useful features too, such as the ability to map your path if you run outdoors. Even if you do not use the outdoor running function, the app will still track your distance and speed based on the stride value you set. It even tracks your pace for individual kilometers of your run, allowing users to assess variations in their performance with greater precision. Be warned however, that the UK-based app uses metric values.
Katya Writes 