"Zombies, Run" - pros and cons

I could regale you with all the things I've been up to lately, but I suspect that's a little boring and not what I want to write about at the moment.

So I started playing Zombies, Run! a couple of months back to encourage me to run more often. I love it. I knew I would. From the moment I heard about it, I thought it was one of the best ideas for gamifying your life I've ever heard. I actually run with my 7" tablet because I want to play it and I don't have a smart phone. It is amazing. I won't hear anyone say different, it's helped my training in marvellous ways. However, it's not PERFECT, and I have a few thoughts on how it could be improved that will probably never be realised, but would be so cool if they could. I'm hoping this whole area is an expanding market that is only just being tapped, so I'm hoping Zombies, Run! is only the first in a long stream of amazing gaming/fitness cross overs.

Great things:
- The characters and voice acting; I don't know if it was the endorphins from the running but I was nearly in tears on my last run. I'm getting to be very fond of Sam (mission 9 did that), and I think they've cast the voice actors excellently. Oh, and I actually love Jack and Eugene from the radio bit; I expected it to be naff and annoying but I think it's brilliant.
- The story; it's keeping me interested to see it develop. I feel like I'm just getting to where the story's really building up - it's felt a bit like introduction to the environment so far.
- Building the town - I like that I need to run to get supplies to build the town. It makes me want to run more often because I'm always thinking "damn, I need another spanner to expand!"
- Zombie link - I love seeing my runs, the stats, how fast I ran to a certain song, my achievements, etc. It's a nice little addition. I also want to unlock the achievements, which was a major pull of Fitocracy. The issue comes when you've achieved them all (or all the ones that are easy to achieve!) as the next jump tends to be big and if that's your only pull it's hard to maintain. Fortunately Zombies Run! has a lot of other pulls.
- Zombie chases. Dear god I hate interval training. As much as I hear it's good for speed and CV fitness and everything else, I cannot convince myself that the feeling I get after sprinting is worth it when I'm just running along. I cannot keep it up for as long as I should. It hurts and it sucks and surely jogging along is all right? However, tell me there's a horde of zombies about to get me and play zombie moans over my music and I will sprint like nobody's business. I LOVE this element and whoever thought this up was genius.

Things that could be better:
- I will emphasise, these are NOT criticisms. I have nothing but love for the game. This really just one thing; a fairly major thing, but something I can live without. I just think it would make the game better. And that is personalisation and choice making.

While I was playing mission 9, which is a fairly intimate mission where it's just the radio operative Sam Yao talking to you, willing you to come home and talking about his life before the zombie outbreak, Sam says something like "I know we've never spent time together, but it's always felt like we're on the same wavelength". I wanted to spend time with him. I wanted to decide to develop that friendship. And actually, as I thought about it, I thought about how great this game could be if it behaved like proper major computer games. Think Mass Effect or Dragon Age. Where it wasn't just a series of missions that carried on in a linear fashion; it wasn't just a story where you're taken along for the ride. Where you are an actual CHARACTER who makes decisions that affect the story. Where, perhaps, at the end of the run you could decide whether to help New Canton or leave them to be overtaken by zombies. Where you could choose to spend time with your favourite characters and learn more about their lives during the next run. Basically so that your character has a voice and a personality and that your decisions affect the course of the lives you encounter.

This would obviously make the game more expensive and would be much harder work for everyone involved. But I'm damned if that wouldn't make it considerably better. And maybe, some day, a game will be developed along this vein. Hell, if anyone has programming experience and ambition, and fancies teaming up with me I'm game!


Anyway.
Next Saturday I run the Spartan Race. I haven't trained nearly enough. I will die. But I will have fun doing it.