Zombies Run and So Will I: The-Not-Your Average Exercise App that Achieves

I was skeptical of Zombies, Run! when I first read about it on ARGNET, because it immediately intrigued me. Zombies, Run! is a modern and different approach to the arg. It takes all the elements of an arg but adds an exercise aid component to it. It seemed too good to be true. I’m an avid gym goer, but haven’t been as motivated to work out recently because running on the treadmill has lately seemed monotonous. Zombies, Run! solved that problem for me. The app is ingenious, intuitive, and easy to use: you just put in headphones and you can play anywhere. You can turn off Zombie chases or not if you want to include sprints in your workout. You can also use the GPS or turn it off and set the pace to constant speed and let the game run by itself, which was useful for our group when we were trying to document each mission for our Arghive. Each mission is engaging, and the story line, while seemingly simple at first, becomes more and more complex and investing, like a TV show. Each mission ends with an anticipating sneak peak into the next mission, with “Next time on zombies, run!”

It was difficult to preserve Zombies, Run! as an arg because we could only play the first 4 missions of Season 1. Every week a new mission is unlocked, unless you get really impatient and want to buy the entire season. It was hard to preserve on our arg because while there is a ton of information out there on Zombies, Run, but that also means that there are also a lot of spoilers. There are hundreds of characters and missions in the three seasons available to the player. I am now invested and want to unlock the missions and progress in the story myself, and there’s nothing worse than spoilers when it comes to that. The game also contains lots of Transmedia components- the supplies and artifacts you pick up along the way are supposed to be used to fortify Abel Township outside of the storyline. The artifacts also to reveal the secrets of the zombie apocalypse, at one point you pick up an artifact that is a newspaper clipping form. If you look up “Vermanen Times Article” online, you are lead to mysterious Twitter feeds that seem to link to each artifact in some way, but none of my group was far enough in the game to figure out what it meant. At one point there’s just a picture of Easter Island on the Twitter feed, and none of us could figure out how it could possibly relate. I also stumbled upon a good amount of fan fiction, fan art, and fan theories in my research. I think that the popularity surrounding Zombies, Run says a lot in regards to the direction that new media has gone. The fact that there exists an app with such rich capabilities and multimedia purposes reveals much about technological advances and the ways in which entertainment and gaming has changed.

There is something rich about the game and the characters- the Zombies world is so real and interesting that there is even a book coming out in Fall 2016 centered around the characters. I am a writer, and I was interested in seeing what made the Zombies, Run game so successful. I identified a gripping story line, exploitation on the current zombie obsession and current exercise craze (ahem fit bits) as aspects of the Zombies, Run! success. Its theme, plot, characters and setting are all involved and complicated enough to stretch form an exercise game to more of a story of interest, something to eagerly follow. In such a fast moving world, we need something to motivate us, and this app/arg offers a great mix of exercise aid and entertainer, and what more does we in the twenty first century yearn for?

The one thing that I wish was different about Zombies, Run, is that you as Runner 5 act as a plot device and there is no real way for you to interact in the story. You can’t speak, although in a way you speak by running. The other characters tell you what needs to get done and you accomplish this by running. I was telling my group members last night that it would be really cool if there was some way for the story to differ and respond to your own specific actions as Runner 5. I wish that you, as Runner 5, could somehow manipulate your own story and personalize the Zombies, Run experience. But perhaps that’s for another day. For now, I’m satisfied with the two and a half more seasons of story, adventure, exercise, and of course, zombies, that await me with this arg.

No matter how you choose to play the game, you are always encouraged to “Run!” Despite the current fascination with zombies, no one wants to be caught by one. But is something quite thrilling about the thought of a hoard of the undead chasing you. In our fast moving yet monotonous lives a little zombie chases offer just enough excitement to spark an obsession with this unique combination app that will, because of it’s ingenious advancement in technology, have you craving the juicy storyline and maybe even trick you into exercising more.

Reference- https://zombiesrungame.com/